M&S and The Wilkins Group Going For Gold with 'Gin-spired' Snow Globe Liqueurs

Added by Love Business East Midlands | 6 November 2020

A Nottingham packaging manufacturer has developed a new light-up label to help turn a range of gold-leaf-infused Christmas Liqueurs into festive snow-globe centrepieces.

The Colwick-based Wilkins Group, which makes packaging for several of the UK’s best-known supermarkets, spent six months collaborating with Marks & Spencer to refine the design before building the labels for the company’s special ‘Light Snow Globe’ Gin Liqueurs.

Available either in rhubarb or clementine, the liqueur comes with sparkling flecks of edible gold leaf, creating the perfect illuminated centrepiece for your festive table.

Justin Wilkins, sales and marketing director for the family-run Wilkins Group, said:

“We came up with the original concept about five years ago. “We were exploring the idea of creating a label that would illuminate Prosecco bottles with coloured lights but it never came to fruition. So when we got the chance to develop the concept with the guys at M&S, we were really excited by it.”

The Wilkins Group, which recently won the title of Midlands Family Business of the Year, was responsible for the manufacturing of the gift-tag swing label that fastens around the neck of the bottle, as well as the circular piece on the base of the bottle that contains the LED lights and the battery. When you push the button at the centre of the base panel, four integrated LEDs cast a warm glow through the glass and up into the body of the bottle, illuminating the floating gold leaf as it swirls in the liqueur. Each panel is designed to last around 700 presses at 45 seconds per press, enabling a bottle of festive liqueur to serve as a decoration for the full duration of the Christmas period.

Justin added:

“In terms of developing the product, sourcing the components and assembling and sealing the components, there’s a lot of work and complexity involved in these labels.”

“That said, work is already in progress for a summer season, so hopefully there will come a stage when these beautiful bottles become quite sought after as collector’s items.”

The public's reaction certainly seems to bear that out. The 2019 version of the snow globe clementine liqueur caused queues every time new deliveries arrived in store. And now, with the addition of the rhubarb flavour, plus gold leaf and LED lights, the new liqueur reportedly received 20,000 likes on Instagram within just 20 hours of its announcement.

For more information, visit www.wilkins.co.uk http://www.wilkins.co.uk.

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