Confectionery company Darrell Lea is poised to roll out new packaging for its product range following its acquisition last year by the Quinn family.
The family, which also owns VIP Petfoods, the country's second largest pet manufacturing company, purchased the iconic confectionery firm in September last year.
Darrell Lea, previously owned for the 85 years by the Lea family, was placed into voluntary administration in July last year.
The company's new general manager, Klark Quinn, said he had been working in the past few months to revitalise the long-standing brand, with changes including the by-passing the chains traditional retail network in favour of more mainstream retail channels.
The next step, he said, would be the unveiling of new packaging and branding for the company's confectionery product lines.
“We are working on a semi-soft changeover. We’re going to do hard changeover internally, from a particular day sometime in May when we are going to change all our new packaging,” Quinn told PKN.
“Then by June all of our new packaging will be out there in the market."
The new look was about modernisation and also about convenience, he said, and many of the changes will incorporate lessons learned from his family's experience in the pet food business.
He pointed to packaging innovations that allow products to stands up on their own, that are reclosable and environmentally friendly as aspects that have helped win over consumers.
“For confectionery, we are well versed in understanding packaging in terms of consumer needs in terms of convenience for keeping products fresh,” he said.
“Pet food is in ahead of the game in terms of packaging and convenience. People don’t like touching it, and cats and dogs have become smaller so volume has decreased.
“For manufacturers to add value, they need unique ways, and convenience is a huge factor in pet food.”
The new company logo has been totally revamped, and will be based around a new tag line “Everyone's”, which Quinn said was a tribute to everyone in Australia who had backed the company through its recent troubles.
The new logo will feature a bubble with chocolate behind it. “It’s fresh and modern,” Quinn said.
The top and bottom of the new packing will use the iconic candy stripes from Darrell Lea's classic “Bo Peep” small hard sugar candies.
“Using that iconic product, we have gone with actual candy stripe top and bottom. It’s fresh and vibrant top and bottom with new logo and upstate graphics and better print quality,” Quinn said.
In addition to a new look, the company is moving to the resealable packaging for some products to help keep them fresh.
“The packing depends on the size product talking about, and how premium. With a family size packet that won’t be consumed in one eating, we are looking at a zip sealer.”
“All of these things are big factors. From day one we’ve been working on that.”
He said the company had to date spent over $1 million in equipment to facilitate the new packaging.
Darrell Lea's popular Rocklea Road product, sporting its new branding and company logo following the company's packaging re-design.
