“We were launching in seven EU markets with three languages per SKU and a tight retail window,” said Marie Keller, Brand Director at Rovello Group. “Miss the slot, and the shelf is gone.” The brief sounded straightforward: establish a packaging system that could scale without thinning the brand. The first weeks told us otherwise.
We partnered with packola to pressure-test a modular approach—short-run, on-demand artwork variants to match languages, with a route to long-run when demand hardened. As a brand team, we needed design consistency, food safety, and a solid sustainability story. Operations needed reliable lead times and fewer surprises on the line.
Here’s where it gets interesting. We discovered that the printing conversation wasn’t just a production topic; it was a brand topic. Color drift undermined recognition. Substrate choices shaped perceived quality. Even the inside print—what customers never saw on shelf—became a performance channel for codes and care instructions.
Company Overview and History
Rovello Group is a mid-sized European house of brands headquartered in Rotterdam, operating across Food & Beverage and e-commerce accessories. Think compact teams, tight merchandising calendars, and a habit of testing in two markets before going wider. Over the past five years, the portfolio evolved from single-country plays to multi-market launches, which made packaging the connective tissue across channels.
The packaging mix wasn’t exotic: Folding Carton and light Corrugated Board for retail and shipping, with occasional Kraft Paper for rustic SKUs. What changed was scale and complexity—more SKUs, more seasonal variations, more serialization needs. A design system that once served a single market now had to hold up in Germany, Spain, France, and the Nordics under different retailer expectations and EU regulations.
Our internal goal for 2025 was pragmatic: keep ΔE color variance within 2–3 across substrates, bring First Pass Yield above 92%, and maintain compliance under EU 1935/2004 for food contact while preserving an FSC sourcing policy. Lofty, yes, but brand equity suffers when a hero red drifts into orange under a different press or paper base.
Quality and Consistency Issues
We started with the pain. Rejects were hovering around 8–9% on mixed substrate runs, driven by color mismatch across Kraft and CCNB and a few mis-registered die-cuts. Changeovers were eating into the day—20–25 minutes on average—because artwork variants kept multiplying. Ops could hit dates, but only by padding schedules. From a brand lens, every padded hour risked a missed window or a rushed proof.
Color accuracy was the Achilles’ heel. On busy weeks, ΔE drift crept to 4–5 on certain batches. You can argue a shopper won’t notice one-off drift, but across 5–6 facings, it dulls recognition. Retail buyers did notice. A promo display looked slightly off compared to the base SKU; not a catastrophe, but enough to trigger a reprint discussion we didn’t have time for.
Solution Design and Configuration
We aligned on a hybrid path: Digital Printing for Short-Run, On-Demand and Seasonal pilots; Offset Printing for Long-Run when a SKU stabilized. Food contact items moved to Water-based, Food-Safe Ink and Low-Migration Ink where necessary. For non-food e-commerce packs, UV Ink with controlled curing was acceptable. Finishing stayed simple but dependable—Die-Cutting and Varnishing—avoiding heavy embellishments that can complicate recyclability.
Substrate logic mattered. Kraft conveyed an earthy tone for food kits, but its base color shifts make brand reds tricky; we reserved Kraft for inside print or secondary panels and kept the hero brand fields on white Folding Carton. For e-commerce, we specified slightly heavier Paperboard on ship-alone SKUs to prevent corner crush in transport tests. This balance saved budget without nudging the unboxing perception into “cheap.” It’s a line we walked SKU by SKU.
We also embedded a measurement layer. Variable Data and ISO/IEC 18004 (QR) plus DataMatrix codes went inside flaps to carry care info and campaign tracking. In technical terms, we set a minimum 6–7 pt equivalent for code legibility after Varnishing, tested scannability at the end of gluing, and printed a discreet field carrying a unique packola discount code for limited pilots. For the non-food range, we validated code readability after transit vibration, not just at the converting floor. For the automotive kits, we specified artwork for custom auto parts boxes with a high-contrast insert area dedicated to instructions and returns handling.
Pilot Production and Validation
We ran two pilots in parallel. In Germany, a 1,200–1,500 unit Short-Run for a meal kit promotion tested custom mini pizza boxes with inside-print QR for oven instructions and a time-limited offer. In Spain, a 900–1,100 unit Short-Run supported an auto accessories kit with multi-lingual safety icons and a scannable returns workflow. Both pilots used G7-like color targets while aligning to Fogra PSD tolerances in prepress, and we executed press checks remotely with calibrated proofs to keep travel time off the schedule.
Early findings? On the food pilot, the QR scan rate settled around 6–9%—higher than our 3–5% expectation—likely because the code sat near the tear-open edge where hands naturally pause. The automotive pilot revealed something different: customers valued a simple DataMatrix close to the assembly diagram rather than on the closure, which our support team linked to fewer installation tickets within the first two weeks.
We also pressure-tested sustainability claims. All food contact boards and inks met EU 2023/2006 GMP and EU 1935/2004 requirements, with FSC chain-of-custody documentation maintained. On the transport side, ship tests suggested a 10–15% drop in CO₂/pack by shaving board caliper where it didn’t affect compression strength. That said, material substitutions stretched lead time once when a dealer promotion landed early; a Kraft shortage added five days. Not ideal, but it clarified stocking buffers for seasonal peaks.
Quantitative Results and Metrics
Six months in, the numbers steadied. Waste rate trended down by 30–35% on mixed-substrate weeks, largely from fewer reprints and tighter prepress targets. First Pass Yield moved from 85–87% toward 92–94%, and ΔE variance held within 2–3 for the hero palette across Folding Carton and CCNB. Changeover time shaved 6–8 minutes on average through artwork batching and better die plan discipline—less drama on Fridays.
Time-to-market improved in a practical sense: promo SKUs could be briefed and on shelf 18–22% faster, based on our internal calendar tracking across three launches. On the finance side, the payback period for the new workflow slotted into 9–12 months, depending on the SKU mix in a given quarter. None of this happened in a straight line—one variant with a heavy solid color on Kraft ran under our color target and needed a limited reprint. But variance stayed contained and predictable.
The pilot learnings translated beyond their categories. For meal kits, the inside print in custom mini pizza boxes doubled as a micro-campaign surface with better recall than inserts. In transport packaging, better structural drawings reduced small dents on ship-alone parcels. The pattern showed us where brand meets operations—small design decisions that protect recognition in the wild, whether it’s a retail sleeve or a returns-friendly shipper.
Lessons Learned
Three things stood out. First, treat print technology selection as a brand decision, not just a factory choice. For Seasonal and Promotional runs, Digital Printing reduced risk around last-minute language updates. For core SKUs, Offset Printing kept unit costs in check. Second, codify your substrate rules—where white board is mandatory for color stability, where Kraft is fine as a secondary panel. Third, give variable data the space it deserves; codes are useful only if scannable under real conditions.
We were asked during stakeholder reviews: “does ups make custom boxes?” Short answer: UPS can help with shipping supplies and some store-level custom options, but they don’t typically manufacture branded Folding Carton at the quality and compliance level we needed for retail and food contact in Europe. For true brand packaging—print consistency, EU food regulations, and structural nuances—you want a dedicated packaging partner. We kept using a packola coupon code in pilot flaps to track any uplift from on-box calls to action; it’s not a magic lever, but it gave marketing clean attribution data.
Personal view as a brand manager: perfection isn’t the target; predictability is. We had an unexpected win when a returns QR on the auto kit quieted support tickets by 12–15% in peak weeks. We also hit a snag when a die change overlapped with a retailer reset—our fault for squeezing the calendar. Next time, we’ll lock die changes outside reset weeks. And yes, we will keep our relationship with pack partners—as packola designers have observed across multiple projects, color discipline is as much about decisions in brand rooms as it is about presses on the floor. That mindset kept us on track with packola.
