Red Bull has joined forces with the Vodafone Warriors to produce a specially designed Red Bull can. The custom-made can commemorates the 20-year anniversary of the Warriors and has touch points that reflect the team’s journey and what makes them one of New Zealand’s most loved sporting teams. We look at other less well-received Kiwi beverage and food collaborations.

The touch points featured on the can include the renowned Pukana face, which the site says shows the “true warrior spirit”; the word “loyalty” as a tribute to fans backing the team; and korus to represent the club’s past, present and future.

This is the first time the energy drink company has collaborated with another company and created a custom-made can.

New Zealand artist Dave Burke is the person behind the design. Burke has also designed many of the team’s iconic jerseys.

The overall design is based on a tattoo, which Red Bull says is appropriate given many fans and players sport them.

Fans seem to have taken warmly to the limited edition can on social media, with most praising the can’s design and taking pride in the rugby league team.

Shouts to @redbullnz for hooking up a #WarriorsCan looks mean! @NZWarriors https://t.co/bjOY9CooYg

— Ra Pomare (@RaPomare) June 4, 2015

Epic #WarriorsCan from the cuzzies at @RedBullNZ! @NZWarriors https://t.co/CC6wwoutmu

— Bodie Friend (@BodieFriend) June 4, 2015

Sweet new Red Bull #warriorscan @NZWarriors pic.twitter.com/xCz2DpfGM7

— Attila (@AttilaBalassa) June 4, 2015

We know the Vodafone Warriors aren’t a food (luckily, they didn’t try conjuring up a flavour to represent the Warriors, like the team’s dressing room that “stinks of sweat and Deep Heat”) but we thought this would be a good chance to revisit some of the interesting food items that have resulted from collaborations, and some of the interesting packaging designs that have come about.

Never mind the flavour of some of these creations – the wasabi KitKat was particularly disgusting, as noted by one of our journalists – the packaging have generally looked like “half ‘n half” pizza rather than interesting design. 

{% gallery ‘mixing-food’ %}

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This article first appeared on our sibling website, TheRegister.co.nz