HUG Pet Food

HUG Pet Food is a business with a simple philosophy “when it comes to feeding healthy, happy pets, they don’t believe in a one size fits all approach.”

Their premium complete whole food foods are formulated to maximise pets’ quality of life and their business focuses on developing, making and obsessing over fresh, natural food for dogs and cats.

The packaging solution needed to be simple, effective, and represent the premium Hug brand, but also needed to be multifaceted in its performance. They were immediately drawn to the award winning Stagione® range for its unique shape, stability and materials performance that allowed both freezing, and microwave heating. The ability to recycle the packaging within current and future guidelines was equally important.

Initially the proposition was for sealed, lidded, individually printed packs. However, with 28 different recipes and a continual process of scientifically adjusting and improving these, printing was not a flexible enough option for HUG’s business model. Sabert worked closely with hug to find a solution.

The first stage of this was the sealing of the Stagione® bases, due to their rigid roll top construction they are ideal for this, and with the same top out size for the selected 750ml and 1000ml Stagione® bases, only one size tool was required.

Sabert has a range of machinery on offer to seal its products and initially the ColSeal® SL1200 Automatic sealer was considered. With additional functionality required, such as an Inkjet Coding Printer and Conveyor Unit, the team at Sabert worked with our machine partners and HUG to find the right solution.

Next a cost effective and agile solution was required for the branding of the pots which worked to both reflect the brand as well as being flexible enough to change ingredients quickly. The solution was a full colour printed sleeve for each of the different flavour combinations with a space on the base for the inkjet label for ingredients, best before date and serving/cooking instructions.

Additionally, HUG uses the same solution in the smaller 225ml and 450ml Souper Pots with sleeves for cat food.

We also offer a large selection of Stagione® pots and Stagione® bowls as part of our stock product range.