May 14, 2008

Lucky Country Packaging - Whole Foods vs. Costco

We covered Lucky Country's Black Licorice several days ago. But as we've tried to make clear, we're on a licorice kick...so when the fetching Mrs. Candy Snob and I were strolling through Costco, we felt compelled to pick up a big honkin' bag of Lucky Country black licorice. To be perfectly honest, I thought these were a different version than the Whole Foods bag we had bought, but they were not.

Same solid licorice, strong anise flavor, nice and soft. But note the packaging. It isn't new news that Costco (and Sam's Club) ask their vendors to package their products especially for them (large quantities, stackable, etc.). But what struck me more was that the Whole Foods version was so different. If you look at the Lucky Country strawberry licorice we also recently looked at, the "mass-marketing," plastic packaging with brighter colors, etc. seem to be the norm. In other words, instead of Lucky Country retro-fitting their Whole Foods (i.e. "natural") packaging to sell into Costco, could it be the other way around? Could Whole Foods be dictating the look and materials of their packaging to fit into their "all natural" motif?

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