Aroxa: Revolutionizing Flavor Standards with Innovative Design

Lucy O'Brien & Duncan Shotton's Award-Winning Packaging Design for Aroxa

Lucy O'Brien & Duncan Shotton were inspired by Cara Technology's decision to directly supply the market with flavor standards for a wider range of foods and beverages. This business shift led to the creation of a completely new suite of packaging and products. The design needed to stand out from competitors and significantly enhance the user experience and perceived value of the product.

The designers developed a brand and packaging range with the flavors at the heart of the design. The AROXA™ logo, the Florox, symbolizes a sensory explosion and mirrors the distinctive placement of capsules within the primary pack. This strong relationship between the logo and product offers an iconic, scientific, and ownable identity. The introduction of a tray to hold each capsule in place not only improves protection for the capsules but also enhances the user experience and increases the product's perceived value.

The Aroxa packaging was realized using various technologies, including digitally printed paper labels with silver-foiled logo detail, injection-molded 'off-the-shelf' PP tub, vacuum-formed PET tray, and paper overboard secondary packs with a matte laminate. The primary package size is 86mm x 86mm x 34mm (W x D x H).

In taste training sessions, professional tasters pour the chemically constructed powders inside the capsules into the beverage that is being tested. Different capsules replicate particular tastes and smells, training testers in their detection. The new tub format presents the capsules separately and at an angle, making them easy to remove. This design innovation has allowed AROXA™ to offer easily affordable 'starter packs' to new customers.

The project, which started in March 2011 and launched in November the same year, faced the challenge of conveying a premium product offering through the fewest possible components for a complex range of over 200 SKUs spanning six market sectors. Despite this, the design team successfully established AROXA™ as the new brand in sensory taste testing, earning them the Golden A' Packaging Design Award in 2013.