Tecnu Original Outdoor Skin Cleanser

New TricorBraun Bottles Give Tecnu® Original a Stronger Brand Presence and Environmental Compliance

Tecnu® Original, Tec Laboratories’ treatment for Poison Ivy and Poison Oak, was originally sold primarily in 4-ounce and 12-ounce bottles, with strongest demand for the smaller bottle. The product has been well known for years as an effective treatment for rashes caused by Poison Ivy, Poison Oak and Sumac. It is popular with outdoor enthusiasts and sportsmen and is purchased by utility companies for their workers doing outdoor installation and maintenance work. It is sold to consumers in retail stores including Walgreens and Wal-Mart, online through Amazon and drug stores, and through distributors to corporations.

As the product increased in popularity, retailers encouraged Tec Laboratories to increase the use of the 12-ounce bottles, to give retailers more productive use of shelf space and the consumer better value. The utilities and corporations that used it echoed that request. As a result of the increasing demand, sales of Tecnu Original in the larger bottle quickly grew to equal sales of the smaller bottle.

Tec Laboratories’ bottle supplier at the time was molding the larger bottles in a two-cavity mold and struggled to keep up with this increased demand. As it evaluated alternative molders, the marketing and purchasing team also reviewed the bottle materials, product branding, etc. The existing bottle was molded of PVC (polyvinyl chloride), a material increasingly becoming less available and less acceptable to both regulatory authorities and consumers. The company had also recently revised its branding strategy, and updated the Tecnu logo, and the team decided the new bottle should also assertively display the new branding.

TricorBraun Design & Engineering collaborated with the Tec Laboratories team to meet all of these needs. It helped the company manage the changeover from PVC to PET (polyethylene terephthalate) resin, and its designers created a new bottle design that embossed the new Tecnu logos prominently on the top surface of the bottle to project the new branding.

Cal-West, TricorBraun’s mold-building group, built a seven-cavity stretch blow mold for the new PET bottles, which are molded by TricorBraun vendor partner Polytainer, Inc. To top the new bottle, TricorBraun sourced a Stull stock 24/410 black disc-top closure with a heat induction liner.

“TricorBraun was an invaluable partner,” says Marketing Director Lisa Muller. “Having the logo embossed into the bottle strengthens our Tecnu brand recognition, the new resin is more environmentally friendly, and expanded mold capacity has lowered our costs while enabling us to meet growing demand.”
—Lisa Muller, Marketing Director, Tec Laboratories

TricorBraun Design & Engineering Group is a business unit of TricorBraun, one of North America’s leading providers of rigid, corrugated and flexible packaging. Our team’s primary mission is to design, engineer and manage the development, production and commercialization of custom packaging solutions for personal care, cosmetics, healthcare, food and beverage, industrial household chemical and animal health products. It is supported by TricorBraun’s more than 40 offices globally, holding one of the largest inventories of rigid packaging components worldwide.

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