Aagard and Energizer have collaboratively designed a one-piece, ‘retail-ready’ case to hold products in place both in transit and on the shelf – supporting various packaging formats, ranging from stand-up pouches to hang-tab cartons.
According to Aagard, battery manufacturer Energizer originally sought to eliminate 2.5 million pounds of plastic from its packaging while maintaining efficiency and cohesive branding. The two companies joined forces to develop VersaCase Grip, which builds upon the previous VersaCase Secure.
Designed to be loaded and formed in a single automated step, VersaCase Secure is engineered to hold and protect products in transit, then convert into a display-ready tray without requiring knives, generating mess, or consuming time. Its clean die-cut surface is also described as the ‘ideal canvas for branding’.
Now VersaCase Grip is set to replace Energizer’s cartons, sleeves, shipper cases, and retail displays with an all-in-one solution. Its patent-pending interior grip holds products upright inside the carton, both to secure the products in transport and maximize brand visibility on the shelf.
It claims to maintain high-quality product presentation through ‘the realities of retail’, preventing products from shifting or tipping while maintaining the display’s structural integrity from the shelf to point-of-sale.
The one-piece case does not require a box cutter to convert from transit to display packaging and aims to lower retail labour and setup time.
Aagard also emphasizes that the pack was developed ‘on the floor, in the field, alongside our customers’ – utilizing the company’s ability to prototype, test, and refine packaging formats and automation systems at the same time to produce what it describes as a ‘fully integrated’ solution.
“We weren’t just designing packaging,” said Jason Norlien, VP of Sales at Aagard. “We were engineering a system that had to support high-speed automation, sustainability goals, and flawless shelf presentation—without adding work for retail employees.”
Aagard’s VersaCase platforms are described as a ‘cost-effective path to custom, patent-pending performance’ due to the absence of per-unit royalty fees. They are tailor-made for individual products, use cases, commerce channels, and sales environments, Aagard explains, with VersaCase Grip said to be produced for several ‘high profile’ CPG projects.
Last year, a similar collaboration saw Smurfit Westrock help Woodforde’s produce ‘shelf-ready’ beer boxes; these are said to improve durability and protect the bottles while appealing to consumers on supermarket shelves and attracting repeated purchases.
Pizza Hut has also developed a specialty pizza box that doubles as a miniature table, geared towards consumers ordering food in the midst of moving house. The Moving Box Table can be unfolded and assembled into a corrugated base and a pizza box tabletop, making the pizza more convenient to eat in the absence of furniture.
In terms of redesigns, Nestlé has just launched an in-house, AI-powered service using digital twins to adjust or localize shorter-term packaging alterations. This is expected to be beneficial for seasonal campaigns, adjustments for channel-specific formats, and more.
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