IRC promotion

In the summer of 2007 General Mills approached us with the idea of applying an instant redeemable coupon (IRC) to lettuce bags. The goal was to cross promote between a major lettuce label and Bac-Os® bacon flavor bits. We identified a ready and willing partner in Green Giant but that was the easy part. Several issues arose, among them adhering labels to super thin polyethylene film during the high speed bagmaking process, affixing labels to a head lettuce bag which is made inside out, and keeping those labels on in a wet and dirty field environment, where the bags are packed.

Our production team first took on the task of identifying the proper adhesive for polyethylene film while applying at high speed. Many label adhesives were tested but only certain ones would work with our application equipment at the speeds required – while standing up to punishing field conditions. Once the issues were resolved our engineering team tackled the daunting task of how to apply a label on the inside of a bag. Custom designed nozzles were engineered and mounted onto our converting equipment allowing us to apply a label to the underside of the film as it ran through the bag machine.

The end result was a successful promotion that saw an increase in sales for both Bac-Os® and Green Giant head lettuce. Since this initial IRC project in 2007 Emerald Packaging has produced millions of bags with IRC’s applied to them. As a result of the success over the past year we have significantly increased our capacity and capabilities in regards to applying IRC’s to packaging.