Eureka! Years of work on the part of our marketing, sales, R&D, and operations departments, finally yielded the results Lassonde had hoped for. It was an innovation fully 12 years in the making. Although Oasis juice had been launched in 1978 in a Hypa container, it was only in 1992 that we were able to introduce containers with resealable caps. This small, seemingly minor, improvement made a major difference to consumers!

The Oasis line had been an unqualified success since 1978. Hypa containers preserve the aroma, colour and vitamin content of the fruit. The juice doesn’t have to be refrigerated until after it’s opened and there’s no metallic taste. Over the years, seven new flavours had been added to three original juices, ranging from our Old Fashioned Apple Juice to Orangerine. They were perfect … with one small glitch: there was no cap.

In 1992, the relaunch of the 10 Oasis flavours in new Hypa-S packaging with colour on all four sides attested once again to Lassonde’s spirit of innovation and its determination to provide consumers with juices that are outstanding in every respect. It was no easy task to develop an aseptic and airtight method for opening and reclosing a container, and Lassonde was proud to have outdone the competition. Its main competitors at the time sold their products in non-resealable Tetra packs or gable top cartons that were hard to open and didn’t close tightly.

The years of research paid off. More than ever, the Oasis products on supermarket shelves attracted parents and the thirsty children who accompanied them to the store. And the resealable cap just made life a little easier.

Next column: Venturing into the “Middle Kingdom”…