Laptaria Cu Caimac

Design: Storience
Project Type: Produced, Commercial Work
Client: Agroserv Mariuta
Location: Romania
Packaging Contents: Dairy
Packaging Substrate / Materials: Glass bottles and jars

Two young entrepreneurs wanted to expand the activity of their 20 years old family business (one of the biggest and most efficient cow farms in Romania), by building a dairy factory. An integrated dairy business has the advantage of great quality control. Paired with the owner’s passion for tasty products, the new dairy brand’s differentiator was quickly obvious: top quality products, minimally processed (with the farm in the factory’s yard, there’s less need for processing).

While for some brands the difficulty lies in finding and defining their differentiators, in this case, the challenge was to prioritize them, in order to avoid the “too good to be true” feeling:

• Traceability of the milk
• Natural products: no powder milk, no additives, the milk as given by the cow (variable fat), minimal processing
• – Integrated business
• – High care standards for the cows
• – Perfect safety: no human or air contact with the milk; ultra-modern factory
• – Glass-based, eco-friendly packaging

We called for consumer research, with help from Unlock Market Research, to learn about consumer interests and prioritize these differentiators based on their relevance. The results indicated people cared most about traceability of milk and its minimal processing. In a market where producers can use powder milk at leisure without even mentioning it on the packaging, natural milk with traceable sourcing was deemed a clear winner.

Whereas the good, natural taste of dairy is something Romanians keep looking for in traditional markets, where peasants bring their handmade products, modern life standards bring along food safety expectations that these small producers cannot guarantee. Also, they do not have the force to enter modern supermarkets. We figured our client’s brand could bring together the best of both worlds: offering consumers fresh and natural products, minimally processed, as from traditional farms, while ensuring food safety and supermarket presence.

To emphasize traceability, we agreed with the client that transparency will be part of their business philosophy. Further on, to build on this red thread, we made transparency a feat of the product packaging. Milk and yogurt would sit in glass bottles and jars, while the cheese products would get a see-through, resealable packaging.

For now, the brand sells five products in supermarkets: milk (the flagship product), yogurt, clotted cream, fresh cheese, and aged cheese. But its ambition is to constantly create new recipes.

The name “Laptaria cu caimac” was created by the client to convey the idea of top quality dairy. “Caimac” depicts the protective fatty layer that forms on top of natural, minimally processed milk, but it is also used connotatively to mean “the best things.”

To sweeten the bold, black shape of the blown-up L initial, we added the friendly cow illustration that the farm business had already used in its logo. Thus, we also showed the link between the two sides of the business.

What’s Unique?

• The colour palette is unique; the industry-specific colours are red, blue and green
• The design style, minimalist, and Bauhaus-inspired
• The shape of the bottle (the industry standard are round bottles)
• The pilfer-proof cap for the bottle is not specific to the industry; the norm is twist-off
• The transparency of the packaging is not common in the designated market (Romania)

Printing Process
Hot foil printing for the milk bottle’s front label; offset printing with Pantone for the back label; cold foil printing for the yogurt jars’ labels. The milk bottle’s cap is pilfer-proof, made of aluminium, lacquered with special colour and printed with the character from the logo, in black. For the jars we have steel lids, dyed in special colour, with a transparent seal that is personalised with the character in the logo.