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Interview: What Small Brands Learn from Liber & Co About Packaging for Travel Retail

UUnknown

2026-02-21

9 min read

What small brands can learn from Liber & Co to make packaging travel-ready for convenience stores and airport shops.

Hook: The packaging problem travel-ready brands keep missing

Small brands and artisans often make beautiful products—but they stumble when a retailer asks, "Is it shelf-ready for the convenience store or airport shop?" The result: rejected listings, costly rework, and missed growth in high-margin travel retail. If you sell handcrafted goods, food, or travel accessories, the nightmare is real: uncertain compliance, heavy glass that breaks on shipment, or packaging that hides your craft story on a crowded convenience store shelf.

The promise: What this interview teaches you

This short interview-style deep dive with Chris Harrison, co-founder of Liber & Co., translates hands-on scaling lessons into a tactical playbook for packaging for travel. You'll get practical advice you can act on today: how to design shelf-ready units for convenience stores, win space in airport shops, comply with 2026 packaging rules, and keep your artisan story intact.

Why 2026 matters: travel retail trends you can’t ignore

Before we jump into the Q&A, two quick context points shaping packaging decisions in late 2025 and early 2026:

Convenience and travel retail are expanding: Chains like Asda Express pushed convenience-store growth in early 2026, showing retailers still invest in compact, quick-turn displays. Travel retail—duty-free, airport shops, and kiosks—continues to recover and expand after pandemic disruptions, favoring travel-sized premium goods and gifting items.
Regulatory and sustainability pressure is real: Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) and single-material recycling targets rolled out across major markets in 2024–2025. By 2026, retailers demand traceable, recyclable pack formats and clear end-of-life labeling—especially for cross-border travel channels.

Interview: Packaging lessons from Liber & Co.

Q: Chris, Liber & Co. started from one pot on a stove and now runs 1,500-gallon tanks. How did packaging evolve as you scaled?

Chris Harrison: "We’re food people who had to do everything ourselves. When you start in a kitchen, packing is low-tech and flexible. As volumes grow, so do constraints. Weight, breakage, palletization, labelling requirements, and the need for retailer barcodes become business issues overnight. The more we learned, the more packaging decisions looked like operations decisions—affecting shipping cost, shelf placement and even whether a buyer will approve the SKU."

Key lesson:

Packaging is not marketing alone. At scale it becomes logistics, compliance and retail strategy.

Q: What specific packaging choices helped you win convenience-store shelf space?

Chris Harrison: "Retail buyers want minimal friction. First, get the physical fit right: consistent carton sizes that fit shelf depths and planograms. Second, make your carton display-ready—don’t expect the store to uncase and rebrand. Third, reduce SKU complexity. A few clean, clearly-labelled SKUs with universal barcodes travel better across regional chains."

Actionable steps to be shelf-ready on convenience store shelves

Create display-ready pack-outs: Design outer cartons that flip into a branded dump bin or counter display. Include instructions for quick merch—call it a "pack-out sheet"—with photos and dimensions.
Standardize carton footprints: Match common retail shelf depths (e.g., 12"/30 cm shelf) and pallet sizes so buyers can slot you into planograms without measurement headaches.
Limit SKUs per channel: Offer 2–4 bestsellers for convenience stores; keep larger varieties for specialty or online channels.

Q: Airport shops and duty-free are a different world. What changes when you sell in travel retail?

Chris Harrison: "Airport retail is about gifting, premium perception and security rules. For one, point-of-sale locations post-security can sell larger liquid volumes, but packaging must be tamper-evident and gift-ready. Buyers expect premium finishing—foil, embossing, or a clean minimalist label. And because travelers judge fast, tactile cues like weight, texture, and a good opening experience matter a lot."

Travel-retail specifics to plan for

Tamper evidence is non-negotiable: Shrink bands, tear tapes, or induction seals are required in many duty-free contexts to reassure consumers and security teams.
Premium secondary packaging: Offer a gift-ready sleeve or small box. Travel shoppers often buy as gifts, and presentation drives conversion.
Multilingual and regulatory labeling: Prepare labels for cross-border sale—ingredients, allergens, and country of origin in the languages the retailer requires.

Q: How do you balance artisan packaging and the need for standardized retail specs?

Chris Harrison: "We always wanted the product’s story to come through, but story and specs can coexist. Use story-forward materials at the point of sale—sleeves, hang-tags, or QR-driven content—while keeping the primary container compliant with retail specs. Think modular: a standardized bottle or pouch plus a removable artisan sleeve."

Design pattern: modular artisan packaging

Keep the core package simple and retailer-friendly (mono-material, standard cap, stable dimensions). Layer artisanal elements on removable secondary pieces that retailers can display or consumers can keep as a keepsake.

Q: Sustainability and EPR are top of mind. How did Liber & Co. adapt?

Chris Harrison: "Regulation forced our hand. Recyclability and design for recycling became purchasing filters for large accounts. We shifted to materials that fit local recycling streams, reduced mixed-material laminates, and designed labels that peel off. We also tracked our recycled content and started offering concentrated or refill formats to cut transport emissions."

Practical sustainability moves for small brands

Prioritize mono-materials: Single-type plastic or glass with recyclable caps reduces sorting contamination and improves retailer acceptance.
Choose standardized closures: A standard neck finish lets you switch supplier lines and reuse filling equipment if you scale or co-pack.
Offer concentrated/refill sizes: Small, concentrated syrups or concentrated travel refills reduce weight per use and appeal to eco-conscious shoppers.

Q: What packaging innovations did you use that we can replicate in 2026?

Chris Harrison: "We experimented with a few things: compact, recyclable spouted pouches for single-serve syrups, lightweight PET bottles for lower freight cost, and NFC chips on select premium SKUs to tell the artisan story. Not everything worked, but experimentation is cheaper when you pilot small batches and measure returns—like sales lift and reduced damage claims."

2026 packaging innovations worth testing

Recyclable spouted pouches for concentrated liquids—great for weight and waste, and increasingly accepted by retailers.
NFC or QR story tags—connect travelers to origin stories, translations, or cocktail recipes without cluttering label real estate.
Pre-built display carriers that split into branded counter displays—reduce merch time and improve impulse buys.

Checklist: A travel-retail packaging blueprint for small brands

Use this tactical checklist as your minimum viable spec when preparing for convenience store and airport listings.

Product Fit & Format
- Choose a primary container that survives logistics (drop-tested, ISO-standard palletized).
- Offer travel-friendly sizes: single-serve, 50–250 ml for liquids (tailor for category norms).
Retail Compliance
- Barcode (GTIN) per SKU and inner/outer pack-level barcodes.
- Nutrition/allergen labels and language variants for target markets.
Pack-Out & Merch
- Design an outer carton that becomes a display; include a pack-out guide with images and dimensions.
- Planogram-friendly carton heights and peg/ shelf hang options where applicable.
Sustainability & End-of-Life
- Use mono-materials and state recycling instructions plainly. Track EPR obligations for each market.
Security & Tamper Evidence
- Include shrink bands, tamper tapes or induction seals for travel retail and safety-conscious buyers.
Cost & Unit Economics
- Calculate landed cost to retailer (packaging + freight + fees) and ensure margin for promotional pricing common in travel retail.

Three scaling lessons every artisan brand needs to internalize

Packaging choices scale with volume: What works for a farmer’s market doesn’t necessarily work in a national chain. Scale your packaging decisions—invest in standard neck finishes and case sizes early to avoid a disruptive redesign.
Design for the shelf, then the story: Retail buyers care first about logistics and the consumer second. Make your product easy to stock and the artisan story easy to access—use sleeves and digital tags rather than complex primary containers.
Pilot before you commit: Run a limited channel test with a single display-ready pack; measure sell-through, damage rate, and buyer feedback before rolling out to multiple regions.

Case example: turning a stove-top experiment into travel-ready SKUs

Liber & Co.’s early history—starting from a single pot—illustrates a core startup truth: the first packaging choices are reversible; later ones are not. As volumes moved to 1,500-gallon tanks, decisions about bottle type, closure, and carton dimensions became long-term commitments. The brand’s DIY culture meant they could prototype quickly, but the real breakthrough was creating a packaging spec that balanced artisan storytelling with the operational realities buyers demanded. That blend is what moved them from local bars to travel retail listings and international distribution.

"If something needed to be done, we learned to do it ourselves." — Chris Harrison, Liber & Co.

Advanced strategies for 2026 and beyond

For brands ready to be future-ready, consider these higher-level moves:

Digital traceability: Embed batch-level QR codes or NFC to show origin, shelf life, and artisan narratives. Travelers love provenance, and buyers reward transparency.
On-demand localized labelling: Use short-run label printing near distribution hubs to match language and regulatory needs without overstocking multiple SKU variants.
Refill partnerships at travel hubs: Pilot refill stations for concentrated formats in airports and hotels—this reduces waste and positions your brand as a travel sustainability leader.

Common pitfalls and how to avoid them

Pitfall: Beautiful but fragile packaging. Fix: Run ISTA/ASTM drop tests and choose impact-resistant materials.
Pitfall: Too many SKUs across channels. Fix: Rationalize SKUs by channel—offer a curated travel assortment for convenience and airport partners.
Pitfall: Ignoring retailer merchandising needs. Fix: Provide a pack-out that requires zero assembly; retailers will prefer your SKU because it reduces labor cost.

Quick wins you can implement this quarter

Prepare a one-page pack-out guide with product dimensions and photos and include it in every pitch to retailers.
Test a single travel-sized SKU in a local convenience chain or airport pop-up to capture buyer feedback and adjust fast.
Audit your labels for 3 new markets—identify translation needs and EPR fees so pricing and compliance are ready before expansion.

Final takeaways

Packaging for travel is where artisan authenticity meets retail reality. The brands that win are those that design for logistics, protect the product, and then add story-driven elements in modular ways. In 2026, retailers expect sustainability, tamper evidence, and planogram-friendly pack-outs as baseline — the differentiator is how easily you let them stock and sell your product while letting your artisan story shine.

Call to action

Ready to make your brand travel-ready? Start with our free Travel-Retail Packaging Checklist and a one-page pack-out template—tailored for artisans. Subscribe to panamas.shop’s Brand Advisory newsletter for more interviews, scaling lessons, and packaging templates that help artisan brands win convenience store shelf and airport space. If you want a practical review, send your current pack photos and we’ll provide a short, free evaluation to point out quick wins.

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Senior editor and content strategist. Writing about technology, design, and the future of digital media. Follow along for deep dives into the industry's moving parts.