The Perfect Package
Photo courtesy of Chubby Gorilla
Chubby Gorilla has rapidly become the world’s leading supplier of container closure systems for the electronic cigarette industry.
By Timothy S. Donahue
It’s an epic success story. There is probably only one product that can be found in nearly every vape shop on the planet: the Chubby Gorilla bottle. In 2015, two brothers, Abraham and Eyad Aboabdo, joined with two childhood friends and began Chubby Gorilla with the ambition of manufacturing specifically designed e-liquid bottles for filling vaporizers. In under four years, the company has grown to dominate the worldwide e-liquid bottle/packaging market. It’s the story of a business that transformed an industry.
Abraham and Eyad smoked shisha out of a hookah before quitting tobacco with the help of vapor products. One day in 2014, Abraham, Eyad and two childhood friends started talking about a potential new business. They wanted to produce better bottles for e-liquids. They recognized a real opportunity because packaging in the e-liquid industry at the time was subpar.
In the beginning, the industry standard for e-liquids was a glass 10 mL bottle. It came with a small eyedropper to transfer liquid to the tank. Filling was often a messy experience. E-liquid packaging then started drifting toward plastics, but the bottles had many issues. They would leak. The metal syringe-like tips would clog or often just fall out and spill the e-liquid. Bottles began to gravitate back toward glass and then back toward plastics again. Child-resistant caps (CRC) became the norm.
The brothers understood that the vapor industry needed something better. The plastic bottles being used weren’t designed to store and dispense e-liquid. “They were not ideal. The bottles weren’t designed for the application,” says Abraham, who serves as president of Chubby Gorilla. “We were looking for a market solution. We needed to see the big picture. We started thinking about manufacturing from a co-packer’s standpoint, looking at different materials and, finally, thinking about packaging from a consumer standpoint.”
In 2015, Eyad, Abraham and their friends were ready to open the company, but it needed a name. Eyad, who also serves as vice president of Chubby Gorilla, felt that this e-liquid packaging business needed something different, something tough, and wondered if the gorilla might be the strong imaging needed for a reliable, impactful packaging brand. Eyad named the company Chubby Gorilla. “It’s unique and really stands out. It’s been more effective than I could have ever imagined,” says Eyad. “It just really works well for this industry.”
During an interview with Vapor Voice in their California, USA, offices, the brothers say the four owners have a solid relationship. There is a lot of trust, and they push each other to be better, according to Abraham. “We work well together. Eyad and I, for example, argue sometimes, as all business partners would, but it’s always respectful and, in the end, we always do what is right for the company; it isn’t personal,” says Abraham. “It’s competitive. We are always trying to outdo each other in strategy and how to best move forward.”
The first Chubby Gorilla bottles were accessories. The 30 mL unicorn bottles were sold to be filled by the consumer with a third-party e-liquid. In 2016, Chubby Gorilla released its first PET CRC-compliant bottle. PET, polyethylene terephthalate, is a form of polyester that is extruded or molded into plastic bottles. “This is when momentum began to build rapidly for Chubby Gorilla sales,” Eyad exclaims.
“Things really started to take off in mid-2016. Companies began to want us; they wanted Chubby Gorilla. The more that becomes known about our bottles and what they represent, the faster we seem to grow,” Abraham says. “We are the best because, if you ask our consumers, they know we didn’t design Chubby Gorilla products for profit but for a purpose. We wanted to improve the leaking, the flow. When we see an issue, we try to make it right. You don’t know something is better until you experience something better.”
All Chubby Gorilla products are designed and engineered in California. Abraham says that the company has a team of designers, product engineers and quality assurance specialists whose sole job is to ensure that every item the company ships to its patrons is perfect.
“Our team has decades of combined experience and passion in this industry. That allows us to create beautifully designed products that are of the highest quality and meet consumers’ needs,” he says. “Finally, the designs, the materials we use and the construction of our products are personalized for our end user’s convenience and pleasure. From the leak-free construction to our unique designs, everything about our products is created to satisfy our customers with Chubby Gorilla’s products.”
PREFERENTIAL TREATMENT
In mid-2017, Chubby Gorilla had 75,000 square feet of factory space and a staff of 120. Less than a year later, the company has grown to 150,000 square feet of factory space with a staff of about 220. Chubby Gorilla’s factories are ISO 9001 and 14001 certified with GMP certified workshops, according to Eyad. The company is now looking to acquire a new building in China, where its bottles are manufactured, which will give Chubby Gorilla 310,000 square feet of factory space and add an additional 100 employees.
The company also has a new warehouse in the works in California, which will expand Chubby Gorilla’s warehousing operations from 35,000 square feet to 80,000 square feet. Chubby Gorilla ships thousands of boxes every week to clients in more than 150 countries. The company produces 10 mL, 16.5 mL, 30 mL (tall and short), 50 mL, 60 mL (tall, short and mini), 75 mL, 100 mL and 120 mL bottles.
“Winning the bottle battle is based on quality, consistency and brand. This market is growing and changing very fast, so we must remain focused all the time,” says Eyad. “We never thought we would get that big—never that fast. It was always a goal, but consistency and quality have helped us grow.”
Abraham says that the purpose in their engineering process has always been to make a beautiful product that is the best for the e-liquid industry and the overall vapor industry. “It must be a product that won’t fail our customers. To do that, we keep all our engineers under one roof in California,” Abraham says emphatically. “Plus, we work with engineers who not only have experience in our sector but are passionate about it. This allows for unprecedented attention to detail, sharing of experience and, ultimately, a much better product for our loyal customers.”
Eyad explains that another challenge is that regulatory requirements can be different across the globe; a bottle can be compliant in the U.S. but not in Canada. “We work with the CPSC [the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission], FDA and Health Canada to be sure we are compliant and provide the best bottles available,” says Eyad. “We are working on creating a master file for the FDA. That is being put together now. We are also doing it as a drug master file with CDER [the FDA’s Center for Drug Evaluation and Research], so if someone wanted to do a drug pathway [for vapor products], we are available for them.”
The company keeps track of changes in the packaging industry and works with the governing bodies in the countries Chubby Gorilla operates, including China, which has some of the most complicated packaging requirements in the world, according to Eyad. “Child-resistant packaging, for example, is all different. I would also like to say that we believe we shouldn’t always be told by the government what we need to do. At Chubby Gorilla, we do what is right. We go above and beyond in materials and testing. We want to help to regulate the industry properly.”
Chubby Gorilla has been at the forefront of innovation, especially when predicting possible regulatory requirements. For example, Chubby Gorilla designed its bottles to have restricted flow before it was a requirement. When there wasn’t a machine to test the bottles, Chubby Gorilla designed a testing machine for restricted flow. “There were no protocols, and there was no company doing that type of testing,” says Eyad. “We had to find our own and work with them to find a way. Within 30 days of the CPSC’s release of the final guidance, we started testing flow for products. We were the first company to help customers become compliant with CPSC’s requirements in flow restrictions for e-liquid packaging.”
FIGHTING BACK
Chubby Gorilla’s bottles have been so successful that, like many goods in the vapor industry, the company must fight off counterfeit products and the manufacturers supplying them. The company’s logo is copyrighted and trademarked, and the name is trademarked as well. Chubby Gorilla has more than 100 patents and more than 1,000 trademarks in more than 175 countries, according to Abraham.
“Counterfeit attorneys are expensive but necessary. If we don’t fight the companies illegally selling and producing our products, we will lose our trademarks. Counterfeiting is a big issue … manufacturing, uses, trademark and style are all factors,” says Abraham. “We do most of our IP [intellectual property] enforcement overseas, especially in China. We have been able to seize shipments, molds and have even had companies removed from trade shows. Now factories are afraid to counterfeit our products. Every bottle is covered. It’s a criminal offense in China, and we have attorneys in several provinces.”
Chubby Gorilla’s mission statement is “engineered for a purpose, designed for a purpose.” The brothers say that they don’t just use those words flippantly. “We know that our customers have lots of choices available to them, so we take every single syllable of that statement very seriously. When our customers open a box of our products, we want it to be a unique and unparalleled experience,” adds Abraham. “We are always trying to figure out what is best, and we strive to serve our clients properly so they can provide consumers with the greatest possible products.”
Looking ahead, Chubby Gorilla is considering moving into the pharmaceutical packaging industry as well as other markets. The brothers say that they will work with the other Chubby Gorilla owners and employees to improve the facility, build an even stronger infrastructure and diversify into other markets. “We are looking at CBD [cannabidiol] and THC [marijuana] markets to provide packaging solutions. We already have customers using Chubby Gorilla in those industries,” says Eyad. “We work closely with clients and every major distributor in the world to help them help their businesses grow too. We try to connect people to help businesses grow.”
Chubby Gorilla is the No. 1 selling item in the vapor industry. However, the Chubby Gorilla team insists that it is just getting started. “We are working on some new things. We may again revolutionize the e-liquid packaging industry and maybe even top ourselves. This new thing could even be the future of liquid packaging in the U.S.,” says Abraham. “We work hard because we can never be comfortable …. The biggest failures come from people getting too comfortable.”
