The Ruby Tuesday restaurant corporation started in Maryville, TN, “Simple, Fresh, American Dining,” was their motto upon launching nearly 30 years ago. A lot has changed in 30 years, they have more than 900 locations in 43 states and 15 countries, along with the laid back American dining, they have created a curbside take-out program that now accounts for six to seven percent of its sales. Senior VP of Ruby Tuesday, Rick Johnson states, “Making food available for guests to enjoy outside our dining rooms is part of our ongoing initiatives to better serve our guests and to make their lives a little easier.”
Rick Johnson wanted to make that outside the dining rooms more enjoyable, the ability to bring the Ruby Tuesday lemonade and iced tea beverages home was a novelty he wanted to offer his guests. Originally in the white polyethylene terephthalate jugs, the company had made the change to flexible bag; they looked no further than Cheertainer’s flexible, gusseted film bag from the CDF Corp (www.cdf1.com), the bag came housed in a custom-printed, corrugated box from Accurate Box (www.accuratebox.com).
When considering a container, Ruby Tuesdays not only wanted a better branding opportunity it wanted a suitable container made from high-quality material and reasonably priced. The container also needed to be able to contain both hot and cold beverages, be able to fill onsite at restaurants, and to be simple for the consumer to dispense furthermore, it needed to be eco-friendly.
Ruby Tuesday found just what they needed with Cheertainer bag-in-box and Accurate Box, the 1-gal custom box was created using s sturdy, SBS single-face E-flute corrugated material. The vision Ruby Tuesday decided on was the ruby-red background with the Ruby Tuesday logo printed in white. Originally, they had chosen to use a pillow-style film pouch to hold the beverages, but according to Iris Thomas CDF’s Cheertainer product manager, “they found that they could not get the proper fill volume with the pillow-style bag.”
Cheertainer’s flexible bag alternative was the perfect choice for how Ruby Tuesday imagined their product being dispensed. Because of the Cheertainer design and the location of its fitment once in the box, it is able to dispense nearly 99.9 percent of its content without any residue. Iris Thomas explains that with a pillow pouch, the fitment is higher on the bag and liquid is able to get trapped in the corner below the fitment. Furthermore, the bag fits comfortable in the box which is to eliminate any splashing and foaming while in transport. Once the product is in the bag, the bag does not shift in the box, which means there is no chance of product integrity lost in transport.
Cheertainer’s superior strength derives from its construction; the bags are made with oriented nylon layer on the outside and a linear lower density polyethylene layer on the inside. CDF also offers other film choices for the Cheertainer, such as a coextruded nylon/ethylene vinyl alcohol construction, used for products that call for a higher barrier, and a metallized construction.
Lastly, the Cheertainer has environmental advantages, Cheertainer uses less plastic than a rigid container, and because of its shape it lessens dead space which allows more products to fit on a pallet, and reduces the need for excessive layers of plastic.
