What Tropicana’s packaging redesigns teach small brands

Edara Akpan · Sep 26, 2026 · 3 min read

Few packaging stories are retold as often as Tropicana’s. Twice, the juice brand has changed its packaging and faced a loud customer reaction. For a small brand, the details are a free lesson in what to protect when you redesign.

2009: the orange and the straw disappear

In early 2009, Tropicana replaced the familiar orange-with-a-straw on its cartons with a minimalist glass of juice and new typography. Customers wrote, emailed and called to say the new look was generic and cheap. Sales were reportedly down about 20 per cent within two months, with reports of the lost revenue ranging from $20 million to $30 million, and the company brought the old design back within weeks.

2024: the carafe becomes a standard bottle

In the summer of 2024, Tropicana replaced its distinctive carafe-shaped bottle with a more conventional plastic bottle. At the same time the bottle shrank from 52 ounces to 46 ounces and the label narrowed.

Market data shared with CNN showed sales down 8.3 per cent year on year in July, 10.9 per cent in August and 19 per cent by October, with the brand losing share to a competitor. The company said it changed the bottle to make it easier to pour and store and to use less plastic, and later said unit sales were returning to normal levels.

One caution: the size and price changes arrived together with the new shape, and many shoppers read the change as shrinkflation. So it is impossible to say how much of the drop came from the design alone. That is a lesson in itself: when you can, change one thing at a time, so you know what caused the result.

What small brands can learn

1. Know which assets people recognise

Shoppers often spot a product by its shape, colour or icon before they read a word. A packaging consultant quoted by CNN said the new bottle lost its distinctive character and became generic. List your own distinctive assets, such as a colour, a shape, a logo or an illustration style, and protect them in any redesign.

2. Evolve, do not replace

If something is working, refine it. Cleaner typography, a better hierarchy or sharper photography can improve a pack without breaking recognition.

3. Test the right things

Companies commonly test whether a new design stands out on a shelf. An expert in the same CNN report said those tests are not good at predicting whether sales will actually rise. So test recognition as well. Show the old and new designs at thumbnail size among competitors and ask people which one is yours.

4. A redesign is not an advertisement

New packaging is judged against habit. Loyal customers often shop on autopilot, and a pack that suddenly looks like another brand’s pack interrupts them in the wrong way.

5. Plan the transition and the way back

Tell customers what is changing and why, keep the old design in circulation during the switch, and decide in advance what result would make you reverse. In 2009 Tropicana could put its old graphics back quickly. In 2024 the change was structural, which is much harder to undo.

A redesign checklist

1. Which assets do customers recognise? Keep them
2. Why are we redesigning, in one sentence?
3. What else changes at the same time, such as size, price or shape? Reduce it to the minimum
4. Have we tested recognition, not only appeal, with real shoppers?
5. Do we have a rollout plan and a rollback plan?

For the thinking behind a pack that works on the shelf, read packaging design and first impressions. When you are ready to commission a new design, start with how to brief a packaging designer.

Sources

• CNN via WRAL, Tropicana fans are ditching the brand after a bottle redesign (November 2024)
• PlasticsToday, Tropicana redesign failure, take two