Green Belly – Bold Flavours Meet Connected Packaging
Overview
Green Belly is a hot sauce brand built on heritage, authenticity, and bold flavour. Founded by cousins Juan Ignacio Stewart and Charlie Stewart, it draws from Guatemalan family recipes passed down from Juan’s mother and brought to life for a new generation of consumers. What began at local farmers markets has grown into a brand that is now sought out by food lovers who value both taste and story.
Juan’s journey from Guatemala to the United States shaped his mission to share the vibrant flavours of his childhood, while Charlie’s vision and entrepreneurial drive have been central to transforming that mission into a growing business. Together, they have built Green Belly on a foundation that makes it more than a sauce maker. It is a family-led brand that proves authenticity and creativity can thrive in a crowded market.
Built on this base, Green Belly has carved out a place in kitchens by creating sauces that elevate everyday meals without compromise. But their story isn’t just about what’s inside the bottle. It’s about the mission behind it: a commitment to real ingredients, vibrant taste, and a brand that stands for more than heat.
In a crowded category, telling that story at scale is a challenge for every brand. Packaging has only ever given them a few square inches to convey flavour, passion, and mission. The rest from a packaging perspective is left unsaid. Now, through connected packaging, Green Belly sees a way to unlock something entirely different: every bottle becoming a living, evolving touchpoint with consumers.
Packaging as a Storytelling Tool
For Green Belly, the label is no longer just a design element it is the starting point of a conversation. By embedding Orijin Plus technology into their products, they can transform static packaging into a dynamic experience. A consumer who scans a bottle in-store might discover the origin of ingredients, a seasonal recipe pairing, or a promotion that rewards loyalty.
This flexibility gives Green Belly the ability to adjust campaigns in real time to the context of each scan. From the packaging itself, they can open the door to promotions, certifications, ingredient transparency, and loyalty rewards all features ready to be activated as the brand builds out its connected packaging journey.
Expanding Trust Through Transparency
Consumers today expect more than flavour. They often want access to what makes that great flavour and the story behind the brand. They want to know what is in their food, where it comes from, and why they should trust the brand behind it. Green Belly is leaning into that demand by weaving transparency into the very fabric of their packaging. Using Orijin Plus, every bottle can carry supply chain data and certifications, letting consumers see not just what they are eating, but the care and standards that back it.
Reimagining the Barcode
Looking ahead, Green Belly sees the shift to GS1 2D barcodes as a turning point. Compliance alone is not the goal. The opportunity lies in making these codes the front door to a richer consumer experience. Instead of a dead strip of black-and-white lines, the new barcode becomes a gateway into flavour, authenticity, and connection.
“It is always nice to gain more marketing space and being able to curate your messaging to different parties is game changing.”
With Orijin Plus, that vision becomes real. Each barcode unlocks not just product data, but marketing campaigns, storytelling, and trust, all standardised, all global.
Why Orijin Plus?
Green Belly explored connected packaging with one key filter: it had to be simple enough to roll out without heavy technical overhead, but powerful enough to scale as the brand grows. In their words,
“Orijin Plus is the most robust platform and completely over delivers.”
That balance between capability and usability is what makes connected packaging more than a marketing experiment. For Green Belly, it is a core part of their growth strategy. Promotions, analytics, transparency, and consumer engagement all flow through one system, anchored to the packaging itself.
The Future of Bold Flavours
As Green Belly looks to the future, every product leaving their facility represents more than a hot sauce. Each bottle is a digital gateway, a marketing channel, a loyalty tool, and a proof point of trust. With Orijin Plus, packaging is no longer the limit of the story, it is the multiplier.
"We are excited to tell our growth story and brand mission with real time adaptive marketing."
Green Belly is showing what happens when flavour meets technology: bold, authentic food experiences paired with bold, authentic connections. And in a world where every brand fights to be heard, they are turning the quietest part of the product, the barcode, into the loudest voice they have.