Who designed this awesome Hot Sauce bottle? Like, seriously, who is the person who actually sketched out this bottle design and said – “This would be cool.”?
Three of the most saturated categories in grocery are SALSA, COFFEE and SPICES.
As a package designer, I’m always so excited when a new product breaks through in one of these categories because it must have a really good brand position.
In order to actually make it to a grocery shelf it takes so much work. If you’re a startup, this means probably years of thinking about your product, tinkering with the recipe, giving to friends and family, selling at a farmers market before you ever find a buyer who is willing to pull another product to put yours in. Once you get there, it takes a lot of marketing and money to stay there.
I’m a member of the DFWCPG (Dallas Fort Worth Consumer Packaged Goods). They host in-person and virtual events and it’s free to join. These events are where I meet people on their entrepreneurial journey to get their product on the shelf. The buyers will tell you that nothing is more important than a unique product offering and a great founder story. I’m getting off-topic, sorry. The reason I’m writing this post is because I purchased a new hot sauce last month. Granted, this product is made by Herdez, a well established brand with many products. I’m sure it was a little easier to get this product in the store but it’s the BOTTLE and the DESIGN that made me buy it. Scratch that – its the BOTTLE that made me buy it. The label design is nice but it’s this adorable, fit-in-your-hand-size avocado shaped glass bottle that I’ve never seen before. The lid even has a pebbly texture like the outside of an avocado from Mexico (not a California avocado). A first, I thought it was their guacamole salsa in a new package but it turns out that it is a new product that Herdez launched in October .
POM, Truff, Mrs. Butterworths Syrup, Method Soaps – all products with unique bottles. Here’s the thing – you can’t go buy unique bottles somewhere and just put your product in them. They have to be designed and prototyped and then commissioned to be made – and in large volume. A glass company is not going to make you 1,000 custom bottles for your locally famous hot sauce. That opportunity is reserved for the established and the rich. I got to go to the Pepsi Innovation Lab in New York a few years ago and while I was there, I saw that their team of designers was working on new bottle shapes and they were making their prototypes with 3-D printers. That is the stuff that package and brand designers dream of right there.
What’s my point again…right – Herdez hot sauce.
So many topics that I could spin off of this but I’ll wrap it up by saying to the person that designed this bottle for Herdez Hot Sauce – “Please comment on my post – reveal your genius design self!”
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