Challenge: 

A potential customer from the Greenhouse, Nursery, and Floricultural Production Industry sought our expertise in addressing the problems of strap handles on multipack nursery plant trays. The handles on their packaging for plants utilized an arrow shape insertion design which were prone to pulling out of the tray–especially when plants were watered and the load increased. 

Solution: 

Allen Field’s team designed a plastic handle & clip combination. The push-in clip has a barb shape that allows it to prod through the plant tray easily, but prevents it from slipping back even when the load becomes heavier when the plants are watered. It serves as a connecting clip for the plant tray and the plastic handle. Once the barbed clips are attached to the tray, the plastic handle is then connected to it, ready for more convenient carrying. 

Additional Benefits: 

Now that the handle can be securely attached to the tray without the fear of pulling out, the handle & clip combination has helped increase portability of the plant trays, which consequently increased sales from 2 units per customer to 4 units. This case shows that the experience and creativity of our design team in creating simply brilliant solutions to improve ease and convenience significantly affect the profitability of the products.