Premium label specialist Vollherbst, is expanding its South African offering with Label Intelligence, a new business unit to help brands make better packaging decisions by combining consumer insights, strategic evaluation, and production expertise.
The first projects are currently being piloted with selected wine and beverage brands, with Label Intelligence set to open to the wider South African market in Q4 2026.
The launch reflects the increasingly complex role packaging plays in competitive consumer markets. Beyond protecting a product and communicating a brand, packaging is expected to differentiate on shelf, strengthen brand perception and support purchasing decisions – while addressing the often different requirements of brand owners, marketing teams, designers, production specialists and commercial stakeholders.
Drawing on more than a century of packaging experience, Label Intelligence combines market and category context, consumer intelligence, new technologies for objective validation and production expertise within one integrated approach.
It starts with the context in which packaging has to perform: the brand, its category, competitive environment and intended audience. Using market and category information together with new forms of consumer intelligence and packaging analysis, Label Intelligence examines how existing or newly developed packaging is likely to perform - not simply whether a design is “good” or “bad”, but whether it supports the strategic and commercial objectives of the brand.
The objective is to give brands a stronger basis for decision-making during the packaging production phase.
“New technologies are giving us access to insights that were simply not available in this form a few years ago,” says Matthias Vollherbst, Owner. “The opportunity is not to replace experience or creativity, but to combine these new possibilities with a deep understanding of brands, packaging and production. That creates a stronger basis for important packaging decisions.”
This thinking underpins Vollherbst’s Check · Develop · Validate · Execute framework, which brings together brand, category and consumer insights with packaging development, objective validation and, where required, technical execution and premium label production.
THE CUBE at Bosman’s Crossing in Stellenbosch will serve as the South African home of Label Intelligence. Designed as a working environment rather than a traditional showroom, it provides a space for brand owners, marketers and packaging specialists to work together on specific packaging questions.
Label Intelligence also builds on a significantly strengthened production platform. Since 2020, Vollherbst has invested more than €7 million in production and finishing technologies, including digital and conventional printing, premium finishing and label engineering. Its flagship production site in Endingen, Germany, provides the industrial platform behind Vollherbst’s premium label production.
Label Intelligence and Label Production can be used independently or connected where this creates additional value. Label Intelligence is designed to complement established design and development processes, working in close collaboration with customers and their existing design agencies. This allows brands to introduce additional strategic insight, consumer intelligence and objective validation into their packaging development while retaining the creative partnerships and processes they already have in place.
Vollherbst has worked with South African wine, sparkling wine and spirits producers since 2004. Label Intelligence will open progressively to additional South African customers from Q4 2026.
About Vollherbst
Founded in 1921, Vollherbst is a fourth-generation, family-owned specialist in premium labels and packaging with operations in Germany and South Africa. The company works with premium brands across wine, sparkling wine, spirits and other consumer categories.
In South Africa, THE CUBE in Stellenbosch provides a dedicated environment for Label Intelligence, while Vollherbst’s site in Endingen forms the industrial centre of its Label Production capabilities.
To book a free consultation with one of our brand and labelling experts, contact jacqueline.olivier@vollherbst.com | 082 897 8449