Amcor and premium pet food brand Ge Wu An have launched Li Kou, a new pet food cup featuring an inverted-cup packaging format that enables clean, one-piece meal release and simplifies feeding for pet owners.
Amcor, a global packaging solutions company, and premium pet food brand Ge Wu An have introduced the Li Kou pet food cup, marking the first commercial deployment of an inverted-cup packaging format in China.
The new format has been designed around a simple consumer challenge: removing wet pet food from conventional cans without scraping, scooping or dealing with sharp edges and difficult-to-open packaging.
Inverted design simplifies serving
The key feature of Li Kou is its bottom-seal design. After opening the package, pet owners can simply peel, invert, tear and lift the cup, allowing the entire meal to be released directly into a bowl as one piece.
The approach is intended to minimize food residue remaining inside the package while making the serving process cleaner and more convenient.
The integrated packaging solution consists of a polypropylene (PP) cup body, top lidding film and bottom seal film.
Designed to address common pet food packaging frustrations
Wet pet food is traditionally packaged in formats such as aluminium cans, which can create challenges during opening and serving. Broken pull rings, sharp metal edges and food residue left inside the container can make the feeding process less convenient.
Li Kou takes a different approach by making the packaging structure itself part of the serving experience.
Once the bottom seal is opened and the cup is inverted, the food can be transferred to the bowl without requiring a spoon or other utensil to remove remaining product.
This can also help reduce the amount of food left behind in the package, potentially improving product utilization while reducing the mess associated with serving wet pet food.
Lightweight alternative to traditional cans
Beyond consumer convenience, the cup-and-film construction offers a potential material and logistics advantage compared with traditional aluminium cans.
The PP cup and flexible-film structure uses less material per unit and provides a lightweight packaging alternative, which can help reduce the weight associated with transporting pet food products.
For brands distributing wet pet food at scale, reducing packaging weight can contribute to improvements in logistics efficiency while also supporting efforts to reduce packaging material consumption.
Developed through collaborative innovation
The Li Kou packaging was developed through Amcor's Catalyst™ innovation platform, which brought Amcor and Ge Wu An together from the early stages of product development.
The teams worked for more than a year, combining Ge Wu An's understanding of pet owners and the wet pet food market with Amcor's packaging development expertise.
The collaboration focused on translating a specific consumer pain point into a commercially viable packaging format rather than simply adapting an existing package.
“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 optimize the experience from opening to serving - so pets get complete nutrition and owners spend less time cleaning up.”
Packaging becomes part of the product experience
According to Amcor, Li Kou demonstrates how packaging can play a more active role in differentiating consumer products.
“Through Catalyst, we work alongside customers from the earliest stages of development to turn ideas into commercially viable packaging solutions,” said Jessica Chen, marketing and product management director, Amcor Flexibles China.
She added that Li Kou demonstrates how packaging innovation can help pet food brands differentiate through the consumer experience, from opening a product to serving it.
A new direction for wet pet food packaging
The launch of Li Kou highlights a broader trend in packaging innovation: designing the package around the complete consumer journey rather than focusing only on containment and protection.
In the pet food category, where convenience, cleanliness and portion serving are important considerations, an inverted cup format can transform the package from a passive container into an active dispensing and serving system.
With its combination of PP cup construction, flexible films and bottom-seal inverted dispensing, Li Kou offers a new approach to wet pet food packaging in China while demonstrating how collaborative packaging development can address everyday consumer challenges.