Packaging company Amcor and Chinese pet food brand Ge Wu An have launched the Li Kou pet food cup, described as the first commercial deployment of an inverted-cup packaging format in China.
The format uses a bottom seal that allows the cup to be peeled, inverted, torn and lifted to release the contents into a bowl. The packaging consists of a PP cup body, a top lidding film and a bottom seal film.
The companies developed the cup in response to issues associated with serving wet pet food from traditional cans, including broken pull rings, sharp edges and food residue remaining in the packaging.
Lighter alternative
The cup and film construction also provides a lighter alternative to aluminium cans, with the companies saying it uses less material per unit and reduces product weight during transportation.
“The development of this new product was driven by real pain points that pet owners face every day,” said Liu Mengru, brand lead at Ge Wu An. “We wanted to completely optimise the experience from opening to serving, so pets get complete nutrition and owners spend less time cleaning up, raising the everyday feeding experience from the ground up.”
Development of Li Kou began through Amcor’s Catalyst innovation platform, which brought the two companies together during the early stages of the project.
The teams worked for more than a year, combining Ge Wu An’s knowledge of pet owners and the wet pet food market with Amcor’s packaging development capabilities to develop the commercial packaging format.
‘Commercially viable’
Jessica Chen, marketing and product management director at Amcor Flexibles China, said: “Through Catalyst, we work alongside customers from the earliest stages of development to turn ideas into commercially viable packaging solutions.
“Li Kou demonstrates how packaging innovation can help pet food brands differentiate through the consumer experience, from how a product is opened to how it is served.”
The launch comes as Amcor continues to integrate Berry Global following its acquisition last year. The company reported a 26 per cent increase in sales in the fourth quarter of its 2026 financial year, to $6.398 billion, with growth across both its flexible and rigid packaging businesses.
