If you regularly purchase Arnold bread, a popular supermarket brand, you may have noticed a slight tweak to the product’s packaging last summer. The little plastic clip at the end of the bag—colloquially known as a bread clip or bread tag—was replaced by a twist-tie.
Was this change driven by aesthetics or, perhaps, economics?
Nope. “Our research showed moving to bag ties from clips was a cost-effective way to meet consumer preferences,” says David Margulies, a spokesman for Bimbo Bakeries (GRBMF), the mass-market baker that owns the Arnold brand. “So we made the switch during an equipment upgrade last May.”
This was the latest move in a business war that’s been under way for more than half a century now. It’s a battle fought by the makers of inconspicuous little products that cost a fraction of a penny to produce—the ones that everyone knows and nobody thinks about, but which represent more than an estimated $10 million in annual sales. Insiders describe the turf as the bakery bag closure and reclosure market; this is the battle of the plastic clip vs. the twist-tie.
To read the rest of the story, please go to: Bloomberg Businessweek
