News

FMCG giant Unilever's Food division is to roll out a new system that has reduced the number of ink colours used in its packaging from more than 100 to just six.

The Anglo-Dutch group, whose best-known food brands include Hellman’s, Walls and Flora, achieved the reduction as part of its Rainbow project, which has been launched in partnership with brand consultancy LFH.

Under the system, which Unilever launched to reduce costs and complexity in its packaging supply chain, just six colours are used to print packaging which previously required many more.

German printer Rahning was chosen to pilot the project, while London-based LFH audited Unilever’s European spreads and cooking category of projects to explore how the packaging production process could be simplified.

Rainbow is based on LFH’s own colour harmonisation system, Chapter 1, which Unilever had already used for its cleaning brand Cif several years ago.

Matthew Daniels, best practice manager at Unilever Foods, described the cost savings as "significant" and said there had been no loss of quality from moving to a much smaller palette of inks.

"Together with the potential from a commercial point of view, it was a no-brainer to pregress project Rainbow for implementation," he said.

LFH production director Graham Hawkins, who led the project with Daniels, said that the system would provide Unilever with "future cost savings [and] environmental benefits in the long term".