With ‘some great feedback’ the company has improved packaging and label designs, materials and ease of use, and also added

intelligent packaging and label options into the mix.
 

From the specialist font in which labels are printed to the bright colours of the labels and the easy tear tape on the outer cartons,

the company has deconstructed its previous packaging with the help of farmers all over the world, and adapted a host of changes designed to take the pain out of chemical selection, handling, mixing and application.
 

“Pain points is the phrase used to describe all the things our focus group farmers do not like about current packaging and labelling of agrichemicals,” explains Adama NZ manager David MacGibbon. “And they came up with 100 of them!”
 

A positive reception has been given to the two new brandstream categories, Advanced and Essentials, with the Advanced range comprising Adama’s hero brands and products.
 

“These feature chemistry which is unique to Adama, or provide a differentiated benefit to the farmer,” MacGibbon says.
 

Essential products are the brands which are well known to farmers and feature greater prominence of the active ingredient to help farmers and growers who are growing a crop according to a programme to quickly match the product to their industry spray schedule.
 

Within each category, products have been further differentiated according to whether they are a herbicide, fungicide, insecticide or crop enhancer.
 

Advanced products are identified by block colour labels and caps: green for herbicides, blue for fungicides, purple for insecticides and orange for crop enhancer.
 

Essential products have the same colour labelling rules for each end use on white labels for similar clarity.
 

Macgibbon says the company has taken on board early feedback and made the key information on the labels even larger and clearer to differentiate.
 

As for the fine print, Adama has gone to the extent of developing its own unique font to help address another major pain point

– the amount of text which must be contained on today’s agrichemical labels vs the deteriorating eyesight of those trying to

read the labels as farmers worldwide become older.
 

“We will also be piloting a full product traceability from next year, using CRISTAL the emerging industry standard.
 

“This traceability provides huge advantages in logistics and compliance with intelligent tracing capabilities. It enhances visibility of our products across the supply chain and creates new possibilities for communication with distributor logistics systems.”
 

As well as these changes, MacGibbon says Adama designs and owns the moulds used by can manufacturers for its products.

This provides greater quality control in the design and management of the IP and the numerous anti-counterfeit feature  included in the new packaging.
 

For instance the 15L can offers some simple, distinct benefits, including ergonomics, anticounterfeit and operator safety, with reduced carrying weights and compatibility with the Easy Flow transfer system and the eziconnect pumping system.
 

The new shape also allows better stackability for increased stability and a new industry leading standard of 765 litres per pallet,

versus the previous 640 L with the 20 L cans.
 

This represents a volume increase of + 20 per cent per pallet, he says.
 

This benefits not only freight and logistics but also enables a smaller pallet footprint in distributor stores.
 

“There are some really cool new features coming, including a new easy-turn cap which is able to be opened even when wearing

gloves but secure enough to stop tampering or access by children.
 

“We’re also working on eliminating the need for foil under the cap which means farmers have to remove their gloves to cut through it, and using radio frequency identification (RFID) tags to improve tracking and inventory management.”
 

For more detail contact your local Adama area manager.