Food tray manufacturer closing the loop on plastics recycling to serve up sustainable packaging solutions
Story on page 13
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In a complex, omnichannel world… take control of your evolving supply chain.
Retailers and consumer packaged goods (CPG) companies are experiencing the biggest shift in the industry in decades. Increasingly diverse consumers have more influence than ever before.
The power shift is evolving the commerce landscape.
Consumers want to be able to search, compare, and buy from anyone, anywhere (in-store, online, in-app or wherever that may be) and at any time. They’re driving changes not only in product offerings, but in the way products are distributed. Sustainability is now a major influencer in consumer purchase decisions.
How can CPGs and retailers keep pace with ever-evolving consumer demands and maintain control of their supply chain?
By being strategic with distribution & enhancing the experience.
are racing to provide the best –and most convenient – consumer experience across a growing ecosystem of touchpoints and distribution models: in-store, online, pick-up, delivery and direct-to-consumer.
CPGs are revamping their supply chain strategies and finding partners to drive agility, speed and customized product offerings. To be successful, using one optimized supply chain is key.
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The power shift is evolving the commerce landscape. To learn how Menasha can help you take control of your supply chain, email Menasha.Canada.Solutions@menasha.com
JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2020
VOLUME 73, NO. 1&2
SENIOR PUBLISHER
Stephen Dean • (416) 510-5198 SDean@canadianpackaging.com
EDITOR
George Guidoni • (416) 510-5227 GGuidoni@canadianpackaging.com
Tim Dimopoulos • tdimopoulos@annexbusinessmedia.com
COO Scott Jamieson
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No packaging material has gotten as much bad publicity since the start of 21st Century as plastic—not even close. With plastics deemed to represent one of the biggest man-made threats to the health of our planet, it will take all of the global plastic industry’s knowledge, resources and will power in the coming decade to change the commodity’s prevailing current image of a direct menace to the global ecosystem and biodiversity.
How we got all got here is largely irrelevant at this stage: the important thing is start working on pragmatic and practical solutions to provide timely and irrefutable evidence that plastic can be an important link in the vaunted Circular Economy of the near future, rather than an impassable obstacle to it.
For global CPG (consumer packaged goods) brandowners with reliance on plastic packaging to market and merchandise their products, how well they cope with the global plastic emergency may well define their future, as the old “too big to fail” theory of market dominance and longevity will become irrelevant in coming years, as the millennial generation starts finding its feet in the emerging new world order.
For these consumers, the LCA (life-cycle analysis) comparisons showing plastics to be more sustainable packaging options in terms of total carbon-footprint impact that also accounts for the product’s origin, sourcing, manufacturing, transportation et al counts for little compared to the lingering dilemma posed by plastic’s inability to biodegrade without a trace.
And while material substitution may help some brands overcome negative public perception and increased regulatory scrutiny in the near term, it is
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hardly a cure-all for all our environmental woes.
That said, it is encouraging to see some leading global CPG lights heading in the right direction.
A new report released at the start of the year by Chicago-based science and technology intelligence firm PreScouter identifies 10 globally-operating companies that have managed to make notable progress in how they recycle or reuse plastic waste to keep it from ending up in landfill or waterways.
Prepared by three highly authoritative and credible Phd level researchers, the revealing study, titled Towards a Circular Economy: Zero-Waste Technologies & Initiatives, confirms that there is no one-size-fits-all solution for eliminating plastic litter and waste, but such flexibility in addressing a common problem is largely a good thing.
This includes Danone working with Re-Pal to recycle polypropylene water bottle labels into recyclable pallets; Veolia recycling PET plastic bottles to make new PET bottles and food packaging; Novolex upcycling plastic bags of all sorts into polyethylene pellets used to make new bags; Nestlé aiming to replace single-use plastics with refillable stainlesssteel containers; and H&M offering a garment recycling service for recycling clothes made from polyester, organic cotton and Tencel lyocell, as well as working with Repack to pilot a reusable packaging service for its e -commerce activities.
While such efforts may seem too little too late in isolation, they can definitely add up to much more than the sum of their parts if these companies’ industry counterparts and peers join them on their journey towards Circular Economy—the sooner the better.
19 FILLING THE BLANKS By George Guidoni
Manufacturer of liquid filling equipment using leading-edge automation solutions to optimize machine performance.
22 THE STRAW POLL By George Guidoni
Leading apple juice brand experiments with paper drinking straws to enhance its sustainability profile.
25 KING OF THE GRILL By Alanna Fairey
Quebec dairy producer gets a leg up over competition with highperformance thermoform packaging technology.
29 CHIPS OFF THE NEW BLOCK By Alanna Fairey
West Coast producer of potato and vegetable chips hitting full stride in productivity after a major packaging equipment upgrade.
32 STANDARDS OF EXCELLENCE By Alanna Fairey
The benefits of food safety certification for folding cartons.
PAC CONNECT 2019 (STARTS OPPOSITE PAGE 40)
A special report from PAC Packaging Consortium celebrates the group’s 70-year anniversary with focus on some of the organization’s leading founding members.
3 COURAGE AND LEADERSHIP By James Downham
4 BEST OUT WEST By George Guidoni
8 THE BONDS THAT BIND By George Guidoni
10 ROCK OF AGES By George Guidoni
13 PUT IT DOWN IN WRITING By George Guidoni
14 AS HOOD AS IT GETS By George Guidoni
15-19 PAC GLOBAL LEADERSHIP AWARD WINNERS & FINALISTS
20 TRANSCONTINENTAL TRANSFORMATION By George Guidoni
24 VALUED PROPOSITION By Jesus Atias
TRANSCONTINENTAL SELLS OFF NON-CORE ASSETS
Montreal-based flexible packaging powerhouse TC Transcontinental Packaging has completed the sale of its paper and woven polypropylene (PP) packaging operations to to Hood Packaging Corporation for US$180 million.
Generating sales of US$215 million for the fiscal year ending Oct. 27, 2019, the sold assets include paper packaging operations and buildings in Sibley, Iowa, Hanford, Hazleton, Pa., and Tifton, Ga.
Other sold assets include the paper and woven PP operations in Spartanburg,S.C., which also produces flexible packaging, with Transcontinental retaining ownership of the building itself.
About 415 employees will transfer to Hood Packaging as a result of the deal, which is related to Transcontinental’s US$1.3-billion takeover of Coveris Holdings S.A.’s Americas unit in 2018.
“When we acquired Coveris Americas, we welcomed all of their assets and broad portfolio of products,” says Transcontinental’s president and chief executive officer François Olivier. (See Picture) “After operating the paper business for almost 18 months, we concluded that it is less core to our packaging sector’s growth strategy
“As such, our decision to sell these assets is aligned with our plan to continue building our flexible packaging platform, where we see good growth potential.”
Adds Olivier: This transaction will enable us to deleverage our balance sheet faster than expected and give us the flexibility to continue acquiring businesses that are more complementary to our existing flexible packaging portfolio.”
Operating as a wholly-owned subsidiary of Hood Company Inc. of Madison, Miss., Hood Packaging now operates 23 manufacturing facilities in 16 states and provinces across North America, including its Canadian headquarters in Burlington, Ont.
Employing about 2,350 people, the company makes plastic film and bags, woven PP bags, coated and laminated materials, and paper packaging to serve a broad range of industries that includes cement, grout and mortar; bakery and flour, dairy, foodservice, frozen food, animal feed, lawn-and-garden, insulation, and shingle and roofing.
FRENCH FRIES GIANT ANNOUNCED $80-MILLION UPGRADE TO ITS GRAND FALLS POTATO PROCESSING OPERATIONS
The world’s biggest producer of frozen French fries McCain Foods (Canada) is planning to make its Canadian footprint bigger still with an $80-million expansion of its potato processing facility in Grand Falls, N.B. According to the Florenceville, N.B.-headquartered company, the bulk of that capital investment has been earmarked for installation of a new highly automated ‘Formed Potato Specialty’ production line featuring as state-of-the-art food safety, processing and packaging equipment.
“Investing in the Grand Falls facility is a testament to the many successful partnerships McCain values with our local potato growers, employees and communities,” says McCain Foods Canada president Danielle Barran.”
Expected to be operational by early 2021, the new line will add an estimated 80 new full-time jobs to the facility, according to McCain, while generating significant local economic spinoffs.
“Based on the Grand Falls facility expansion, there will be demand for an additional 1,200 hectares (3,000 acres) of harvested potatoes by New Brunswick potato growers to supply the new high-speed Formed Potato Specialty line,” says Dale McCarthy, vice-president of Integrated Supply Chain for McCain Foods North America
ICONIC CEREAL MAKER AIMS TO CRACK THE SNACKING SEGMENT
In what may well be one the most overdue or belated market launches of all time, iconic breakfast cereal producer Kellogg Company has finally brought its venerable Cheez-It brand of cheese-flavored crackers to Canada last month— nearly 100 years after the brand was originally launched in the U.S.
Considering that the average Canadian consumes an estimated 35 pound of cheese per year, the sudden launch of the cheesy bite-sized crackers—made with real cheese—is expected to fill a market niche that has been hiding in plain sight for an extraordinary length of time.
Now available in Canadian grocery stores, convenience stores and gas stations, the CheezIt brand is currently offered in Canada in two formats and four flavors, including:
• Cheez-It Crackers. Available in Original and Hot & Spicy varieties, these bite-sized snack crackers deliver an iconic ‘Big Cheese’ flavor, according to Kellogg, with their distinct shape with ridged edges making it “hip to be square.”
• Cheez-It Crunch Crackers. Available in Sharp White Cheddar and Zesty Cheddar Ranch flavors, these rippled, chip-like textured snack crackers offer bold flavors with a satisfying crunch.
“Based on initial consumer response, we know Canadians have been waiting a long time for this day, and we’re thrilled to finally bring Cheez-It’s uniquely craveable snack experience to the True North,” says Christine Jakovcic, vice-president of marketing and nutrition at Kellogg Canada Inc. in Mississauga, Ont.
“For Cheez-It fans, their unwavering devotion is rooted in an obsession with real cheese,” Jakovcic adds, “and we couldn’t agree more.
“We believe that real cheese matters, and that’s why it’s baked right into every bite for a flaky, crunchy satisfaction that you have to taste to believe.
“Your snack bowl will never be the same,” says Jakovcic, citing the brand’s cult-like following in Canada among “enlightened Canadian snack connoisseurs” and its status as one of the most popular food brands purchased by Canadian cross-border shoppers.
Packaged in bright-red folding cartons adorned with vibrant product photography and lively graphics designed by Anthem Canada, Toronto-based branch of global branding services provider Anthem of New York City, the Cheeze-It snacks are expected to gain a strong foothold in Canada’s estimated $2.3-billion combined category for salty snacks and crackers, according to Kelloggs Canada.
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NOTES & QUOTES
nAfter months of speculation, packaging machinery manufacturing giant formerly known as Bosch Packaging Technology has formally changed its corporate name to Syntegon Technology last month as part of realignment prompted by the company’s sale to Luxembourg-based private equity group by CVC Capital Partners in July of 2019. Headquartered in Wilblingen, Germany, Syntegon Technology says it will continue to focus on the development of intelligent and on intelligent and sustainable technologies for the pharmaceutical and food industries, while extending its range of services. Employing 6,100 people at more than 30 locations worldwide, Syntegon Technologies posted sales of nearly $1.9 billion in 2019. According to the renamed company, rebranding itself under the Syntegon moniker was intended to project the company’s focus on synergy, technology and the future, with the green corporate logo underscoring the importance of sustainability and health. Structured as an independently operating enterprise, with its own IT and Purchasing departments, the company will be guided by its progressive corporate vision of “Processing and packaging technology for a better life,” according to chief executive officer Stefan König. “We are building on 150 years of experience and the 64,000 machines deployed by our customers, and pursuing new avenues of business,” König states. “More than ever before, we are working on intelligent and sustainable technologies and embracing the collaboration with our business partners in the true spirit of partner
nRigid packaging products group TricorBraun of St. Louis, Mo., has announced its 2019 Supplier Partner Awards at the company’s 2020 annual sales meeting and supplier showcase last month. Voted by all individual TricarBraun team members, the Supplier of the Year Awards selection is based on multiple criteria comprising sales representative accessibility; responsiveness and flexibility; total cost competitiveness; customer service support; innovation; and proactiveness involving new packaging, processes, channels of supply and communication. This year’s winners include:
• Altira, Inc., Domestic Plastic Supplier of the Year;
• Boda, International Plastic Supplier of the Year;
• Saudi Arabian Glass Co. Ltd, Glass Supplier of the Year;
• CKS Packaging, Inc., Commitment to Excellence in Quality;
• Fast Plastics Parts/PSG Inc., Development Partner;
• Currier Plastics, Development Partner;
• Kutterer Mauer, Development Partner.
“Our supplier partners are essential to helping us meet our customers’ needs, so it’s important that we recognize the best of the best and celebrate our joint suc-
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cess,” says TricorBraun’s chief operations officer Mark O’Bryan. “Together, we create opportunities to grow our businesses while delivering world-class packaging solutions.”
nSchaumburg, Ill.-headquartered printing inks and coatings manufacturer INX International Ink Co. has reached a definitive agreement to acquire the assets of RUCO Druckfarben, leading German producer of industrial inks based in Eppstein. Founded in 1857, RUCO Druckfarben currently employs about 150 people, including sales representative in more than 170 countries. “RUCO is an established and recognized ink supplier with considerable market experience and technical knowledge,” says Peter Lockley, president of INX Europe. “Together with our global reach, product development and raw material sourcing capabilities, the new company will work to strengthen INX’s presence in Europe.” According to INX, the transaction is expected to be formally concluded by the end of the first half of 2020, pending the required regulatory approvals.
nKey Technology, Inc., Walla Walla, Wash.-based manufacturer of digital sorting, inspection, conveying and other processing equipment for the food industry, has completed the acquisition of Herbert Solutions to enhance its portfolio of potato and vegetable equipment solutions. Headquartered in Eindhoven, The Netherlands, Herbert has established itself as a leader in serving the root crop and fresh produce markets with an assortment of industry leading sorting, washing and handling solutions. “The combination of Herbert’s expertise in handling and sorting whole products and Key’s strong presence in processed potato and vegetable solutions creates a complimentary fit between our two companies,” says Key Technology vice-president Louis Vintro. “It will enable us to offer an even broader set of integrated solutions that will benefit our customers’ product quality, production efficiency and overall yield.”
St. Louis, Mo.-headquartered rigid packaging product group TricorBraun has completed the acquisition of Packaging Solutions, Inc. (PSI), Minneapolis, Minn.-based distributor of rigid packaging products and solutions for the pharmaceutical, pet food and personal care markets. “Our acquisition of PSI strengthens our Minneapolis presence as we continue to grow across North America,” says TricorBraun president and chief executive officer Court Carruthers. “We look forward to serving our customers in this region with exceptional products and services, and we welcome PSI to the TricorBraun family.”
The new Syntegon flags in front of the company ‘s expanded global headquarters in Waiblingen, Germany.
From Left: TricorBraun chief operations officer Mark O’Bryan; Altira quality assurance manager Benita Pinkney; Altira sales and marketing manager Romano Arango; Court Carruthers, TricorBraun president and chief executive officer.
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FIRST GLANCE
GOING MOBILE
Capable of moving payloads of up to 250-kg, the new LD250 mobile robot from Omron Automation Americas features a sturdy structure that enables it to move big, heavy and bulky items—such as stacks of voluminous packaging materials—eliminating the need for manual labor to transport big loads from place to place within manufacturing plants by human-operated carts. Avoiding people and obstacles while calculating the routes to transport material, the robot’s powerful Fleet Manager operating system enables manufacturers to construct a truly flexible and optimized autonomous material transport system, according to Omron, as Fleet Manager facilitates the control of multiple mobile robots with different payloads through a single system that can manage traffic, battery charging requirements, and vehicle navigation for a diverse fleet of up to 100 robots. Highly customizable with special conveyor tops, courier systems and adaptive material handling mechanics, the LD-250 robot also incorporates several advanced Omron technologies to improve performance, such as the High Accuracy Positioning System (HAPS), side lasers, and the Acuity vision localization technology.
Omron Automation Americas
DOWN THE STRETCH
Designed to minimize film consumption in busy stretchwrapping applications, the new S-Carriage pre-stretch system from Orion Packaging is designed to deliver 260-percent pre-stretch, according to the company, and can be easily adjusted for higher or lower pre-stretch as load requirements vary. Delivering 180 degrees of film to roller contact—thereby reducing slippage and neckdown for improved film coverage and yield—the system’s efficient S pattern of film travel over carriage rollers is well-suited to accommodate all types of cling films, even one-sided films, as the sticky side remains against the load for improved holding power. Moreover, the automated Insta-Thread and Insta-Cut features incorporated into the carriage design help reduce film handling for additional labor savings, improved throughput, and lower risk of worker injury.
Orion Packaging (Div. of ProMach)
TAKE IT TO THE MAX!
Capable of printing on non-porous surfaces, the new solvent-based CoPilot Max printing system Squid Ink Manufacturing, Inc. is designed to
offer a highly versatile and cost-effective solution for a variety of product coding and marking applications. With up to 2.8-inch print height per printhead and the ability to run up to two printheads from one controller, CoPilot Max utilizes Squid Ink’s innovative active ink system that allows users the ability to raise, lower, tilt or rotate the printhead without making height adjustments to the ink supply, while printing high-resolution characters, razor-sharp text, scannable barcodes, and great-looking logos at up to 360- dpi (dots per inch) resolution. Featuring a full-color touchscreen that allows users access to the system’s internal messages and print functions, CoPilot Max incorporates features a large 500- ml no-mess snap-in cartridge to allow users to swap ink cartridges in a matter of seconds. With capability to run solvent-based inks, the updated CoPilot Max printer can print on coated corrugate, polystyrene, films many other non-porous surfaces to help users reduce their reliance on expensive labels by printing directly onto glossy cartons, cases, trays or other non-porous substrates.
Orion Packaging (Div. of Engage Technologies Corp.)
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FIRST GLANCE
BLISTERING PACE
Designed for pharmaceutical packaging development, fast prototyping and small-scale production, the new EAGLEOmni blister machine from Maruho Hatsujyo Innovations (MHI) is a highly versatile module that performs forming, sealing and punching operations at sequential stations. Capable of producing up to 20 blisters per minute and is suitable for packaging solids, powders, liquids
or devices, the compact machine handles a wide range of forming materials—including PVC, PVDC, ACLAR, PP, PET and ALU—and all typical lidding substrates, including ALU, paper, PVC, PET and laminates. Capable of everything from manual prototyping to fully automated operation, the machine’s optional 40-mm forming depth makes it ideal for nutritional products larger than traditional tablets or capsules—such as gummies, devices and other delivery formats—while enabling seamless development and production combined with rapid low-cost prototyping, enhanced with recipe-driven format change, easy changeover, and various feeding options.
Maruho Hatsujyo Innovations (MHI)
PATTY PARTY
Designed specifically for the marketing of patty-shaped meat or plantbased protein products, the new line of processor-grade polystyrene (PS) trays from Dolco Packaging offer an attractive alternative to the supermarket-grade, standard-sized rectangular trays that often let the product slide around inside—resulting in unattractive presentation and misshapen product. Calimed to be ideal the packaging of readyto-cook premium products and blends—ground beef, poultry, specialty meats, salmon, crab cakes, portobello mushrooms, etc.—that typically have a higher price point than bulk ground, the new patty trays are available in two-, four or five-cell options. While the fourcell trays are offered in two different depth options to accommodate retailer preferences, the two- and five-cell trays feature raised channels on the bottom that the patty sits on. Available in both white and black, Dolco’s thicker processorgrade PS patty trays are said to be up to 30 per cent stronger than its thinner supermarket-grade alternatives, while the square shape of the four-cell tray requires less film to overwrap and takes up less space in the case than the standard rectangular trays.
Dolco Packaging
Designed to capture the static weight of products or packages as they move down a conveyor line, the new Roller Conveyor Scale from Fairbanks Scales Inc. can weighs products ranging from 0.2 to 250 pounds and accommodate objects sized from 32 to 36 inches. Seamlessly integrating into most existing conveyor systems, it provides a
CARRY THAT WEIGHT
cost-effective solution for capturing shipping weights, missing parts inspection, over/under checkweighing, common carrier chargeback protection or manufacturing. The complete Roller Conveyor Scale system features the frame (of typical floor conveyor height) with rails, rollers, an integrated scale, an integrated five-digit weight display, a 36x55-inch weighing platform, and integrated instrumentation. Easily customized to fit unique application needs, the system is shipped fully-assembled for instant plugand-play functionality, according to the company, to help material handlers, manufacturers, and distribution centers speed production and increase operational efficiencies in economical manner.
Fairbanks Scales Inc.
HOT OFF THE PRESS
The new Evo XC Compact CI flexo press from Koenig & Bauer Flexotecnica is a compact eightcolor printing press offering robust printing speed of up to 400 meters per minute and exceptionally fast changeovers. Featuring clean and minimalist design to suit flexible packaging printers looking for a space-saving solution, the smallsized, energy-efficient machine can print water-based inks on both paper and plastic films, with its intelligent HMI (human-machine interface) with a 24-inch touchscreen facilitateing user-friendly operation with intuitive job data input and control of the press functions. The system’s proprietary PrintTronic automatic impression settings help ensure automatic control of print impression positions with minimal material waste, while its innovative doctor blade chamber facilitates automatic adjustments for outstanding print quality and fast and accurate changeovers. Other outstanding features include the integrated DryTronic inter-color drying system for efficient heat transfer to the web and homogenous drying, as well as the highly efficient WashTronic system for optimizing the inking supply and allowing the ink to be changed more quickly.
Koenig & Bauer Flexotecnica
BACK IN BLACK
FIRST GLANCE
Linx Printing Technologies Ltd. has introduced a new black retort ink specially formulated to resist moisture, color change and transference—making it ideal for consistent coding through pouch and can retort applications where the contents are cooked in the packaging after they are coded. Developed for use on the company’s leading Linx 8900 and 8800 Series continuous ink jet (CIJ) coders, the special formulation of Linx Black retort ink 1077 enables the printers to code through a thin layer of oily film or grease, while also being used for a wide range of materials ranging from metal cans and formed aluminum to plastic packaging. Designed for use in in typical sterilization and wet retort process conditions, the specialty ink contains proprietary components that enhance its adhesion under moist and high-temperature conditions to deliver good adhesion and transfer resistance, along with superior durability and legibility on a range of materials after processing.
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CLUTCHING AT STRAWS TO MAKE REAL GREEN IMPACT
As the global public backlash against disposable plastic drinking straws continues to build up steam, progressive companies like Finnish-based firms Sulapac and Stora Enso are pooling their resources and flair for innovation to come up with credible sustainable alternatives.
Rolled out in limited quantities last month, the new patent-pending, microplastic-free straws have already been adopted for use at the Finnair airline’s customer lounges in Helsinki, along with other Finnish companies including the Altia alcoholic beverage brand, Hotel St. George and vegan café Kippo, among others.
Available online at www.biofutura.com and www.verkkokauppa.com , the fully renewable straws work just like their traditional plastic counterparts, according to Sulapac’s chief executive officer Suvi Haimi, and are designed to be fully biodegradable in different environments.
“Our first customers represent different business sectors,” Haimi point out, “but they all have one common interest: to be in the forefront of sustainability.
“There’s clearly a large demand for our product that both fulfills the sustainability criteria and has superior usability,” says Haimi, noting that the straws main components are made from renewable materials such as wood and plant-based binders.
“Like all Sulapac materials, the straw is 100-percent microplastic-free,” Haimi states. “It is designed to mimic nature, so that if the straw accidentally ends up in the ocean, it acts like a birch leaf and does not harm the ecosystem.”
According to Haimi, the new straws—produced on the same machinery used to make conventional plastic straws— comply with most existing waste recycling systems and industrial composting facilities.
“Billions of plastic straws are produced and used every week, creating
harmful waste that often end up in the sea,” says Marcus Dehlin, head of business alliances with Stora Enso, which is Europe’s second-largest forest products company by net sales.
“The renewable and biodegradable material used to make these straws can replace fossil-based materials and help combat plastic waste.
“Our cooperation with Sulapac allows us to explore new types of innovative and scalable materials and widen our offering of renewable solutions”, says Dehlin, adding the new straws will be introduced across Europe throughout this year, to be followed by a global rollout.
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Like all wood fiber-based Sulapac materials, the straw is 100-percent microplastic-free.
POSITIVE PLASTIC THINKING
Montreal food trays manufacturer setting new standards for environmental footprint reduction with an integrated approach to plastic waste recovery and recycling
BY GEORGE GUIDONI, EDITOR
Even the best-meaning business plans are ultimately only as good as their execution, which is often determined by the extent of the company’s commitment, ambition, scope and sheer will to succeed.
In this light, globally operating plastic films manufacturer Klöckner Pentaplast (kp) is charging ahead to change those global consumers’ general mistrust of all manner of plastic packaging into a more positive recognition of plastics as a vital part of a solution to the world’s environmental crisis rather than its source, as the current narrative in the CPG (consumer packaged goods) industries would have the public believe.
As one of the world’s largest producers of rigid plastic solutions for pharmaceutical and food packaging applications, the London-headquartered company—owned by U.S. private equity firm Strategic Value Partners, LLC—is well aware of the obligations that all industry leaders are expected to bear in the markets they serve.
And as most industry-leading trailblazers keep discovering time after time, there is no substitute for leading by example.
For kp, which operates 61 locations—including 35 production sites—in 18 countries around the world, the company’s formal vision of ‘The Sustainable Protection of Everyday Needs’ is a core principle guiding its ambitious and comprehensive approach to significantly lessening the carbon footprint of the global plastic packaging.
As such, this precept is based on reasserting the value of plastic materials an integral part of the emerging Circular Economy model stressing the importance of designing products for a useful after-life long after the original packaged products have been consumed.
As part of this proactive approach to plastic waste reduction, kp’s Canadian subsidiary in Montreal offers a compelling example of its company’s deep-rooted commitment to plastic waste reduction.
Acquired as part of the group in 2004, the former Les Plastiques Petco facility on the city’s eastern outskirts has recently undergone nearly $20 million in various
PHOTOS BY PIERRE LONGTIN
Marco Mercier, Operations Manager, Klöckner Pentaplast of Canada Inc.
Isabelle Mathieu, Process Engineer, Klöckner Pentaplast of Canada, Inc.
Mark Gonyar, Director of Business Development, Food Packaging, Klöckner Pentaplast
capital investments and expansion, positioning the site as the company’s primary producer of PCR PET (post-consumer recycled polyethylene terephthalate) used as raw material in the manufacture of food trays for MAP (modified atmosphere packaging) and VSP (vacuum-skin packaging) meat industry applications for the North American market.
Mark Gonyar, director of business development with kp’s Food Packaging division, says the Montreal operation gained significant strategic importance for the company in the wake of its landmark 2017 acquisition of U.K.-based competitor LINPAC Packaging Group, which opened up vast new markets in the global fresh meat and produce markets.
The Canadian plant focuses exclusively on the production of PET plastic film and trays with 25-, 50- and 100-percent PCR content. The vertically-integrated operation has the capacity to process 23 kilotons of PCR PET per year, according to operations manager Marco Mercier, using recovered PET containers collected at municipal recycling facilities throughout Quebec and eastern Canada.
“This site is very unique for kp globally in that we are the only site to be processing our own PCR plastic bales and washing the flakes from the very beginning
of the process,” says Gonyar, “which ultimately gives us full control to ensure the quality and the cost of the final product.”
“Most PET extrusion factories around the world do not have capabilities to do their own flake washing,” Gonyar told Canadian Packaging on a recent visit to the 100,000-square-foot facility housing a brand new extruder line, a state-of-the-art optical sorting system, high-performance thermoforming machinery, and a broad array of material handling and production equipment moved in from the original Petco manufacturing location in Montreal’s Anjou suburb.
Employing about 100 people, the vertically-integrated site runs flat-out on a 24/7 schedule throughout the year to keep up with growing market demand for PCR-content trays in the fresh protein markets, Gonyar relates.
“This is the model that we hope to replicate at some of our facilities around the world in the future,” says Gonyar, noting the Montreal plant is one of only two food packaging plants currently operated by kp in North America, with the other five U.S. production plants focusing on pharmaceutical and medical device industries.
Says Gonyar: “The acquisition of LINPAC basically doubled the size of the company, whereby the healthcare division and food division are now both $1-billion
A sampling of some of the 30 different innovative molded plastic trays produced at kp’s Montreal food packaging production facility and marketed across North America under the Evolve, Evolve S and Elite brand names.
Director of business development Mark Gonyar explaining the advanced vertically-integrated process used by the Montreal to produce monolayer plastic meat trays for fresh protein packaging applications with high PCR PET content.
A roll of freshly made plastic sheet is being readied for transfer to the plant’s high-performance thermoforming machinery used to convert the extruded PET sheet into individual monolayer plastic meat containers.
The Montreal plant’s process engineer Isabelle Mathieu explaining the process of separating different grades and color of PET flakes before they are melted into new plastic sheets and converted into food-ready meat trays containing high levels of PCR PET content.
businesses, but it also took us one step further in the value chain to retailers and brand-owners as our direct customers.
Whereas in the past kp served food industries indirectly by producing thermoformed plastic sheets that would then be cut to size by other converters, the company now manufactures finished food trays directly for its fast-growing list of food processing customers.
“Given the many synergies between the types of materials that kp and LINPAC were manufacturing and the markets we were targeting, we had a really good opportunity to expand our Montreal operation,” he says, “and to introduce some exciting new product lines to the market.”
According to Gonyar, the Montreal facility currently produces nearly 30 different standard tray designs to suit a broad range of MAP and VSP applications, while offering a host of environmental and performance benefits.
“We can produce 100-percent PCR content trays that do not require application of special barriers to achieve the necessary shelf-life for fresh meat products,” Gonyar points out.
“Our trays also incorporate special built-in sealing technology to enable better and faster sealing on the packaging lines, along with superior burst strength.”
Says Gonyar: “There is a very unique value proposition to the technology we are bringing to fresh-protein markets that go beyond being sustainable.
“There are also many functional and performance benefits that our trays offer for packaging products like ground turkey and beef, plant-based patties, burgers, steaks, chicken, and many other types of fresh protein,” he states.
“Our food trays are designed to offer our customers a highly differentiated, highquality, premium packaging solution that is the result of all the many steps we take to remove as many potential contaminants as possible from our incoming PCR PET bales prior to the extrusion process.”
As the plant’s process engineer Isabelle Mathieu relates, “The first step is to separate green PET materials from clear materials, followed by separating all the labels, caps and other colored plastics that can’t be processed with clear PET.”
According to Mathieu, a typical 500-kilogram bale of recovered PET waste may contain a high number of potential contaminants such as paper, wood, ferrous and nonferrous metals, and other non-compatible polymers that must be removed from the incoming bales.
“It is always a challenge to find the right balance in removing as much contamination as possible without losing too much yield,” says Mathieu.
“After shredding the raw materials into flake form, it is thoroughly hot-washed with systems to remove the glue and any other debris,” Mathieu says, “until we get the pure clear PET flakes that can safely go into the extruder.”
The brand new extrusion line at the Montreal facility offers “The best available extrusion technology for PET recycling in the world,” Gonyar extols.
“It combines the accumulated process knowledge of our European operations with the vast expertise of various extrusion machinery manufacturers we have worked with over the years in one fully integrated system that performs with exceptional precision.”
While the supply of PCR PET feedstock is currently not an issue for the Montreal facility, especially since the recent closing of the Chinese market for recycle plastic waste, there is a gaping knowledge void in the consumer marketplace about the merits of plastic recycling, according to Joan Fowler, kp’s marketing communications manager for the Americas region.
“Not only do our trays provide the recycled content that our customers increasingly demand today,” says Fowler, “but they are also recyclable, due to their monolayer construction.
“That is what makes them a perfect fit as we drive for a Circular Economy,” says Fowler, citing the company’s widely lauded Positive Plastics Pledge, which is kp’s formal commitment to environmental excellence that includes using only recyclable and sustainably sourced materials at all its global operations over the next
Machine operator guiding the continuous roll of molded plastic trays emerging from the highspeed thermoforming machine on to the converting machinery to be cut into individual trays and stacked into neat rows of nested trays ready for packing and shipping.
To help ensure optimal product safety downstream of the value chain, the Montreal facility uses the Loma IQ4 conveyorized metal detection system to detect any ferrous and nonferrous metal particles that may have made their way into the finished meat trays.
A close-up of some of the proprietary molds used in the manufacturing of plastic food trays at kp’s Montreal facility, which runs an around-the-clock production schedule to process up to 23 kilotons of PCR PET plastic annually.
decade.
Released a little over a year ago, the four-pillar plan focuses on the company’s quest to:
• Innovate, by doing more with less, reducing the weight of its packaging, and using up to 100-percent recycled content where possible;
• Accelerate, by only using materials that are practically recyclable or sustainably sourced, while simplifying its polymer and material mix to ease recycling;
• Educate, by highlighting the benefits of plastic during and after use to consumers and communities, with emphasis on the value of plastic waste as a resource;
• Activate, by helping to close the loop on plastics through various initiatives “that will transform collection and recycling infrastructure around the world.”
According to kp’s sustainability director Lubna Edwards, “We have long recognized the benefits when it comes to the life-cycle of plastics due to its many sustainable features and benefits, and we believe a transformational shift is required in the way this material is managed by the industry, by consumers and by society in general.
“We have big ideas about reducing littering, ensuring that used plastic is sepa-
rated as a valuable raw material, taking into account the carbon impacts of packaged products.
“We stay true to our purpose in the sustainable protection of everyday products,, including food protection, while helping to prevent food waste through the use of our packaging,” Edwards states.
As Gonyar points out, “We are collectively presented with a global challenge to come up with effective solutions quickly to reduce the amount of plastic that enters into our marine and land environment.
“It’s not even a landfill question: it’s the fact that it leaks into the waterways, washes up on the beaches, or gets littered on the side of the road, making it such a visible ‘culprit.’ It has become a victim of its own success.
“It’s really a consumer engagement issue,” he says, “but the industry and governments must also play a role by making plastic recycling more accessible.
“For example, plastic food trays are not widely collected for recycling in parts of the world, but we are constantly working on collection and sorting infrastructure, and recycling solutions with global partners, enabling an improved supply chain of recycled polymers to make our food trays that are also recyclable, creating a true closed loop.”
While the current state of the recycling of plastic food and beverage containers needs major improvement due to the use extensive use of multicolored or multilayer bottles that must be separated from the PET recycling streams, Gonyar says he remains optimistic that the industry will ultimately arrive at a workable, sustainable solution that will satisfy all the key Circular Economy requirements.
“The whole value chain has to play a role in the Circular Economy, from resin producers to consumers, manufacturers, retailers, packers and every other affected stakeholder including regional and local governments,” he proclaims.
“For all of their unique benefits, plastics have received a bad reputation,” he says, “but the industry’s ability to recycle its waste really comes down to an infrastructure problem rather than a capability problem.”
Fowler adds: “The last thing we want is our products, which help prevent food waste, to end up in the ocean or washed up on the beach.
“We want to get them back so we can reuse them again, to keep protecting valuable food products, pharmaceuticals and all that other good stuff everyday consumers need and demand, which is why plastic packaging became such a big innovation to begin with. It really is a miraculous material!
“A world without plastic packaging is not really a realistic or sustainable solution for our modern consumer-driven society,” Fowler concludes, “which is why kp will do everything it can to help make genuine sustainable plastic packaging through more innovative design and vastly improved recycling capabilities.”
Director of business development Mark Gonyar explaining the Montreal plant’s unique verticallyintegrated production process used to drive the facility’s high efficiency and productivity levels.
Rows of nested stacks of thermoformed plastic trays being forwarded along a sanitary conveyor towards the end-of-the-line packaging area to be boxed and readied for shipment to customers.
One of several flake-washing stations deployed at the Montreal facility to help ensure optimal removal of contaminants from the plant’s PET recycling stream to ensure proper product purity, consistency and performance.
FILLING IN THE BLANKS
High-end automation components help liquid filling machinery manufacturer reinforce its innovator credentials in the booming cannabis markets
BY GEORGE GUIDONI, EDITOR PHOTOS BY NAOMI HILTZ
No one can deny these days that the world without machines and technology would be a far less comfortable and hospitable place for the vast majority of us—at home, at work, and virtually everywhere else in between.
But simply taking machines for granted as a perk of modern life is a world away from the considerable intellectual, emotional and capital investment that machinebuilders undertake daily in their quest to building better, faster and more efficient mousetraps to keep the wheels of industry moving forward.
Considering the great extent to which automation has transformed virtually all key CPG (consumer packaged goods) industries over the last few decades, it is often finding the right industry to put your machines to use that has become of OEMs’ (original equipment manufactures’) biggest nuts to crack these days.
Happily for Mike Lio, founder and president of ATG Pharma Inc. in Oakville, Ont., that part of the puzzle has been largely resolved with the recent legalization of recreational and medicinal cannabis across Canada and large swaths of the U.S.— opening up lucrative opportunities in a burgeoning industry that is still very much in its infancy in terms of technological know-how and sophistication.
With over 20 years of work experience operating high-speed production lines at some of the biggest pharmaceutical production facilities in Canada, Lio’s natural thirst for knowledge and keen entrepreneurial instincts have enabled him to grow his company from a fairly ordinary provide of equipment validation and supply company for the pharmaceutical industry to into a thriving supplier of smaller-sided, benchtop pharmaceutical liquid filling and dispensing equipment to help upstart cannabis producers automate the filling of their cannabis oils, extracts, tinctures and other liquids and gels used in mainstream cannabis CBD and THC products.
Building his very first machine prototype in his home garage in 2015, Lio wasted
From Left: ATG Pharma founder and president Mike Leo, vice-president of business development and sales Chris Sharanewych, and director of operations Devon Lio strike a happy pose.
little time in taking his home project out in the real world—determined to produce small-scale, economical filling solutions tailored to the needs of niche pharmaceutical and nutraceutical innovators for whom investing into a state-of-the-art, multimillion-dollar piece of equipment is simply economically unfeasible at their current stage of growth and evolution.
Soon after selling his very first machine to a company in Thailand, Lio proceeded to move his fledgling business into a small machine shop in nearby Burlington to commence full-time production of entry-level filling machines marketed under the ML-1 brand name—soon after expanding this manual offering to the more automated RoboCAP RL-200 and RoboCAP RL-300 series brand names.
“These machines have done very well for us in those early years,” says Lio, “providing enough working capital to keep the business afloat and growing.”
As Lio explains, both RoboCAP machine series incorporate a basic Cartesian three–axis robot to perform the filling of empty capsules, vials, cartridges, syringes bottles and other types of small containers placed inside die-cut polystyrene foam trays at speeds ranging from 4,500 to 10,000 containers per hour, depending on the type of the vessel and the dosing size.
The main difference between the two models essentially comes down to the size of the work area envelope, with the RoboCAP RL-300 machines offering 300-square-millimeter working surface area, compared to 150 square millimeters for the more rudimentary RoboCAP RL-200 machine.
“These machines offer up to 200 programs to enable users to perform all of their basic filling functions,” Mio says. “It’s a great system for starting up, but there is not much you can do to overcome the machines’ physical boundaries and structures.
“And with us using mostly off-the-shelf components for these machines that virtually anyone else can buy, many of our competitors started copying our system designs and marketing them as their own innovations,” Mio reflects.
To overcome this unwanted imitation, Mio decided to develop a new-generation, fully-automatic liquid filling machine that would provide users the new levels and operational flexibility, versatility and process control capabilities that would still offer an attractive price-point for many startup ventures in the cannabis markets.
“Basically, we wanted to develop a 100-percent
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Supplied by Schneider Electric, the Magelis SCU HMI (human-machine interface) touchscreen terminal facilitates userfriendly operation of the Hummingbird liquid filling machine.
Featuring several high-performance automation components supplied by Schneider Electric, the new Hummingbird liquid filling machine developed by ATG Pharma offers a fully-automatic, high-speed solution for the precise filling of various styles and sizes of liquid containers commonly used in the pharmaceutical and other industries.
A close-up of the Schneider Electric LMDCA573 motor incorporated into the into the Lexum M inegrated linear drive package to ensure precise motion control and optimal throughput of the new Humminbird series liquid filling machine recnlty developed by ATG Pharma of Oakville, Ont.
Schneider Electric applications design expert Dhruv Bhatt explaining the role of Schneider Electric’s automation solution.
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made-in-Canada system, but that would also give us the ability to control and customize the design of our equipment,” Mio says.
To do that, the company has recently invested nearly $700,000 in various production and fabrication machinery during the last year, overseeing the installation of a brand new AXYZ CNC router; a five-axis HAAS vertical milling center; an SK 450 automated saw/cutter built by Turkish company YILMAZ, and a Trlsibe 4010 ATC (automatic tool changer), among others.
Says Mio, “Striving to be an innovator and to stay ahead of the competition, we could only do that by incurring some senior investment costs in our machine shop in order to do all our milling in-house.
“It was important for us to become self-sufficient in all aspects of our machine-building in order to be able to provide our customers with custom-designed solutions to fit their needs,” says Mio, recalling the intense work and effort that went into designing and building the company’s first new Hummingbird series machine prototype.
“It’s a complete automation solution that will replace our RoboCAP 300 series filling machines,” Mio states, quickly complimenting some of the key Schneider Electric automation components and devices that were incorporated into the Hummingbird machine design.
“What we’re trying to do with the Hummingbird is to design a modular automated system that can go into the smaller mom-and-pop companies and, as their production grows, help repurpose those systems or even have it integrated into larger production lines,” Mio explains.
“However, you need your machine to have solid automation fundamentals to be able to that, Mio says, which is how and why ATG Pharma decided to hook up with the nearby office of industrial automation experts Schneider Electric in Mississauga, Ont.
“Because we were still limited in our knowledge of a lot of automation technology that’s out there,” Mio relates, “we really needed to partner up with a company that was an acknowledged expert in its field, to make Hummingbird the flexible machine we wanted it to be in terms of being able to change the container heights, the work area and all the other operational parameters with minimal changeover time.”
Working closely with Schneider Electric’s application design expert Dhruv Bhatt, ATG Pharma’s design team was able to pick out the best high-performance automation solution and other essential components that Schneider Electric has to offer, most notably:
* The Magelis SCU HMI (human-machine interface) controller, designed for small machine and simple process control applications, while offering up to 30-percent savings in installation and ownership costs, compared to a stand-alone PLC (programmable logic controllers) device.
Featuring state-of-the art display and enhanced communication capabilities and crystal-clear readability, the Magelis SCU HMI comes with single-software SoMachine suite to facilitate easy machine maintenance and upgrades, according to Schneider Electric.
* A Lexium M drive integrated stepper with linear actuator package containing 1.8° two-phase stepper motors with onboard drive electronics, and a controller with up to eight I/O connections.
According to Schneider Electric, the high degree of integrations of these components can greatly reduce machine complexity, size and cost in many stepper
ATG Pharma founder and president Mike Lio engaged in lively conversation with the company’s vice-president of business development and sales Chris Sharanewych, who has helped the company dramatically increase its client base in both Canadian and the U.S. markets.
A close up of the plastic liuquid containers positioned in their precision-machined slots inside the high-impact polystyrene tray manufactured ATG Pharma in-house using the plant’s state-of-the-art automatic milling and sawing equipment.
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and servomotor applications, while delivering exceptional performance and smoothness with advanced current control, with feedback options including open-loop or closed-loop with a 1,000 line (4,000 counts/revolution) incremental or multi-turn absolute encoder.
As Bhatt relates, “We are proud to supply the Hummingbird machine with a complete solution from Schneider Electric that includes the PLC/HMI combo, sensors, integrated stepped motors with linear actuator, and all the essential electrical accessories.”
Mio agrees: “Dealing with a company like Schneider-Electric really helped us understand what’s out there in terms of the technology to enable a small company like ours to grow.
“There is a lot of knowledge and expertise that we don’t have, and partnering up with Schneider Electric, who sent in their people to work with our staff, has really enabled our guys to develop their automation competence levels.
“Once we had an idea what direction we wanted to go, Schneider Electric was brilliant in tying in all the technology around all the machine components and industrial control devices to help make the Hummingbird machine just as we originally envisioned it.”
In fact, Mio was so happy with the finished Hummingbird prototype machine that he had it shipped to the company’s exhibit at the recent MJBizCon marijuana business conference and cannabis export in Las Vegas last December as the star attraction.
Says Mio: “Having one machine that can do a multitude of different products under one system is quite revolutionary in the cannabis industry, which is still a bit of a Wild West in many respects.
“Most of our competitors have one system for processing one product, whereas we can do three, four or five different products like capsules tincture bottles, spray bottles, eyedropper bottles and so on.”
As Mio relates, he hopes the formal launch and commercialization of the Hummingbird system this year will continue to solidify the marketplace success already achieved by his company, which now employs 23 full-time personnel.
“We have already outgrown our current facility and are now looking for a bigger plant to build our machines, whether leased or owned outright,” he says, citing hundreds of ATG Pharma machine installations across Canada and beyond.
“We have gone from producing about machine per month a couple of years ago to shipping four to five machines per week nowadays,” he states, adding that the growing cannabis industry accounts for the lion’s share of those installations.
“I think that we’re now the Number One supplier of liquid filling machines in the Canadian cannabis market,” Mio states, saying the company is currently projected to hit a $10-million benchmark in annual sales with the next couple of years.
“Having decided a couple of years ago that the cannabis market would be our bread-andbetter industry, we are more determined than
ever to maintain our culture of innovation by looking ahead to where the market is going and to fulfill its emerging needs,” Mio states.
“We are finding out what that the cannabis market is becoming a lot more like a mainstream CPG industry, with a lot more creams, beverages and liquid food products that need to be packed in a greater variety of bottle
Please see ATG Pharma’s new Hummingbird automatic liquid filling system in action on Canadian Packaging TV at www.canadianpackaging.com
sizes and shapes,” he says, “and we are eager to seize on these new opportunities with our new Hummingbird machine range.
“And with the wonderful partnership we have developed with Schneider Electric,” he concludes, “we are confident of staying ahead of the game in terms of technology, customer service and continued innovation.”
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A close-up of pharmaceutical glass tubes being precision-filled on the first-ever Hummingbird liquid filling machine assembled by ATG Pharma and incorporating an advanced automation solution comprising state-of-the art automation components from Schneider Electric. ATG
THE STRAW POLL
Venerable Quebec juice producer happily testing the waters with paper drinking straws as part of far-reaching sustainability efforts
BY GEORGE GUIDONI, EDITOR
Drawing a short straw may not sound like a stroke of luck, but it just may be the missing link in ongoing efforts by leading beverage producers like Lassonde Industries Inc. to negate the environmental impact of single-use plastic drinking straws by taking plastic out of the equation.
As one of North America’s leading producers of ready-to-drink juices and fruit and vegetable beverages—marketed in Canada under the Oasis, Allen’s, Rougemont, Fruité and other familiar brand names—the Rougemont, Que.-headquartered company has long been one the industry’s forefront
The standard Tetra Pak 200-ml beverage carton used to package single-serve portions of the Oasis brand apple juice utilizes a plastic bendy straw (left) stands opposite the redesigned Tetra Pak drink box featuring a foil-lid opening on the side panel for insertion of a paper straw made from FSC-certified paperboard as part of a limited product launch by the brand-owner Lassonde Industries to test the new paper straw’s environmental and commercial viability.
pioneers in respect to sustainable packaging.
Having invested well over $20 million since 2013 to make its PET (polyethylene terephthalate) plastic containers more lightweight and recyclable, Lassonde is also a major end-user of the Tetra Pak range of aseptic beverage cartons, which are widely lauded for their recyclability, renewability and other environmental attributes.
Widely used for years to package Lassonde’s Oasis range of single-serve fruit juices, the 200-ml brickshaped drink cartons had become a popular mainstay at school lunch-boxes across Canada with their easy portability and convenience-enhanced with the inclusion of plastic bendy-type drinking straws attached to carton’s side panels.
Unfortunately, this convenience came with an
PACKAGE DESIGN
Claire Bara, Executive Vice-President & General Manager, Marketing, Revenue Management & Product Development, A. Lassonde Inc.
environmental cost in terms of additional plastic straw waste that, in some facilities, is hard to recover and recycle.
To address this shortcoming, Lassonde has recently embarked on a comprehensive strategy designed to eliminate all plastic straws from its packaging by 2025, starting with a pilot program aimed at market-testing the commercial feasibility of shorter new paper straws intended to replace them.
Launched in mid-November last year at 14 designated IGA grocery stores and 10 St-Hubert restaurants in and around the greater Montreal area, the 200-ml boxes of Oasis 1st Edition apple juice come with a shorter and stubbier 100-mm straw made entirely of FSC (Forest Stewardship Council)certified paper.
“In the past few months, we have committed to finding sustainable solutions for making our containers more eco-responsible [and] this initiative is a first step in that direction,” said Lassonde Industries president and chief operating officer Jean Gattuso.
According to Lassonde, this initiative aligns with the company’s vision of sustainable development and efforts to promote the emerging Circular Economy model of package design to enable the company to meet its targets of 100-percent recyclable packaging for all it’s products, along with at least 20-percent PCR (post-consumer recycled) content in its packaging by 2025.
Unlike the traditional 155-mm plastic straw it aims to replace, the new paper straw—slightly angled at the bottom tip for easy entry—is inserted through the carton’s tine foil opening from the side of the box rather than from the top of the carton.
“This represents the first commercial use of a paper straw in North America,” says Lassonde Industries general manager of marketing, revenue management and product development Claire Bara, noting the introduction of a new straw material and the repositioning of the foil lid off to the side of the box were more challenging than they first appear. (See Pictures)
“Because the straw opening has been moved to the side of the box, we had to make certain adjustments on the production line equipment, in addition to finding the right suppliers,” Bara told Canadian Packaging in a recent interview.
“Sometimes people don’t fully understand the impact of what looks like a very small change,” Bara says, “but it was a considerable effort that also involved a lot of market research testing leading up to the November launch.
“When we first started looking for a paper straw alternative, we found that there was no supplier in North America that had this sort of product,” says Bara.
“We needed a straw that would be efficiently applied on our existing equipment and would also be strong enough to last through the whole con-
sumer experience,” she states, crediting Tetra Pak for supplying the required straws.
To draw attention to the new straw, Lassonde also worked with its long-time packaging design partner Pigeon Brands Inc. to develop a new graphic design for the 200-ml box to emphasize the straw switch.
Featuring solid red colors and white typography clearly identifying the new packaging features, “This distinctive design clearly communicate to consumer what this product is about and what they are getting with this product,” Bara states.
“We wanted to make sure that consumers would understand that this is not your regular Tetra Pak juice box,” she says, “and Pigeon Brands has conveyed that message perfectly.”
Dispensing with the traditional product photography and illustrations, the Oasis 1st Edition design also features the familiar arrowed recycling logo and a callout to consumers to share their opinions about the new straw on the www.oasis.ca/straw web page.
According to Pigeon Brands national managing director Elyse Boulet, the Pigeon team utilized a creative strategic approach to develop compelling messaging that hit the mark, complimented by a sleek and modern graphic design.
“At Pigeon we take sustainability very seriously,” Boulet states. “While this is an iterative approach to design, each little step truly counts.
“We believe it’s better to start now than to wait for the perfect product, which is what we preach to our clients every day.
Renowned Canadian package design specialists Pigeon Brand Inc. worked with Lassonde to develop new package graphics for the Oasis 1st Edition drink boxes to draw consumer attention to the revolutionary new paper drinking straws attached to the Tetra Pak single-serve aseptic beverage cartons.
A pallet load of cartons of filled with the Oasis 1st edition apple juice cartons designed by Pigeon Brand creates an attractive high-impact ins-store display at an IGA supermarket in Quebec.
PACKAGE DESIGN
“This paper straw is a revolutionary idea, and we’re proud to have partnered with Lassonde and that it’s come from a Canadian company,” Boulet proclaims.
“We have got lot of reaction and feedback both on our website and in the social media already,” adds Bara, noting Lassonde is currently compiling and analysing the gathered information to determine what other improvements it can make to the 200-ml carton packaging.
“We don’t pretend that we have found the perfect solution,” Bara states, “but based on the terrific reception so far I think we are moving in the right direction.
“Consumers are excited by what we are doing, and even though some of the older consumers may at first seem puz-
zled by the opening being on the side, the younger ones seem to pick it up almost instinctively,” she says.
“Changing habits does not always happen automatically,” Bara says, “but the whole area of sustainability is all about changing our consumption habits for the greater good of the planet.”
“There is no perfect solution today, but we believe we’re doing the right thing by putting something new into the market, gather feedback, and go on to working on an improved version,” says Bara, citing healthy enthusiasm for the Oasis 1st edition launch by its partners IGA and St-Hubert.
“Our 14 participating IGA supermarkets in Quebec are proud to be the first to collaborate on this ground-breaking
Mike McCann. Application Specialist. Packaging Expert.
“I’m Mike McCann and I’m a member of Reiser’s team of Packaging Specialists. I work with customers to improve the packaging of their products. I’ll assist you every step of the way. With decades of experience, I’ll help you select the very best packaging solution for your product. Are you ready to produce the perfect package? Let me show you how.”
initiative,” says Luc L’Archevêque, IGA’s senior vice-president of merchandising and general manager for Quebec.
“Being able to offer our consumers a new product that will have a positive impact on our planet fits perfectly with our vision of sustainable development,” L’Archevêque adds.
“At IGA, we have put forward several environmentally-friendly initiatives, and our collaboration with Lassonde in this project allows us to continue to take concrete action to make a difference for our future generations.”
For the St-Hubert restaurant chain, which had actually stopped using plastic straws at all its stores back in August of 2018, the paper straw collaboration with Lassonde was a perfect match for the company’s own proactive sustainability mindset.
“Our chain of restaurants is delighted to participate in this market test that aligns with our environmental strategy,” says Richard Scofield, president of Rôtisseries St-Hubert
“St-Hubert has long been aware of the importance of eco-responsible processes,” Scofield point out, “and we hope such initiative will give the industry the incentive to adopt a similar approach.
“These green practices include our recyclable and compostable delivery boxes and packaging, the collection of residual materials in nearly 90 per cent of our establishments, and our fleet of electric delivery cars.”
For Bara, the exceptional internal teamwork that went into the project at Lassonde—involving key engineering, marketing and production personnel—was the proverbial icing on the cake.
“The level of collaboration displayed throughout this project was really remarkable,” she states.
“People really felt that they were working on a real breakthrough innovation, and they displayed a lot of positive energy throughout the project.
“This gives us great confidence going forward that we will meet all the key sustainability goals that we have set for ourselves.”
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Tetra Pak Pigeon Brands Inc.
KING OF THE GRILL
Grilling cheese manufacturer accelerates its market share gains with highly robust and reliable thermoform packaging technology
BY ALANNA FAIREY, ASSISTANT EDITOR
PHOTOS BY PIERRE LONGTIN
What first began as a casual meeting between a plethora of different Lebanese traders of Montreal and a group of dairy producers in the region, soon lead to the birth of the Saint Robert, Que.-based Mediterranean cheese manufacturer La Fromagerie Polyethnique Inc.
Since their humble beginnings over 25 years ago, Fromagerie Polyethnique has expanded to a striking 60,000-square-foot facility with 75-employees working on a five-days-a-week schedule throughout most of the year.
Their revered Le Bedouin brand has taken off thanks to their wide offerings of Mediterranean cheese products, which include ready-to-eat labneh, haloumi, nabulsi, akawie and varied yogurt and milk products.
While their Le Bedouin brand can be found on grocery store shelves across Quebec in the likes of Metro and Sobeys IGA, Fromagerie Polyethnique also accommodates to a wide array of private-label customers across Canada.
According to Yves Lambert, Fromagerie Polyethnique’s general manager, the company’s mission is concentrated on further developing and producing dairy products for ethnic communities living in North America.
While the cheese industry as a whole may seem like a competitive and daunt-
From Left: La Fromagerie Polyethnique Inc. general manager Yves Lambert and project manager Camille Salvas inspect the quality of the vacuum sealed cheese products thanks to their recent investment of the TM-050 thermoforming machine from Sipromac.
A market leader in the Mediterranean and grilling cheese category, Quebec-based Fromagerie Polyethnique specializes in the production of upscale ready-to-eat cheeses such as labneh, haloumi, nabulsi and akawie, along with a healthy variety of yogurt and milk products.
PACKAGING FOR FRESHNESS
ing business, Lambert is not worried about Fromagerie Polyethnique’s place in the Mediterranean and grilling cheese space.
“In the grilling cheese market, we are the major player,” Lambert confidently told Canadian Packaging in a recent interview.
“The other, smaller Lebanese cheese companies do not go all across Canada and do not have the premium products like we have.”
To guarantee that the facility is manufacturing fresh and high quality products, Fromagerie Polyethnique relies heavily on their high standards of excellence and on the respect of manufacturing traditions.
Fromagerie Polyethnique proudly shows off their commitment to manufacturing high quality products thanks to their FSSC 22000 (Food Safety System Certification), which is recognized by the GFSI (Global Food Safety Initiative).
While the company has seen an impressive seven-percent increase per year, it soon became evident to Lambert and Fromagerie Polyethnique’s project manager Camille Salvas that their production facility also needed to see a substantial upsurge.
“Previously, we were using a manual packaging machine to pack all of our grilling cheese,” Salvas explains.
“With the increase of the company, it was essential for us to also increase our efficiency in the packaging department.”
When the time came to look for a steadfast and reliable company to purchase a machine from, Fromagerie Polyethnique did not have to look much further than the Canadian vacuum packaging manufacturer Sipromac, who has been a supplier of theirs for quite some time.
André Francoeur, sales director for Sipromac, also agreed that it was the perfect time for Fromagerie Polyethnique to invest in more automated and consistent machinery for their production facility.
“We are the best company for small to medium size processing plants,” Francoeur says. “We can partner with these businesses and follow their growth.
“We can start them off with smaller machines like a single or double chamber and as the business grows, we are then able to support them with larger capacity machines, up to the thermoformer, like we did with Polyethnique.
Adds Francoeur: “This investment was part of their business decision.”
To guarantee the best results for their cheese products, Fromagerie Polyethnique purchased
Purchased from long time supplier Sipromac, the TM-050 thermoformer is a stunning improvement from Fromagerie Polyethnique’s days of manually packaging the cheese products.
PACKAGING
The 60,000-square-foot production facility in Saint Robert, Que., employs 75 full-time staff working on five-days-a-week schedule throughout most of the year to produce Mediterranean cheese for retail in addition to the company’s many private-label customers.
a state-of-the-art TM-050 thermoforming machine from Sipromac, which was promptly installed at their plant in April of 2019.
Ideal for production where efficiency and speed are the much-desired result, the TM-050 components are also corrosion-proof and their design allows for simple and easy maintenance in order to meet the strictest hygiene standards.
“This thermoforming machine increases productivity and also removes some of the manual labor required for the packaging,” shares Francoeur.
Francoeur also explains that the TM-050 has received praise and acclaim from customers for its userfriendly interfaces and solid construction, which will without a doubt last for decades.
In addition, Sipromac parts for the machines are
Foreign Body Detection
Metal Detector for installation on conveyor belts
Innovative user interface
Best metal detection performance with Multi-Simultaneous-Frequency-Technology
Specialized Compliance Mode software
Active detection performance displayed via Detection Forecast Algorithms
X-Ray Inspection
Metal Detection
Magnetic Separation
ABOUT THE SUPPLIER
A Canadian manufacturer for over 35 years, Sipromac is recognized for manufacturing vacuum packaging equipment for small to medium food processors around the globe. Sipromac’s high quality and low maintenance cost makes for vacuum packaging equipment that will last decades.
For more information, please visit: www.sipromac.com
PACKAGING FOR FRESHNESS
easy to find in comparison to overseas models.
Before officially purchasing the TM-050, Sipromac invited Lambert, Salvas and their production team to their facility to see how the TM-050 packages the cheese products and how all of the different components work to ensure that the TM-050 was the right fit for their facility.
In the eyes of Lambert and Salvas, being able to preview the TM-050 showed them how much Sipromac was willing to go above and beyond for their business.
“We arrived at their access facility with our cheese products,” Salvas recounts fondly.
“They gave us the opportunity to look at the packaging and to see that all of the equipment was working.
Adds Salvas: “We could see the equipment running before we actually brought it into our facility, so we really appreciated that they allowed us to do that.”
The TM-050 has proven to be advantageous to Fromagerie Polyethnique, especially when they have high volumes of cheese product and need to increase the speed.
Thanks to the TM-050, Fromagerie Polyethnique workers also have the ability to put the cheese products into film, where the TM-050 then promptly forms the pouch around the cheese, and vacuum seals the product.
Akin to Fromagerie Polyethnique, Sipromac also ensures that their thermoformers play a big part in making sure that the cheese products are fresh and safe for consumption.
“We make sure that the quality of the vacuum and the seal are optimal to offer the longest shelf-life and insure food safety,” Francoeur explains.
“Because if the seal is not well done, then there are risks for consumers.
Concludes Francoeur: “We want our customers to be able to get the best return on their investment and it’s often related to the shelf-life.”
Thanks to Sipromac’s commitment to food safety and state-of-the-art machines, Fromagerie Polyethnique is reaping the benefits of the machine’s full capabilities.
“Fromagerie Polyethnique is not using the thermoformer up to full capacity yet because the TM-050 just goes so fast,” Francoeur extols.
“Now with the thermoformer, the workers can just look away and the product is packaged.”
Lambert has been so happy with the performance of the TM 050 thus far that he has shared that Fromagerie Polyethnique is even looking at buying a second machine for the future.
Naturally, Fromagerie Polyethnique would be making that purchase from Sipromac again.
“It is really important for us to have a Canadian supplier,” Lambert explains. “Sipromac works with us like a partnership.”
Fromagerie Polyethnique also reaps the benefits of Sipromac machines and equipment being manufactured and produced in Canada, should they require any further assistance with the TM-050
“The Sipromac team came to the facility for the training in the beginning and then they came back about two or three weeks after just to be sure that everything was running okay,” Lambert elucidates.
“And they haven’t been back since that time!”
As Fromagerie Polyethnique looks ahead at their future in the grilling cheese space, both Lambert and Salvas both believe that the facility’s innovative TM-050 thermoformer will help them in their continued success.
Salvas happily shares that Fromagerie Polyethnique is currently in high demand for their private-label grilling cheese products, which she says will be packed in a speedy manner on the TM-050 thermoformer, with the continued support of Sipromac.
“We’re ready to increase our production, and we are going to continue to adhere to our high quality standards,” Salvas says.
“We are sure that we will be using the thermoformer and it’s going to go well with the deployment.”
Concludes Salvas: “We have a great relationship with Sipromac and we will continue working with them to adjust the thermoformer for new products.”
Please see La Fromagerie Polyethnique Inc. using Sipromac’s thermoforming equipment in operation on Canadian Packaging TV at www.canadianpackaging.com
SUPPLIERS
A Fromagerie Polyethnique employee loads the Mediterranean cheese product onto the TM-050 thermoformer to product as many packaged cheese products as they can.
Fromagerie Polyethnique workers also have the ability to put the cheese products into film, where the TM-050 then promptly forms the pouch around the cheese and vacuum seals the product, minimizing their carbon footprint.
A Schneider Electric HMI (Human-Machine Interface) touchscreen allows for greater flexibility and accessibility for Fromagerie Polyethnique operators, giving them the capability to increase production speeds.
Sipromac
Naturally Homegrown Foods Ltd. president Kirk Homenick strikes a proud pose in front of the highperformance Ishida model ACP700-R automatic case-packer at the Surrey, B.C.-based facility.
CHIPS OFF THE NEW BLOCK
Kettle chips manufacturer gets things flowing just right on the shop floor with high-efficiency packaging automation equipment PACKAGING
BY ALANNA FAIREY, ASSISTANT EDITOR PHOTOS BY DAVID BUZZARD
More than ever, Canadian consumers are eagerly reaching out for healthy, better-for-you snacks that still reward their taste buds with satisfying flavors, aroma and, when called for, a zesty crispy crunch.
And thanks to companies like Naturally Homegrown Foods Ltd., of Surrey, B.C., it is not a reach too far.
Located about a 40-minute drive southwest of downtown Vancouver, Naturally Homegrown Foods is a premium snack-food company specializing in producing handcrafted-style, kettle-cooked potato and root vegetable chips made from all-natural ingredients.
Marketed under the Hardbite brand name, the gluten- and allergen-free chips— cooked in avocado oil—are made without any preservatives, transfats or GMO (genetically-modified organisms) to offer consumers a tasty cholesterol-free snacking option that has been steadily growing its share of the Canadian snack-food market at an impressive pace.
Already retailing across Canada through select Loblaws and Sobeys supermarkets, the Hardbite brand chips have also been selected by the Toronto-based Porter Airlines as the complimentary free snacks handed out by Flight Attendants to the passengers in mid-flight.
“I believe that we’ve done a very good job in establishing the brand in the Canadian market,” says company president Kirk Homenick.
“We’re very strong from a sales and marketing standpoint,” says Homenick, adding
the company’s 50-employee facility runs a busy around-the-clock schedule, five days a week, to keep up with growing demand and production volumes.
“I think we understand the Canadian consumer quite well in terms of their interests and what they’re seeking in a salty snack,” says Homenick, citing a highly imaginative and creative product portfolio comprising tantalizing potato chip flavors such as Avocado & Lime, Wild Onion &Yogurt, All Natural and Rock Salt & Vinegar, among others.
In a similar vein, the Hardbite range of root vegetable chips is also something of a marketing masterstroke, as evidenced by the ingeniously named Sweet Spud of Mine,, 18 Carrot Gold and Drop’n Mad Beets varieties.
As Homenick relates, this light-hearted approach to marketing has struck a very responsive chord with the target consumers, which the company actively nurtures through various social media platforms and online contests.
In fact, the company regularly encourages consumers to submit their own outdoor-themed photos to embody the elements of being active and enjoying life for possible reproduction on the actual Hardbite brand chip bags—offered in laminate 50-gram and 150-gram flexible pillow pack bags designed by Crew Marketing
With growing production volumes starting to push the boundaries of what the Surrey plant could handle with its existing labor-intensive production process, Homenick realized that the company would have to automate much of its process sooner or later to retain its hard-earned gains in market share.
“One of the big issues in the industry is the fact that there’s a real scarcity of labor in the marketplace right now,” Homenick told Canadian Packaging in a recent interview.
PACKAGING FOR FRESHNESS
The state-of-the-art Ishida model ACP-700-R case-packer from Heat and Control has enabled vast improvements in process efficiency and productivity compared to the plant’s previous manual case-packing methods.
“We had simply reached the limits of our existing capacity, and we had to expand it one way or the other.”
Eager to boost the plant’s output capacity and productivity levels, Homenick reached out to packaging line automation experts Heat and Control Canada Inc., Cambridge, Ont.-based Canadian subsidiary of a leading food processing and packaging equipment systems manufacturer Heat and Control Inc. of Hayward, Ca.
Chris Jenkins, general manager of Heat and Control Canada, was eager to help Homenick find a solution.
“We had a long relationship developed with Kirk, and eventually he realized that he needed to start that automation,” Jenkins says.
“His initiative, or his motivation, was to automate the process to become more productive and to eliminate the challenges with staffing.”
Having purchased the first portion of equipment from Heat and Control back in 2016, Homenick called on Heat and Control again about a year ago to complete the second phase of automating the facility.
“It became extremely important to us to obtain new equipment that provided high process efficiencies,” Homenick says, “while also being intuitive and user-friendly for the operators.”
He was not to be disappointed, with Heat and Control proceeding to supply the Surrey plant with a wealth of state-of-the-art automated packaging equipment comprising:
• an Ishida model CCW-RVE-214 multihead weigher;
• a CEIA THS vertical metal detector;
• an Ishida model Astro-S-203 vertical form/fill/seal (VFFS) bagmaking system;
• an Ishida bag thickness & seal checker model TSC-RVS-120;
The new case-packer’s user-friendly touchscreen HMI (human-machine interface) terminal can hold up to 500 programmable pre-set recipes, allowing Naturally Homegrown operators to execute seamless changeovers from 150-gram to 50-gram bags in under three minutes.
• a high-performance Ishida model ACP-700-R automatic case-packer; Other Heat and Control equipment used at the Naturally Homegrown facility includes an additional packaging system consisting of:
• an Ishida multihead weigher model CCW-RVE-214;
• an Ishida vertical form/fill/seal (VFFS) bagmaker model Astro-S-203
Looking at the entire system as a whole, Homenick has already seen a stunning improvement in the overall facility.
“The equipment allowed us to grow and increase our overall output as we have grown to meet our increasing demand,” Homenick says.
“All of their equipment has touchscreens, making it intuitive and very simple for our staff to learn and use.
“Overall, the equipment from Heat and Control has helped to increase the amount of pounds or kilos per hour that we’re processing at the facility.”
Homenick says he is very understandably impressed by the accuracy of the Ishida multihead weigher model CCW-RVE-214
“The accuracy of the scales has been a real benefit for us,” Homenick says. “I think that the Ishida scales are very high-quality equipment.”
As for the user-friendly Ishida VFFS bagmaker model Astro-S-203 and the Ishida automatic case-packer model ACP-700-R, Homenick says the machines have virtually automated the previous manual packaging methods used at the plant.
“Between the bagger and the automatic case-packer, there’s a feedback loop running through the computer system,” Homenick elucidates.
“So if you’re dealing with underweight or seal integrity issues, our operators can easily adjust for that.”
In addition, the Ishida VFFS bagmaker model Astro-S-203 has intermittent jaw technology that allows operators to pack in a wider range of formats—from pillow packs to gusset and block-bottom packs—resulting in highly secure packages.
For its part, the Ishida Multihead Weigher model CCW-RVE-214 offers impressive running speeds of up top 120 weightments per minute, while also allowing for mix weighing of up to four products at a time.
The fully-integrated Ishida automatic case-packer model ACP-700-R incorporates a multitude of features to ensure the machine delivers effective performance, while largely eliminating draining manual labor.
“A person can only pack so many snack food bags into a case per minute,” Jenkins states. “The machine doesn’t take a break and the machine doesn’t slow down. Once it’s programmed and set up properly, it just runs.”
Prior to the case-packer’s installation, it took three Naturally Homegrown operators to perform manual placement of the bags inside the boxes, closing of the cases, and stacking the filled boxes onto a pallet.
Now packing upwards of 150 bags or 10 cases per minute, the Ishida automatic case-packer model ACP-700-R only needs one operator and requires less handling of the individual chip bags, thereby protecting the overall integrity of the chip products.
“When you pick a bag of chips up by hand, you can break the chips in the bag,” Homenick explains.
“This automated case-packer actually feeds the bags of chips into the boxes transferred on the conveyor system, utilizing gravity to fill out each case,” he explains.
The Ishida model CCW-RVE-214 multihead weigher (foreground) provides superior speed, accuracy and reliability for the Naturally Homegrow Foods chip production facility in Surrey, B.C.
PACKAGING FOR FRESHNESS
“In essence, staff are not touching the bag at all; it is being gently placed in the box.”
The Ishida automatic case-packer model ACP-700-R also makes product changeovers an easy process for operators.
When operators switch the chip bags from the 150-gram variety to the 50-gram option, the overall picking pattern, and the size of the case itself, must be changed. With up to 500 programmable pre-sets changeovers take less than 3 minutes via the machine HMI.
“This goes back to the case-packer’s intuitive nature,” Homenick extols. “The change is just transitioned to our touchscreen, as opposed to requiring shut down of equipment and having some of our maintenance do all the work on it.”
With the integrated automatic system magnificently enabling much-increased run rates, while meeting all the ROI (return on investment) targets, Heat and Control easily fulfilled Homenick’s original expectations, and then some.
“My understanding from talking to Kirk and having numerous follow-up visits is he’s completely satisfied with what he’s experiencing, even above what he was promised,” Jenkins says.
“The system is delivering on all fronts in terms of bags per minute quality and flexibility.”
Homenick says he appreciates that the Heat and Control team took the time to help get the system integrated into facility’s production process.
“We’ve had a few things where we either changed case pattern for new items or bugs that we needed to work out after installation,” Homenick recounts.
“But the aftercare service and support that we received from the team at Heat and Control was timely and effective.”
The feeling is mutual, according to Jenkins, who shares that Homenick and his team were a pleasure to do business with for their friendly and professional disposition.
“We certainly appreciate their transparency, and that’s how we recognize that this relationship is a full partnership,” Jenkins relates. “It’s certainly a two-way street.”
With the chip and snack market expected to remain healthy, Homenick believes that Naturally Homegrown will reap significant benefits from this capital upgrade well into the future.
“Changing consumer habits are going to be a driver of growth in the future,” Homenick says, stressing the importance of product innovation and efficient manufacturing.
“I think it’s really a matter of being focused on flavor trends,” he says.
“With a lot of snacking now being done away from home, having convenient packaging solutions is key to meeting the trend of on-the-go eating,” Homenick concludes.
“We look forward to achieving our goal, as an organization, to become the kettlechip of choice for Canadian consumers.”
SUPPLIERS
The finished bags of Hardbites chip products come off the ACP-700-R automatic case-packer perfectly positioned inside the corrugated shipping case, ready for coding and sealing.
An inside view of the ACP-700-R case-packing cell from Heat and Control, which integrates case-erecting, bag sorting/packing and case closing functions for fully-automatic operation.
A close-up of the Ishida bag thickness and seal checker model TSC-RVS-120, which is designed to deliver accurate leak detection, gentle bag handling and user-friendly operation.
STANDARDS OF EXCELLENCE
Canadian folding-carton producer expands into new markets thanks to new safety, quality and continuous improvement standard certification
BY ALANNA FAIREY, ASSISTANT EDITOR
PHOTOS BY CP STAFF
As a rising player in the Canadian folding-carton industry, it is unsurprising that Beneco Packaging and its online subsidiary company SoOPAK. com began to look for ways to secure its position.
Equipped with the ability and flexibility to deliver quality products with great efficiency and quick turnaround, Beneco’s desire for change was inspired by the need to expand into a plethora of different industries for their loyal clients.
“As our client base continues to expand and grow, we’re catering to an increasing number of pharmaceutical and food packaging customers,” says YaJun (Carol) Jiang, president of Beneco Packaging and SoOPAK.com.
With 35 years of experience in the printing, packaging and folding-carton industries, Benneco Packaging’s vice-president of operations and process improvement Roy Amm is very familiar with the benefits of credible third-party food safety certification.
Jiang agreed that Beneco needed to take the necessary measures to flourish in the new markets.
“The company is going into the right direction,” Jiang says. “It is time for us to go into that next level to make sure we’re running the business under the highest standard in the industry.”
After a few days, the Beneco team was able to come to a conclusion of what he believed Beneco would need in order to be successful in the future.
As a team, Beneco realied that some of the biggest market opportunities for folding-carton packaging in this country, lie in the food and pharmaceutical industries.
“The first thing many of these companies demand is a recognized accreditation, which offers them some form of food and pharma safety,” Amm told Canadian Packaging in a recent interview.
To expand into these markets, the Beneco team decided to begin the process of getting the company IFS PACsecure (International Featured Standard) certified.
Originally standing for International Food Standard, the IFS safety program was first founded in 2003 as a GFSI (Global Food Safety Initiative) recognized standard for the assessment of packaging material suppliers and converters.
A result of cooperation between IFS and PAC (Packaging Consortium), IFS PACsecure offers a number of benefits to companies who are striving for excellence in quality and safety.
The objective of this standard includes adherence to the GFSI guidelines, reduction and time in cost for retailers and suppliers, comparability throughout the food supply chain, and establishment of common benchmarks and evaluations.
In addition, the program also works with accredited certification bodies, in the likes of SAI Global Assurance Services, as well as skilled IFS audit staff.
Beneco Packaging’s vice-president of operations and process improvement Roy Amm strikes a proud pose at the Scarborough location, where he successfully supervised completion of the IFS PACsecure certification for food safety.
A close-up of Beneco’s Heidelberg Speedmaster CX 102-6+L printing press, purchased from German printing press technologies experts Heidelberger Druckmaschinen AG.
FOOD SAFETY
For Beneco, having an IFS PACsecure certification allows them to help clients to easily distinguish themselves from the crowd.
The accreditation provides a great advantage for their sales to approach prestigious clients who are more rigorous than the average standard in vendor selection and will only work with vendors who are capable and rightly accredited.
“Earning the IFS certificate is a logical result of our strongly expanding activities in this marketplace,” Jiang says.
“To provide first class service to these clients that require strict adherence to quality and safety, we are continually seeking ways to assure our valued customers that we operate at the highest quality standards and produce innovative, high quality, short-run customerfocused packaging products and services all under our own roof.
Concludes Jiang:“Our completion of these two new certifications underscores our commitment to meeting and exceeding the expectations of our customers and becoming their trusted partners.”
Once a company acquires an IFS PACsecure certification, the facility will also automatically receive GFSI and HACCP (Hazard analysis and critical control points) certifications, which is often viewed as an added bonus.
After being told about the program in February of 2019, Jiang wanted the facility to be officially IFS PACsecure certified by the summer of 2019.
In February of 2019, Jiang wanted the facility to be officially IFS PACsecure certified by the summer of 2019.
Fully committed by Ms.Jiang, lead by Amm, supported and enforced by all management level and employees, Beneco pushed the project forward.
Together with the external IFS consultant, the management team formulated comprehensive plans and contingency plans with timeline, milestone and actionable items.
Other than keeping up with production and business growth, the team has put IFS accreditation as a priority. The management had repeatedly communicated
the goal for Beneco to be accredited, provided training, conducted mock audits and emphasized the benefits of obtaining IFS, not just to the company but also to each individual department and employee of Beneco.
The process normally takes over a year for the certification to go through, as it is a timely and thorough procedure.
Just like the company’s ardent belief in JIT (Just-intime) delivery, Beneco got their IFS PACsecure certification in an impressively quick manner.
“It was two months outside of Jiang’s ask,” Amm shares. “We achieved our accreditation in September of 2019.”
Adds Jiang: “We obtained IFS in a record-breaking time because we believe that obtaining IFS is a strategic move for us and we had allocated our precious resources, including time, money and people, to it.
“We were determined, persistent and willing to work on it until we were successfully accredited.”
Beneco’s recent certification has proved to be a timely one, as food safety scares and recalls often make news headlines, and can tarnish a company’s good name forever.
Beneco can sleep comfortably, thanks to the strict safety protocols that their IFS PACsecure certification requires of them.
Now when customers ask if they have an accreditation, Beneco are able to state that they have the IFS PACsecure certification.
“We now offer with IFS a 100-percent traceability system back to source––that’s our objective, to make sure that that’s responsibly managed,” Amm says.
As one of two folding-carton companies in Canada to have their IFS certification, it is important for Beneco facility continues to adhere to the guidelines of the IFS PACsecure regulations.
“They don’t continuously manage the program and then there is a rush to get it ready for the next audit or they simply let it drop,” Amm explains.
“I am against that, and I am not prepared to say that I spent seven months getting this system in place to
Vice-president of operations Roy Amm says he is looking forward to benefitting from competitive advantages of obtaining PACsecure certification.
just
let it die.”
The Beneco team has also been making sure that the safety protocols begin first with Beneco’s steadfast employees.
Employees on the premises have undergone extensive training and must adhere to a number of safety and sanitation protocols, which begin the moment they enter the 49,000-square-foot plant.
In addition to setting up designated safe zones, sanitation sinks have been set up to routinely wash hands and a number of signs stressing personal hygiene, the importance of wearing gloves and hair restraints have also been set in place.
Adjusting to this new culture started as a struggle for facility workers, who through old force of habit, would inadvertently walk onto the production floor with a cup of coffee or forgetting to remove jewellery.
“Even with this IFS system, we acknowledge that someone will walk into the facility breaking a protocol, and we have empowered all of our staff who can stop you in that instance,” Amm shares.
“It is not just my responsibility––it is everyone’s responsibility, and that mandate is clearly accepted.”
With the success of the accreditation at their Scarborough facility, Jiang also shares that there are plans for Beneco’s Mississauga location to become IFS certified in 2021.
“We all are very excited,” Jiang says.“The facility is now seeing better management, better output and better quality control and a better future.”
With their next audit scheduled for September 2020, Beneco believes that they will continue to reap the benefits of having an IFS PACsecure accreditation set in place.
This opportunity with Beneco helped Amm to overcome his post-retirement indecisions, as Jiang took him on as Beneco’s vice-president of operations and process improvement.
“For me, I’m going from a situation of semi-retirement funk into a situation where I feel rejuvenated now working in this organization––it’s a huge and humbling dynamic,” Amm concludes proudly.
To emphasize the importance of the IFS PACsecure certification, a number of signs and sanitation zones have been set up to remind employees to adhere to the rules.
2020 Packaging Machinery
Check the list of packaging machinery headings to discover the heading which addresses your packaging needs.
Under each heading appear the names of manufacturers who supply packaging to the Canadian market. Manufacturers are listed alphabetically.
Following the name of the manufacturer is a notation indicating a Canadian supplier, if one exists.
Under the name of the manufacturer is a list of the machinery that the firm produces for that packaging application. A capsule description of speeds, sizes, materials handled, packaging materials, etc., is included to help you identify packaging machinery that might be of interest to you.
To contact a manufacturer, or a Canadian representative, turn to the section immediately following the list of manufacturers. There you will find an up-to-date list of addresses, including phone and fax numbers, to which you can forward your inquiry.
LINE INTEGRATORS
Abbey Packaging Equipment Ltd.
5030 South Service Rd Burlington ON L7L 5Y7
Tel: 9056813010 Fax: 9056813018
President: Robert McNaught
Year Established as a Packing Line
Integraotor: 1990
Services Offered: A complete Sales and Service provider for a select group of specialized equipment manufacturers. Planning, project management, radiation safety training, installation & commissioning, on-site operator and maintenance training, technical services, after hours support, field service support, preventative maintenance training, calibration and certification, spare parts inventory.
Markets/Industries Served: Food
Aesus Packaging Systems, Inc.
188 Oneida Ave Pointe-Claire QC H9R 1A8
Tel: 5146943439 Fax: 5146944107
President: Samantha Lewis
Year Established as a Packing Line
Integraotor: 1995
Services Offered: OEM of packaging machinery. Be it stand alone or fully integrated lines.
Shrinklabeling machines, Patented Heat Tunnels, Standard and fully customized pressure sensitive labelers, Chuck Cappers and Cap Retorquers, Inline Cappers and Inline Cap Retorquers, Semi-automatic to fully automatic inline gear pump fillers.
Markets/Industries Served: CBD / Cannabis / Pharmaceutical / Cosmetic / Nutraceutical / Vitamin / Personal Care / Beer & Wine / Medical Device / Food
Alex E. Jones & Associates Ltd.
8-785 Pacific Rd Oakville ON L6L 6M3
Tel: 9058470166 Fax: 9058470123
President: Paul Duke
Year Established as a Packing Line
Integraotor: 1976
Services Offered: Sales and Service of "Best
In Class" Fillers, Cappers, Labellers, VFFS, Scales, Cartoners, Case Packers, and Palletizer's.
Banding Systems Bandall
889 Pantera Drive Mississauga ON L4W 2R9
Tel: 8667791492 Fax: 4164790787
President: J.P Perreault
Year Established as a Packing Line
Integraotor: 2014
Services Offered: Bandall is a patent technology that eliminates the need for pressure-sensitive labeling on your products by securing a 360 degree band around the package of the product. The banding material is available in plain or printed or BOPP film and will allow your products to stand-out and get noticed! The system is used in 2 main applications: replacing a paper sleeve/PS label or to bundle products together for club packs. Systems are available as stand-alone units or can be fully automated to band over 100 ppm. Banding Systems will design, install, and commission the system that is right for any size of application.
Markets/Industries Served: Food and Beverage, Pharma, Industrial, Health and Beauty, Graphics, Logistics etc.
Baumer hhs Corp.
10570 Success Lane Dayton OH 45458
Tel: 9378863160 Fax: 9378863161
President: Chris Raney
Year Established as a Packing Line
Integraotor: 1986
Services Offered: Full field and technical services available.
Markets/Industries Served: Folding carton, corrugated, post press graphic arts, end of line packaging
Best Packaging Systems
1-8699 Escarpment Way Milton ON L9T 0J5
Tel: 9058643005 Fax: 9058646245
President: Dave Sweetland
Year Established as a Packing Line
Integraotor: 1987
Services Offered: 24-7 service all make
Pallet Wrappers, 3M Case Sealers
Markets/Industries Served: Food, Pharmaceuticals
BluePrint Automation (BPA)
16037 Innovation Dr South Chesterfield VA 23834
Tel: 8045205400 Fax: 8045268164
President: Robbie Quinlin
Year Established as a Packing Line
Integraotor: 1980
Services Offered: Vision Guided Robotics:
Turnkey Packaging Systems:
Complete packaging solutions taking control of your packaging line from the end of processing through palletizing!
Markets/Industries Served: Snack Food, Bakery, Dairy, Pet Food, Confectionery, Personal Care, Pharmaceutical, Household Products, Frozen Food, Beverage, Poultry, Beef and Seafood and more!
Buzz Equipment
6-2700 14th Ave Markham ON L3R 0J1
Tel: 9054757644 Fax: 9054757645
President: Darrell Shulman
Year Established as a Packing Line
Integraotor: 1991 Services Offered: We Buy and Sell Quality New, Used and Reconditioned Process and Packaging Equipment for the Pharmaceutical, Vitamin, CBD, Food, Cosmetic and Confectionery Industries.
CAM Packaging Systems
3-226 Industrial Parkway N Aurora ON L4G 4C3
Tel: 9057375400
President: Gareth Kennedy
Year Established as a Packing Line
Integraotor: 2008
Services Offered: Machinery Manufacturer for Complete Weighing, Counting and Bagging systems. Full turn-key system solutions for VFFS, Stand-up Pouches and Variety Pack Automatic Solutions. We also integrate other manufacturer's systems such as shrink wrappers, case packers, pallet wrappers, cartoning, labeling and robotics. We provide full technical support staff to our clients in many categories. We also supply the materials that run on the machines. Precise, Reliable, Affordable Solutions.
Markets/Industries Served: Food, beverage, industrial, horizontal & vertical form fill and seal, primary and secondary packaging systems including end of line solutions.
Canpaco Inc.
7901 Huntington Rd Woodbridge ON L4H 0S9
Tel: 9057717791 Fax: 9057711115
President: Robert Appel
Year Established as a Packing Line
Integraotor: 1993
Services Offered: Buy and sell new and used packaging equipment. Sales and service.
Capmatic Ltd.
12180 boul Albert-Hudon Montréal-Nord QC H1G 3K7
Tel: 5143220062 Fax: 5143220063
President: Alioscia Bassani
Year Established as a Packing Line
Integraotor: 1964
Services Offered: Over 50 years of experience of providing Primary Packaging Solutions for the Global market. A reputation built on: quality, innovative design, accuracy and customer care. Our expertise is in: Monoblocks (Fill, Plug, Cap, Label), Feeders, Bottle Unscramblers, Bottle Orienters Cap Sorters, Elevators, Rinsers, Fillers: Liquid, Cream, Micro Powder, Tablet, Counters: Tablet, Capsule, Soft gel, Inserters: Desiccant, Cotton, Seal Induction, Orifice Reducer, Pluggers, Crimpers, Cappers, In-line Belt Cappers, Rotary Chuck Cappers, Labelers: Pressure Sensitive, Neck Band, Body Sleevers, Tamper Evident, Safety Seal,etc. Meeting your unique requirements differentiates us from the rest.
Markets/Industries Served: Health, Beauty Care & Cosmetics/O.T.C. (Over The Counter) Pharmaceuticals/Nutraceuticals/ Pharmaceuticals/
Cartier Packaging Inc.
2325 boul Industrial Saint-Césaire QC J0L 1T0
Tel: 4504693168 Fax: 4504691387
President: Stéphanie Roy
Year Established as a Packing Line
Integraotor: 1980
Services Offered: Looking for highperformance equipment that will optimize your operations and improve your competitiveness?
Compact machines that will help you get the most from your space? CARTIER offers innovative packaging systems that will generate the best return on your investment.
Charles Downer & Co. Ltd.
7-52 West Beaver Creek Richmond Hill ON L4B 1L9 Tel: 9058822222 Fax: 9058820437
2798 Thamesgate Drive Unit 5 Mississauga ON L4T 4E8 Tel: 905-612-0053
Year Established as a Packing Line
Integraotor: 1999
Services Offered: Complete turn key sealing solutions. CiMa-Pak seal only, MAP, and Skin pack system. CiMa-Pak also inventories a wide variety of single and multiple compartment trays in CPET, APET, as well as Compostable options.
Markets/Industries Served: Food processors, Food wholesalers and retailers, Restaurants,
Delkor Systems, Inc.
4300 Round Lake Rd W St. Paul MN 55112
Tel: 651-348-6700 Fax: 6513486705
President: Dale Andersen
Year Established as a Packing Line
Integraotor: 1973
Services Offered: Delkor Systems engineers and manufactures premier secondary packaging equipment solutions including case forming, robotic case packing, case closing and palletizing. Since 1973, Delkor has served as a turn-key packaging solution provider with endto-end capabilities from creating award-winning, retail-ready package (RRP) designs - Delkor Cabrio Case®, Delkor Turbo Case, among others - to installing complete packing lines from case former to palletizer. Delkor is where premier packaging equipment engineering meets innovative package design.
1-200 North Service Rd E Suite 317 Oakville ON L6M 2Y1
Tel: 8003877972 Fax: 9058291842
President: Frank Eickenberg
Year Established as a Packing Line
Integraotor: 1978
Services Offered: 24/7 Technical Helpdesk, Renowned Training academy, Consumable agreements that work for YOU, National network of tenured service engineers, Financial Services options.
Markets/Industries Served: Food
Dorner
975 Cottonwood Ave PO Box 20 Hartland WI 53029
Tel: 2623677600 Fax: 2623675827
President: Terry Schadeberg
Year Established as a Packing Line
Integraotor: 1966
Services Offered: At Dorner our mission is to Transform Conveyor Automation by providing cutting edge solutions with best-in-class support. It’s that commitment and history of proven excellence that has made the Dorner Brand a recognized leader in product handling for over 50 years. With our complete line of customizable stainless steel and aluminum conveyor automation systems, we have the right solution for you!
Markets/Industries Served: Automation, Food Handling & Processing, Baking & Confectionery, General Manufacturing, Material Handling, Medical, Metal Working, Packaging, Pharmaceutical, Meat & Poultry, Dairy & Cheese, Ready-to-Eat Food
Eckert Machines Inc.
3841 Portage Rd Niagara Falls ON L2J 2L1
Tel: 9053568356 Fax: 9053561704
President: Paul Eckert
Year Established as a Packing Line
Integraotor: 1959
Services Offered: Canadian Sales Representative Company representing manufacturers of equipment for the food processing, industrial and packaging industry.
Markets/Industries Served: Food Processing Industry, Beverage Industry, General Industrial
Edson Packaging Machinery Ltd.
215 Hempstead Dr Hamilton ON L8W 2E6
Tel: 9053853201 Fax: 9053858775
President: Gary Evans
Year Established as a Packing Line
Integraotor: 1962
Services Offered: Upgrades, Retrofits, Machine Relocation, Machine Audits, Training and Parts
Markets/Industries Served: Tissue, Paper Towels, Facial Tissue, Feminine Care Products, Baby Diapers, Adult Diapers, Consumer Products, Food Products, Pharmaceutical Products
Ellis Packaging
1830 Sandstone Manor Pickering ON L1W 3Y1
Tel: 4167987715
President: Cathie Ellis
Year Established as a Packing Line
Integraotor: 1946
Services Offered: Folding Cartons, Blister Cards.
Markets/Industries Served: Our 3 facilities cover Cosmetic, Confectionary, Pharmaceutical, Personal Care, Spirits and Food Packaging.
Fortress Technology Inc.
51 Grand Marshall Dr Toronto ON M1B 5N6
Tel: 4167542898 Fax: 4167542976
Year Established as a Packing Line
Integraotor: 1996
Services Offered: Metal Detector Solutions, Product Testing, Custom Applications, Contaminant Risk Consultation, Preventive Maintenance Inspections, Pre-Audit Inspections, Operator Training
General Conveyor Inc.
245 Industrial Pkwy. South Aurora ON L4G 3V5
Tel: 9057277922 Fax: 9058411056
President: William A. Rickard
Year Established as a Packing Line
Integraotor: 1950
Services Offered: Systems integration
Manufacturer of both standard and custom material handling Equipment
Manufacturer of high speed palletizing equipment plus robotic palletizer equipment
Markets/Industries Served: Food, personal care, pharmaceutical, beverage, irradiation, plastics, and warehousing mkts.
Geosaf Inc.
803-5605 av de Gaspé Montréal QC H2T 2A4
Tel: 5143314147 Fax: 5143314226
President: Philippe Saouaf
Year Established as a Packing Line
Integraotor: 1982
Services Offered: Engineering/Design
Installation/Commissioning.
Markets/Industries Served: Dairy Beverage Food
Harlund Industries Ltd.
101-17973 106th Ave Edmonton AB T5S 2H1
Tel: 7804844400 Fax: 7804843646
Year Established as a Packing Line
Integraotor: 1982
Services Offered: We fully service and support the products we sell with Factory Trained Technicians. Our support facilities are located across Canada.
Markets/Industries Served: Food & Beverage, Wire/Cable, Automotive, Agriculture, Building Materials, Pharmaceutical, Confectionary, Co-Packers. Any Industry that Manufactures any type of product requiring Codes and Package Identification.
Harpak-ULMA Packaging, LLC
175 John Quincy Adams Rd Taunton MA 02780
Tel: 5088842500 Fax: 5088842501
President: Kevin Roach
Year Established as a Packing Line
Integraotor: 1994
Services Offered: Harpak-ULMA Packaging offers customer service, technical assistance, spare parts, and complete integration services of primary and secondary packaging equipment.
Markets/Industries Served: Meat, poultry, produce, bakery, seafood, ready meals and medical
Heat and Control Canada, Inc. 1111 Franklin Boulevard, Unit 13 Cambridge ON N1R 8B5
Tel: 519-623-1100 Fax: 519-623-1052
Year Established as a Packing Line Integraotor: 1950
Services Offered: Machinery for weighing, checkweighing, metal detection, X-ray inspection, snack bag making, snack case packing, conveying, accumulation, coating & seasoning, blending, tray sealing, container filling, packaging; Control & information management systems; Spare parts, service, installation, engineering and training; Machinery demonstrations; Food processing machinery systems.
Markets/Industries Served: Snack Foods
Hibar Systems Limited 35 Pollard St Richmond Hill ON L4B 1A8 Tel: 9057312400 Fax: 9057316035
HMA Systems 12-185 Advance Blvd Brampton ON L6T 4Y3
Tel: 9054588182 Fax: 9054580758
President: Wayne Wood
Year Established as a Packing Line
Integraotor: 1976
Services Offered: We provide engineered solutions for adhesive and sealant applications, with in house manufacturing capabilities to customize equipment to meet specific customer requirements. Full sales and service support, installation and training services, supported by parts and equipment inventory.
Markets/Industries Served: Industrial, manufacturing, packaging, product assembly applications that require adhesive or sealant applied in a controlled, automatic or manual manner.
JG Packaging
900 Wilson Road, North Suite # 1104 Oshawa ON L1G 7T2
Tel: 365-881-4318; Cell 416-352-8808
Year Established as a Packing Line
Integraotor: 2000 Services Offered: Sales and service of packaging equipment.
KHK USA Inc.
259 Elm Place Mineola NY 11501
Tel: 5162483850 Fax: 5162484385
President: Brian Dengel
Year Established as a Packing Line
Integraotor: 2015 Services Offered: Supplier of power transmission components designed for use in packaging automation equipment. KHK USA offers over 20,000 stock configurations of metric dimensioned spur gears, helical gears, internal ring gears, gear racks, straight, spiral & zerol tooth miter gears, straight, spiral, zerol & hypoid tooth bevel gears, screw gears, worms & wormwheels, ratchets & pawls, involutes splines & bushings, gear couplings and right-angle gearboxes, all designed for use in industrial automation applications including packaging machinery and equipment. Products are available in various materials including stainless steel, nylon, chrome-alloy steel, acetal, brass, bronze, cast iron and aluminum bronze.
Markets/Industries Served: Packaging equipment, Gantry and Conveyor systems, Various Industrial Automation applications.
Klockner Pentaplast
3585 Klöckner Road, Gordonsville, VA 22942 USA
Tel: +01.540.832.3600 Fax: +01.540.832.5656
Marketing: Joan Fowler
E-Mail: kpinfo@kpfilms.com
Year Established as a Packing Line
Integraotor: 1979 Services Offered: Manufacturer of high-end PVC, Polyester (APET and PETG), HIPS, PP and other films for food, pharmaceutical, medical device, general packaging, print and label film applications.
Komcan Inc.
55 Sinclair Ave Georgetown ON L7G 4X4
Tel: 9058737070
President: Steve Ranson
Services Offered: Sales and service of Komori Presses, parts and service. As well as plant and equipment moves.
Lapp Group Canada
10-3505 Laird Rd Mississauga ON L5L 5Y7
Tel: 8777995277 Fax: 9058206516
President: Laetitia Donovan
Services Offered: Lapp Group Canada is a single-source connectivity solutions provider that include a robust suite of standard and custom-made power control and data cable, connector, train relief and accessories.
Markets/Industries Served: Food & Beverage, Oil & Gas, Automotive, Machinery and Equipment, Wind Energy, Mining. Pulp and Paper, Logistics Centers, Steel and Metal, Water Sewage and Waste, Robotics, Leisure and Entertainment.
Loma Systems, an ITW Company
550 Kehoe Blvd Carol Stream IL 60188
Tel: 1-800-872-5662
President: Simon Spencer
Year Established as a Packing Line
Integraotor: 1969
Services Offered: Metal Detectors, X-Ray Inspection, Checkweighers, Combination Systems, Service, Spare Parts, Technical Support
M & M Packaging Associates Ltd.
657-2 Campbell Dr Uxbridge ON L9L 1T2
Tel: 4163995300 Fax: 9058521352
President: John Myers
Year Established as a Packing Line
Integraotor: 1984
Services Offered: 45 years of experience and expertise in the flexible packaging industry provides for reliable recommendation and suggestions of packaging machinery suitable for low, mid and high speed applications.
Markets/Industries Served: Food, snacks, health products, hardware and medical industries served.
Services Offered: MD Packaging is a distributor of product inspection and packaging automation solutions for the manufacturing sectors in the food, beverage, pharma, consumer goods and industrial products industries. We are industry experts when it comes to x-ray, check weighing, metal detection, induction sealing, case forming, case packing, labeling, tray forming, palletizing & stretch wrapping.
Markets/Industries Served: Food & Beverage
Mecano Industrie
1570 rue Nationale Terrebonne QC J6W 0E2
Tel: 4509611228 Fax: 4509611200
President: Raymond Gingras
Year Established as a Packing Line
Integraotor: 1981
Services Offered: Mechanical and Electrical engineering, custom and standard packaging machinery or system design, Installation and service, complete turn key solutions.
Markets/Industries Served: Food and Beverage, consumer goods, pharmaceutical, electronic and many others.
Mettler-Toledo Inc.
6-2915 Argentia Rd Mississauga ON L5N 8G6
Tel: 8006388537
Services Offered: Support & Repair, Maintenance & Optimization, Calibration & Quality, Training & Consulting
Mpac Langen
6500 Kitimat Road Unit 1 Mississauga ON L5N 2B8
Tel: 9056707200 Fax: 9056705291
Year Established as a Packing Line
Integraotor: 1956
Services Offered: Mpac Langen provides reliable and robust packaging machinery solutions for high-speed product collation, cartoning, case packing and palletizing.
Markets/Industries Served: Health & Personal Care
Newmapak Ltd.
1015-A Edouard-VII St-Philippe QC J0L 2K0
Tel: 8778665572 Fax: 4506353611
President: Robert Kucey
Year Established as a Packing Line
Integraotor: 2006
Services Offered: Designs & manufactures conveyors system, offering conveyor pre-wiring, control panel line and system integration.
Services Offered: Packaging and labeling equipment for the Pharmaceutical, Biotech, Cosmetic, Personal Care, Food and Chemical industries
Markets/Industries Served: Pharmaceutical
Nuspark Inc.
400 Steeprock Dr Toronto ON M3J 2X1
Tel: 4166637071 Fax: 4166630233
President: Michael Elent
Year Established as a Packing Line
Integraotor: 1999 Services Offered: We are a packaging machinery manufacturer which has the capability of providing single machines as well as fully integrated turnkey systems.
Our customer needs evaluation and feasibility review includes:
- Determining the number and variety of machines needed to accommodate your operations
- Accessing adequacy of your existing floor space
- Recommending "best-fit" possibilities and an accurate speed for optimal automation
- Proposing where automation may be ill-advised (low speed, high complexity). Through experience we have learned that at times, it is better to stay with a manual system if it is complex and slow.
We will provide full engineering, manufacturing, modification, installation, service and after sales support to our lines.
Markets/Industries Served: Food and beverage
PACKPRO SYSTEMS Inc.
8 Paisley Lane Stouffville ON L4A 7X4
Tel: 905-642-1300
President: Tim Messner
Year Established as a Packing Line
Integraotor: 2000 Services Offered: Full-System Packaging Solutions - Equipment, Materials, Parts, Engineering Services, Installation and Operator Training - for the following applications: Bagging, Flow Wrapping, Stretch Wrapping, Shrink Wrapping, Case Forming, Case Sealing, Tray Sealing, Form-Fill-Seal, Void Fill, Automated Fulfillment.
Pemberton & Associates Inc.
3610 Nashua Dr Mississauga ON L4V 1X9 Tel: 9056788900 Fax: 9056788989
President: Dennis Hicks
Year Established as a Packing Line
Integraotor: 1930 Services Offered: Established in 1930, we supply packaging solutions to the Canadian food processing industry including equipment, parts, consumables and technical support.
Markets/Industries Served: Canadian Food Processing Industry
Integraotor: 2009 Services Offered: PLAN Automation's primary focus is in assisting clients implement quality downstream Package Automation and Food Safety Inspection Solutions. We offer comprehensive planning, organizing, procurement, and management of resources to achieve these goals.
PLAN provides this service at no expense to our clients and only benefits if we are successful within our own sponsored bids. Ultimately our process is totally transparent and provides clients with our years of packaging automation expertise for risk management and effective project execution.
NO CHARGE - What PLAN Offers Your Company:
*** PROJECT INITIATION | ANALYSIS / BID BUILDING ***
1) Co-development of URS (User Requirement Specifications) and scope of work (aka rfq) / clear definition of project - production objectives
2) Co-development of project risk analysis
3) Line Layout Mechanical Plan View Drawings | establish physical installation parameters
4) Multi-vendor sourcing | qualify vendors based on established project needs and thresholds.
5) Evaluation Matrix | full due diligence analysis of vendor capability, financial risk analysis (DB), system technological offering
*** BID EXECUTION ***
1) Centralized project financial responsibility | single purchase contract based on total vendor individual selection
2) Development of packaging specifications in association to each individual machine efficient requirements
3) Contract development including by example | late delivery penalties, efficiency guarantees, operational "cost-of-ownership" limitations
Services Offered: PLAN LP Integration Services partners with our clients to determine their requirements from the onset and develop a strategy to optimize overall performance. At Plan Automation, we work for you and not for the equipment manufacturers. We plan and execute as the project owners and deliver it on time and on budget. Our process consists of three phases: Project Initiation, Bid Execution, and Installation.
We can offer your business the solutions it needs for:
Services Offered: Since 1959, Reiser has been a leading supplier of processing and packaging equipment solutions for the sausage, meat, poultry, seafood, prepared food, bakery, cheese, produce and pet food industries. During that time, the company has gained recognition for its high-quality equipment, innovative engineering, and outstanding service and support. Today, this total commitment to its customers positions Reiser as the one supplier that processors can trust for better, smarter solutions.
Markets/Industries Served: Sausage, meat, poultry, seafood, prepared food, bakery, cheese, produce and pet food industries
RJP Packaging
3317 Mainway Dr Burlington ON L7M 1A6
Tel: 9053197562 Fax: 9053356734
President: Ray Perry
Year Established as a Packing Line
Integraotor: 2000
Services Offered: Sales and service for all types of V.F.F.S. machines and combination scales
Markets/Industries Served: All
Ryson International Inc.
300 Newson Dr Yorktown VA 23692
Tel: 7578981530 Fax: 7578981580
President: Ole Rygh
Year Established as a Packing Line
Integraotor: 1995
Services Offered: Our products include Spiral Conveyors, Spiral curves, Mass Flow Spirals, Continuous Lifts, Vertical Accumulation Buffers, Bucket Elevators, Incline and Decline slat Conveyors. All products can be delivered in powder coated carbon steel, stainless steel, wash down or freezer versions.
Markets/Industries Served: Ryson Spiral Conveyors are today being used in a rapidly growing number of small and large companies across a broad spectrum of industries. Our spirals effectively handle any conveyable loads including bags, bundles totes, trays, pales, cans, bottles, containers, wrapped and unwrapped items.
Schneider Packaging Equipment Co., Inc.
5370 Guy Young Rd PO Box 890 Brewerton NY 13029-0890
Tel: 3156763035 Fax: 3156762875
President: Rick Schneider
Year Established as a Packing Line
Integraotor: 1970
Services Offered: Design and manufacture of a complete line of case packers, cartoners, case sealers, tray packers and robotic palletizing systems which easily integrate with coding/labeling equipment, code readers, check weighing and stretch/shrink wrapping equipment.
Markets/Industries Served: Food, beverage, tissue, paper, pharmaceutical, plastics, replication (CD/DVD), industrial and personal care industries
Schubert North America, LLC 8848 Red Oak Boulevard, Suite H Charlotte North Carolina 28217
Services Offered: Flexibility, high efficiency and reliable technology are the hallmarks of the modular packaging machines from Schubert.
For over 50 years, this innovative market leader from Germany has relied on simple mechanics and intelligent control technology in its digital packaging machines. Manufacturers in the confectionery, food, dairy, beverages, cosmetics and pharmaceuticals industries worldwide rely on the German packaging machine manufacturer and its robot technology. The eight system components of the TLM lines ensure a flexible machine design. This allows all the various functions, such as feeding, erecting, loading, lidding/closing, labelling and palletising, to be combined. Schubert’s service and planning team supports customers throughout the service life of their TLM lines in order to ensure maximum line efficiency. Where required, we take on responsibility for the execution of your project as a general contractor.
Schubert is actively expanding its customer proximity and support across North America. With our Canadian sales and services office in Mississauga, Ontario as well as our two offices in the USA in Dallas, Texas and in Charlotte, North Carolina we're offering highlevel accessibility, preventive service as well as extensive training for our customers.
Customers in North America benefit from the expansion of the training center in Charlotte, where two training machines are used for hands-on operator training. The training sessions ensure that customers can count on reliable and smooth operation with the TLM system.
114-7 Grand Ave S Suite 100 Cambridge ON N1S 2L3 Tel: 5196216536
President: Doug Pedersen
Year Established as a Packing Line Integraotor: 1979
Services Offered: Sales and Service of Sesotec Metal Detection, Magnetic Separation, X-ray Inspection, and Optical Sorting Systems
Markets/Industries Served: Serving the Food, Pharmaceutical and Plastics Industries
Sealmaster® PN Gold™ Bearings with high performance triple lip seals to protect against contaminant ingress
Energy efficient gear and sanitary drive packages with Hub City® Stainless Steel HERA® Gear Drives
LEESON® Extreme Duck® Ultra Motor with full-body encapsulation to keep what’s outside out
regalbeloit.com/Food
Creating a better tomorrow™...
Grove All-Stainless Steel Worm Gear Reducers feature food grade synthetic lubricant with singlereduction ratios up to 100:1
Durable, corrosion resistant products that prevent downtime so you can focus on productivity and safely processing food every day!
Shawpak Systems Ltd.
10 - 760 Pacific Rd Oakville ON L6L 6M5
Tel: 9058470122
President: Nigel Turnpenny
Year Established as a Packing Line
Integraotor: 1984
Services Offered: Established in 1984
Shawpak Systems are 100% Canadian owned and operated. The Centre Of Excellence is located in Oakville, ON Canada with satellite offices in Edmonton, AB & Montreal, QC. We are proud to provide full product support through Factory Trained service Technicians and PMMI Certified Trainers as part of our total commitment to excellence.
The Entire Shawpak Systems Team are GFTC trained to better understand your Food Safety Programs, from GMP HACCP & CCP implementation and advise on global standards BRC/SQF/GFSI from a Product Inspection perspective.
Shawpak Systems extensive experience and knowledge base in the Product Inspection & Food Safety industry makes Shawpak the obvious choice to provide inspection and packaging solutions: Checkweighers, Fat Analysis, Hygiene Equipment, Metal Detection, X-Ray & Vision Inspection/Magnetic Motors Nationwide across Canada we represent the following Equipment Manufacturers:
Services Offered: Original equipment manufacturer (Phin labellers) and designer of complementary packaging machinery. Project Management, line integration, commissioning and training.
Markets/Industries Served: Food, beverage, pharmaceutical, personal care, household chemical.
Squid Ink Manufacturing
7041 Boone Ave Brooklyn Park MN 55428
Tel: 7637958856 Fax: 7637958867
President: David R. Mylrea
Year Established as a Packing Line
Integraotor: 1991
Services Offered: Squid Ink specializes in the manufacture of high quality industrial inks and industrial ink jet printers for the packaging industry. Our products and services are designed to provide reliable cost-effective solutions to your industrial applications. Squid Ink has relied on a wealth of knowledge and experience in the ink jet industry to design a full family of Large Character and Hi-Resolution printing systems. Additionally, Squid Ink has been able to formulate the most comprehensive line of Hi-Resolution, Piezo, and Large Character fluids in the product identification market today.
Services Offered: Storcan creates innovative solutions for your production, bottling, food process and packaging lines: Solution research support, Project management & consulting services, Manufacturing different types of standard and customised conveyors, Modifying/adding to your existing line, Distributing bottling, food processing and packaging equipment, Assessing and preparing for your future needs,
Conceptualizing your new production line, Integration and installation services.
Markets/Industries Served: Thermo Fisher Scientific has supplied food, personal care and pharmaceutical manufacturers with high quality standard and specialty product inspection systems, spare parts and service for over 65 years.
TNA North America, Inc.
680 S Royal Lane Coppell TX 75019
Tel: 9724626500 Fax: 9724626599
President: Patrick Avelange
Year Established as a Packing Line
Integraotor: 1982 Services Offered: TNA provides a comprehensive range of products including materials handling, processing, cooling and freezing, coating, distribution, seasoning, weighing, packaging, inserting and labelling, metal detection, verification and end of line solutions. TNA also offers a variety of production line controls integration & SCADA reporting options, project management and training.TNA’s unique combination of innovative technologies, extensive project management experience and 24/7 global support ensures customers achieve faster, more reliable and flexible food products at the lowest cost of ownership.
LINE INTEGRATORS
Tri-Mach Group Inc.
23 Donway Crt Elmira ON N3B 0B1
Tel: 5197446565 Fax: 5197446829
President: Harold Whiteside
Year Established as a Packing Line
Integraotor: 1985 Services Offered: Processing Line Automation/Integration, Custom Design Build Material Handling Systems. Packaging Equipment & Line Automation/Integration. Installation of Packaging Equipment (Mechanical & Electrical), Custom Fabrication, Sanitary Conveyors, Installations and Relocations
Services Offered: With headquarters in Mississauga, Ontario, and direct sales offices across Canada, Weber Marking Systems of Canada is an industry leader who provides high-quality custom labels and labeling and coding products to the Canadian marketplace.
Our 24,000-square-foot, state-of-the-art, high-efficiency manufacturing and administration facility can support all your company's labeling and coding requirements. Our high-speed label presses and extensive library of die shapes give us the capacity and flexibility to meet simple-to-complex labeling applications.
With Weber Marking Systems of Canada, labeling and coding assistance is merely a phone call away. Our experienced and knowledgeable Sales and Customer Service teams are happy to assist!
Visit us at www.webermarking.ca.
Markets/Industries Served: Automotive, beverage, cannabis, chemical, food, government, healthcare, horticulture, household, personal care, pet food and pet care, timber, wine and craft beer
Weighpack Systems Inc.
5605 rue Cypihot Saint-Laurent QC H4S 1R3
Tel: 5144220808 Fax: 5144220834
President: Louis Taraborelli
Year Established as a Packing Line Integraotor: 1991
Services Offered: Since being established in 1991 and having delivered packaging systems to over 30 countries, WeighPack has long emphasized providing its customers quality built products using state of the art technology at reasonable prices.
WestRock
4364 Southwest 34th St Orlando FL 32811
Tel: 4078431300 Fax: 4078438459
President: Diana Hunter
Services Offered: WestRock is the only North American company in the paper packaging industry with an in-house machinery manufacturing and service division that designs and manufactures a complete line of precision, semi- and fully-automatic case equipment. We offer more than 80 standard and customized configurations for customers in a variety of markets, for all types of products, and in multiple line speeds.
Before we deliver machinery to your facility, our team of packaging and machine engineers thoroughly analyzes your entire supply chain -- from the layout of machines on your factory floor to the way packages are unitized for transport. Armed with this knowledge and insight, we custom create a system that integrates our machines with our corrugated containers and offer support services to ensure that you get the most from your equipment to achieve your strategic objectives and meet your tactical needs.
Wright Hand Packaging Inc.
7-2679 Bristol Cir Oakville ON L6H 6Z8
Tel: 9058290025 Fax: 9058290027
President: Lynn Wright
Year Established as a Packing Line
Integraotor: 2000 Services Offered: Contract Packaging to all industries
Markets/Industries Served: Pharmaceutical, Health and Beauty, Food, Stationary.
Integraotor: 1990 Services Offered: Wulftec is a worldleading manufacturer of packaging solutions to help maximize productivity, minimize downtime and slash costs. Wulftec's packaging equipment line includes: semiautomatic pallet stretch wrappers, fully automatic conveyorized stretch wrapping systems, pallet strapping equipment and pallet handling solutions & conveyors. Wulftec is based in Ayer¿s Cliff, Quebec. Its start-of-theart, 146,000 sq. ft. facility houses 198 highly skilled employees. Wulftec is part of the M.J. Maillis, a leading European Group that designs, manufactuers and distributes end-ofline industrial products and systems, including: trappers, stretchwrappers, shrink wrappers, carton sealing equipment and materials.
WHAT MAKES US UNIQUE
We offer a broad product range which allows you to buy from one single source. Each product can be customized to meet customer's specific needs. Wulftec offers a complete range of affordable options that allow end-users to customer build a machine that will meet their exact needs.
Yaskawa Motoman
100 Automation Way Miamisburg OH 45342
Tel: 9378476200 Fax: 9378473288
President: Jennifer Kann
Year Established as a Packing Line
Integraotor: 1989
Services Offered: With nearly 300,000 robot arms installed worldwide and the broadest range robots on the market, Yaskawa Motoman is the global leader in robotic automation. Our robotic packaging systems handle a wide variety of food, beverage and consumer products.
Ever-changing products and packaging configurations require companies to manage endless variation in their manufacturing process. Our fast and flexible robots are designed specifically around packaging requirements and are accompanied by application enabling software and vision capabilities, designed with ease of use in mind to help companies meet the demands of today¿s food, beverage and consumer products marketplace.
Markets/Industries Served: Yaskawa packaging systems handle a wide variety of food, beverage and consumer products.
Zarpac Inc. 1185 North Service Rd E Oakville ON L6H 1A7 Tel: 9053388880 Fax: 9053383521
President: Frank Roberts
Year Established as a Packing Line
Integraotor: 1989
Services Offered: Complete systems integration and design build solutions
Markets/Industries Served: N.A., Mexico, S.A., Europe, Asia, Food and beverage; confectionery; Homecare; personal care and cosmetics; pharmaceutical; paper products; chemical; pet food
AUTOMATION DEVICES
A revolution in linear transport systems: XTS
OF THE PACK LEADERS
PAC K
We’ve been in the game for a while, over 40 years in fact. And in that time, we’ve gradually taken our place as an industry leader. How? By providing end-to-end strategic and international expertise that’s brought to life by a passionate, fearless team of creators . Together, we build value with every engagement by creating ideas that travel and solid ROI for all our clients. From there, it’s only natural the accolades follow.
CELEBRATING PAST, PRESENT AND FUTURE
This year PAC Packaging Consortium (PAC) celebrates the momentous occasion of our 70th anniversary. In 1950, PAC was formed as the Packaging Association of Canada to foster a community where companies from across the value chain could safely come together to collaborate, innovate, and educate.
In this special PAC Connect issue we celebrate eleven of our founding members. They are pioneers, disruptors and innovators who have made PAC their home for the last 70 years. In these pages you will find some of their stories about their continued dedication to innovation, technology and a more circular economy.
Canadian Packaging Magazine | Cascades Inc. | Consolidated Bottle Company | Crown Packaging | Dow Chemical | Genpak | Henkel | Hood Packaging Corp. | O-I | TC Transcontinental | WestRock
At PAC our strength is in the breadth, skill, knowledge and influence of our membership base and these eleven founding members are a daily reminder that the PAC community continues to stand the test of time.We are incredibly grateful for their support through the years.
As we transcend on the future, themes of innovation, technology and the circular economy are woven into the fabric of who we are and how we move forward. Over the last 20 years, significant changes have impacted our industry. To support our members’ international expansion, we rebranded as PAC Packaging Consortium. We continue to grow in the US and our products can be found throughout the world.
The game changed in the mid 2000’s when government implemented Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) regulations holding retailers and brand owners accountable for the recovery costs of discarded packages. We created our PAC NEXT program in 2010, in response to these dynamic market shifts. Our vision remains clear and we are focused on A World Without Packaging Waste. At PAC, we feel like we have become garbage experts overnight – which you will note in this November 2019 photograph of PAC Chairman Brent Heist of P&G and Jim Downham PAC CEO - spending time in a plastic waste recovery and reprocessing facility in Vancouver. Today this is what PAC leaders do to support our members.
PAC has demonstrated sustainable packaging leadership in Canada since 2006, where over a six-year period we produced and managed six Walmart Sustainable Packaging Conferences, to which 4,500 professionals attended. In 2007
PAC developed the first sustainable packaging course in the world and held the first sustainable packaging competition.
In the past, packaging design concepts and material choices were made during the consumption era of make, consume, and dispose. Design and innovation are more important than ever to ensure all products and packaging have a next life. Disposal into landfill is no longer a suitable option, as we shift focus from packaging to package circularity.
Along with package design we must reinvent recovery processes and reprocessing infrastructure to accommodate rapidly emerging circular packages. As we enter the circular economy era PAC is collaborating in the development of a tool to measure the circularity of a package. Watch for it to launch in 2020.
As we charge forward into the future, we hope that those of you who are not members will join our growing PAC community. Our vision and mandates are clear. Grow your business. Develop your career. Preserve our planet.
PAC is a safe place for packaging professionals to gather, learn, collaborate and celebrate as one.
We pride ourselves on offering our members maximum value and remaining the conduit for conversations about relevant current and future industry trends. We challenge ourselves daily to provide valuable opportunities for learning, professional growth, and creating resources to help companies make impactful strategic choices to preserve our planet.
James D. Downham, President & CEO, PAC Packaging Consortium
THE BEST OUT WEST
Crown Packaging proudly carries on with the legacy of manufacturing excellence and environmental stewardship
Although the use of paper to wrap and save food can be traced back to China as far as the first or second century B.C., it wasn’t until the middle of the 19th century that paper made from wood pulp was introduced to the larger world of commerce and trade driven by the forces of the Industrial Revolution.
First used primarily to make glued paper sacks and bags, the new versatile material was eagerly adopted by the emerging captains of industry to package new foodstuffs for the masses, with the Kellogg brothers widely credited to have spearheaded the development of first mass-produced cartons to package their flaked cereals in the late 1890s.
Before long, both Europe and North America began to see the rise of many new companies specializing in the production of paper-based containers to replace traditional wooden crates and fiber sacks—enabling manufacturers of food and non-food product alike to move their products to market faster and more efficiently.
Aided by the commercial development of first-generation corrugated boxes in the early 1900s, making boxes soon became a highly lucrative new industry in its own right—prompting the launches of hundreds of new papermaking business ventures across the U.S. and Canada.
While not all of these enterprises have survived the considerable passage of time since then, in fact far from it, some of those early-day pioneers are still around today—albeit in vastly changed iterations.
As one of the original founding members of the former Packaging Association of Canada (PAC) in 1950—recently rebranded to the modern-day moniker of PAC Packaging Consortium—the Richmond, B.C.-based Crown Packaging provides an inspiring lesson in corporate longevity and continuous reinvention.
Originally established under the name Crown Zellerbach in 1926, the fledgling wood and paper products supplier soon moved its operations to Vancouver, B.C., in 1930 to be in closer proximity to its client base of the day.
After surviving through the darkest days of the Great Depression and the following outbreak of World War II, the privately owned company saw a timely opportunity for expansion in 1945, leading to its landmark acquisition of nearby rival Canadian Boxes Ltd., which was operating in Vancouver’s fast-growing Yaletown district.
In 1956 Crown Zellerbach completed a major expansion and business consolidation at their location on the south arm of the Fraser River, holding the grand opening of its new Richmond facility in Sept. 26, 1956.
“Crown Zellerbach had owned the land, built the facility, and then sold the property and building back into an 80-year lease on which we still reside today,” says Mark Miedema, general manager of the Richmond plant.
“It was known back then as Crown Zellerbach Paper Products, which supplied items such as paper bags, tissue, napkins, wrap, sheeted newsprint, wax-coated burger wraps, wallboard tape, and corrugated packaging,” Miedema relates.
As the company continued to grow, it attracted a lot of top-level executive talent into its management ranks—most notably former CFL (Canadian Football League) trailblazer Byron “By” Bailey.
Entrenched in the CFL folklore by scoring the first-ever touchdown in the history of the B.C. Lions football club on Sept. 18, 1954, the CFL Hall of Famer joined Crown Zellerbach in an executive capacity in 1964 following his retirement from professional football.
Working together under the PAC umbrella creates valuable opportunities for education in all our packaging sectors, while also helping to bring the customersupplier relationships closer together.
In 1970, the company started up a new box plant in Kelowna, B.C., to expand its manufacturing and packaging presence in the Okanagan region, famed for its abundance of fruit orchards and vineyards.
“Customers like Consumers Glass and companies in the soft fruit industry were significant and plentiful back then,” says Miedema, noting the Kelowna location also became a major packaging supplier for the Hostess/Frito-Lay potato chip plants located in the nearby province of Alberta.
In 1981, Crown Zellerbach Canada was purchased by the pulp-and-paper industry giant Fletcher Challenge, resulting in name changes of the acquired assets to Crown Forest Industries (wood products) and Crown Forest Pack-
A bird’s eye view of the Crown Zellerbach plant in 1959 (left) and the present-day Crown Packaging facility in Richmond, B.C.
aging (paper products).
After further Fletcher Challenge acquisitions in 1987, the paper products business changed its name to Crown Packaging, remaining so for the next five years.
In 1992, the packaging business was acquired from Fletcher Challenge by two long-time packaging industry veterans Hans Koch and Tim Dwayne, joining their existing sheet plant operation Boxmaster in Delta, B.C.
“A year later they expanded by purchasing the western Canadian assets of Cascades Paperboard Industries,” according to Miedema, “adding folding carton to the increasing diversity of products offered by the company.”
This structure lasted until 2001, when the U.S.-based Port Townsend Paper Corporation (PTPC) acquired Crown Packaging, Boxmaster and all other Canadian operating locations, with the exception of the folding carton division.
“As part of the focus on their core business of corrugated packaging, Port Townsend chose to collapse most of the converted paper operations at the Richmond facility,” Miedema relates.
“In 2007 PTPC acquired Tekpac Packaging, a small operation in the Okanagan, which was fully integrated into the Crown Packaging manufacturing locations.”
After further manufacturing consolidation in 2010, the company’s two core manufacturing assets have been pared down to the two main production facilities in Richmond and Delta.
“Since then Crown Packaging has continued to operate in a similar fashion,” Miedema states, “albeit under different investment companies.”
Currently operating as part of the Crown Paper Group (CPG) of companies owned by the U.S. private equity firm Lindsay Goldberg—along with Boxmaster Packaging, Port Townsend Paper Company and multiple Montebello Container locations in the Los Angeles area—Crown Packaging today focuses primarily on containerboard production and corrugated packaging, according to Miedema.
“The Canadian packaging locations are focused on a wide range of corrugated packaging—from specialty items like displays and complex retail packaging to mainstream master-case packing and direct food retail packaging, such as hothouse trays.”
As Miedema explains, the steady long-term decline of general manufacturing industries throughout western Canada has led Crown Packaging to concentrate primarily on the food and beverage sectors, which now account for about 80 per cent of the company’s revenues.
Miedema says that food industry customers in British Columba and Alberta drive for bulk of the company’s annual sales, along with some select northern regions of the neighboring State of Washington to the south.
Today employing approximately 350 full-time people at the Richmond and Delta plants, “Crown Packaging has built its firm foundation over all these years on deep relationships with customers—offering the highest level of quality and service,” Miedema proclaims.
Today ranking as the largest corrugated facility in western Canada and the largest corrugated volume supplier to the B.C. market, Crown Packaging is proud to remain one of the handful of original PAC founders still in business today.
“Although I cannot personally answer what made Canadian Boxes join the originally formed PAC, or to speak for the other ownership groups that followed, I could surmise that it was done for the combined benefit of industry knowledge and the ability for a larger industry group like PAC to lobby the governments and policy makers on behalf of each of the packaging sectors it represents,” Miedema reflects.
“In addition, there are synergies that arise when working together with other types of packaging companies such as flexible film, plastic bottles, etc., to ultimately get the final consumer products on the shelves or to their destinations,” adds Miedema, who has served as director of the PAC British Columbia Chapter between 2000 and 2005.
“I personally taught Corrugated 101 when the PAC offered the short course in our region,” says Miedema, praising PAC’s diversified and evolving offering of educational services and resources for the Canadian packaging community.
Says Miedema: “Working together under the PAC umbrella creates valuable opportunities for education in all our packaging sectors, while also helping to bring the customer-supplier relationships closer together.
“Bringing together this knowledge base and improving the relationships among its member-companies are key to moving forward into the future both as companies and as the packaging industry at large.”
With packaging sustainability expected to become an ever-growing feature of that future, Crown Packaging seems well-poised to continue its tradition of maintaining healthy business growth, “while still meeting our need to responsibly balance social, environmental and economic interests for future generations,” according to the company.
By obtaining the vaunted global FSC Chain of Custody and Controlled Wood Standards certification of the Forestry Stewardship Council(FSC) in July of 2010, Crown Packaging today boasts an exemplary environmental profile that is continually reinforced on a daily basis through concrete proactive actions throughout its operations.
According to Crown, “Our Richmond facility is actively pursuing measures to reduce our environmental footprint through initiatives that include:
• Using recycled liners and mediums where appropriate;
• Making responsible ink supply choices;
• Using recycled fuel oil;
• Increasing energy efficiency;
• Reducing waste wherever possible through internal recycling programs targeting OCC containers (as much as 700 tonnes per month), plastic strapping and stretchwrap, office paper, toner and ink cartridges, fluorescent light tubes, used engine oil and antifreeze, computers and peripherals, batteries, metal and other scrap.
As the company proudly states, “Our sustainability successes are measured in economic growth, sound environmental practices, and a considerable commitment to providing our employees with a safe and healthy workplace.”
Richmond plant’s general manager Mark Miedema has served as director of the PAC British Columbia Chapter between 2001 and 2005, in which time he personally taught the Corrugated 101 course that PAC offered at the time to its member-companies.
Crown packaging’s production facility in Richmond ranks as the largest corrugated manufacturing plant in western Canada.
THE BONDS THAT BIND
Leading global packaging adhesives supplier making the most of its active presence in the Canadian marketplace through continuous product innovation
Building strong and lasting bonds comes naturally to a company like Henkel Adhesive Technologies—the world’s Number One producer of adhesives, sealants and functional coatings for both industrial and consumer markets.
As part of German chemical and consumer products powerhouse Henkel AG & Company, KGaA—also one of global leaders in laundry, home-care and beauty products—the Düsseldorf-headquartered company is in many ways the proverbial glue that holds the global packaging industry together.
It is therefore only fitting that it would also be one of the original founders behind the formation of the original Packaging Association of Canada (PAC) in 1950, albeit under a different corporate identity and despite the roundabout way of earning its elevated status in the Canadian packaging community.
In fact, Henkel’s direct entry into the Canadian adhesives market under its original name did not come about until 2008, when its parent company acquired the Brampton, Ont.-based adhesive manufacturer Nacan Products Ltd., a subsidiary of the U.S.-based National Starch & Chemical Company
Today headquartered a short drive west of Toronto in Mississauga, Ont., Henkel Canada Corporation operates a total of five Canadian-based locations in southwestern Ontario, representing all three of the parent company’s core business units.
On the CPG (consumer packaged goods) side of the business, Henkel is a highly reputed brand-owner of many beloved brands such as Dial soaps; Right Guard antiperspirants; Persil, Purex and Sunlight laundry detergents; and the Schwarzkopf range of professional hair-care products.
As for the company’s adhesives business, which accounts for 47 per cent of Henkel’s worldwide revenues of just over $29 billion, its prominence in the Canadian market is strongly reflected by the enduring popularity of well-known and trusted brands such as Loctite, Lepage, Pritt, Technomelt, Aquence and Bonderite
In light of such a well-diversified product portfolio, Henkel’s continued membership in PAC Packaging Consortium is as much a strategic market imperative as it is a nod to history and an expression of good corporate citizenship.
“At Henkel, we value the PAC membership as a good way to remain connected to our customer base, to understand their challenges, and to provide them with sustainable, efficient, reliable, differentiated, secure and innovative solutions,” says Ingrid Gagné, business director for Canada for packaging, consumer goods and construction adhesives.
“We combine innovation and technology leadership with close customer partnership to deliver solutions that are an essential part of countless industrial and consumer goods,” says Gagné, lauding PAC for the multiple networking, collaboration and educational opportunities that the 70-year-old industry group provides for its members.
Says Gagné: “The PAC is a true leader in providing the companies and individuals to learn the most up-to-date information affecting the world of packaging in Canada.
“With Henkel being a leader in the adhesives market, it is important for us to be a member of a leading industry advocacy group organization that enhances our total involvement in the packaging markets we serve,” says Gagné, citing PAC’s comprehensive range of educational courses, summits, conferences, seminars, webinars and social activities.
“They all offer real value in helping to understand, anticipate and respond to the market trends in a timely manner,” says Gagné, “while building an effective network of like-minded people and companies with the same goals as us.”
As Gagné happily points out, Henkel Canada often offers the services of its technical and engineering experts to lead training seminars and workshops on
adhesive technologies around the country, providing expert education and instruction for hundreds of packaging professionals.
“The PAC offers a perfect forum for us to educate other PAC members on adhesive technology and the impact they have on the packaging market through continuous innovation and adoption of new patented products,” says Gagné, emphasizing Henkel’s firm commitment to the Canadian market and customer base.
“We utilize our global presence and our expert knowledge to offer a winning combination of best-in-class service and leading technologies to customers and consumers in Canada and around the world,” she states.
“For packaging and consumer goods adhesives business, we work with customers to develop innovative solutions for the production of grocery packaging and consumer goods with breakthrough innovations, tailor-made solutions and strong brands,” Gagné explains. “Beyond an appealing design, consumers are seeking onthe-go packages with reliability, security and sustainability as a cornerstone.
PAC is a true leader in providing the companies and individuals to learn the most up-to-date information affecting the world of packaging.
“Because each package needs to give consumers assurance that its contents meet the brand’s promise,” she notes, “manufacturers are increasingly turning to Henkel when navigating consumer needs.
“Each product application has different adhesive needs,” Gagné relates,“and we work closely with manufacturers and brand-owners to offer solutions focused on what they need to deliver exceptional products to their customers.”
According to Gagné, Henkel continuously strives to excel across the full spectrum of food and beverage packaging applications.
“Henkel adhesives provide excellent bond on a wide range of case/carton sealing and bottle/container labeling applications,” she states.
“We offer food safety paired with improved cost of packaging operations through high consumption efficiency and excellent clean processing.
“For flexible packaging, Henkel Adhesives help manufacturers reduce layers and weight, while consumers can enjoy their favorite food and live more sustainably by producing less film and foil waste in food packaging, as well as in healthcare, pharmaceutical and cosmetic packaging.
“All in all, understanding how we support an enhanced consumer experience in each application is critical to how we bring value to our customer business.”
Looking forward, Gagné says Henkel will intensify its efforts to provide more sustainable packaging solutions as part of the company’s ambitious and far-reaching sustainability strategy focusing on recyclability, compostability and all other key aspects of carbon footprint reduction.
“As a recognized leader in sustainability, we hold top positions in many international indices and rankings,” Gagné concludes,“because a better environment is paramount to our business, our customers and everyday consumers.”
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Corrugated packaging powerhouse leverages strong Canadian asset base to consolidate its leadership positioning in the competitive marketplace
Hitting rock bottom is a harsh price to pay for past overindulgences and excess excesses.
And for the venerable forest products industry, facing up to a terminal decline in market demand for many once-essential commodities like newsprint since the start of the new millennium has been an exceptionally painful ordeal manifested by multiple mill closings, massive job cuts, staggering financial losses, and continued public criticism of the sector’s alleged environmental legacy of mass pollution and deforestation.
But while it may be too early to assume that papermaking business is now out of the woods for good, the painful industry restructuring, consolidation and downsizing triggered by an onset of a prolonged M&A (Mergers and Acquisitions) frenzy throughout the forest industries at last appears to be bearing fruit, as evidenced by emergence of new industry leaders working hard to put the sector’s destiny back into its own hands.
Headquartered in Atlanta, Ga., the publicly-traded corrugated packaging group WestRock Company—currently ranking as the second-largest packaging producer in America—provides compelling evidence of the industry’s resilience and ability to reinvent and transform itself for the greater good of all the key stakeholders.
Formed as a result of a landmark US$16-billion merger of one-time industry goliaths RockTenn Company and MeadWestvaco Corporation in the summer of 2015, the company is one of the world’s largest paper and packaging companies, with over US$18 billion in annual revenues and nearly 50,000 employees in 30 countries.
In addition to the many synergies and economies of scale that the milestone merger offered, the new corporate entity can also boast nearly 300 years of combined industry knowledge, expertise and leadership in the papermaking business.
PAC does a great job of remaining bipartisan and ‘packaging neutral,’ giving its stakeholders the security that they are in a safe place to discuss key topics to the market
The company’s origins date back to the 19th century with the founding of Rock City Box Company in Nashville, Tenn., in 1898, which eventually became RockTenn Company.
For its part, the origins of MeadWestvaco can be traced back to 1846 with the founding of Ellis, Chaflin & Co., which adopted the Mead Paper Company moniker in 1882.
In 2002, Mead acquired the assets of Westvaco (originally Piedmont Pulp and Paper Company and then West Virginia Pulp and Paper Company ) to form MeadWestvaco.
Happily for Canada, WestRock’s formidable manufacturing assets and prowess are currently well represented in the Great White North with a well-run operational network comprising 16 modern and highly efficient production
plants.
“WestRock is proud to do business in Canada, where we operate a number of consumer and corrugated facilities,” says WestRock’s corporate communications manager Courtney James.
“We have six consumer packaging facilities in Canada to serve the food and beverage markets, our largest, and the consumer mills segments,” says James, citing a beverage packaging plant in Ajax, Ont.; two Quebec-based foldingcarton plants in Warwick and Sainte-Marie; and three designated MPS (Multi Packaging Solutions) plants in Montreal, Toronto and Mississauga, Ont.
Additionally, West Rock also operates 10 corrugated plants that include:
• Two display facilities (manufacturing and assembly) in the GTA (Greater Toronto Area) region;
• Two Quebec-based mills in Pointe Aux Trembles and La Tuque;
• Six container plants in Milton and Guelph, Ont.; Town Mount Royal, Que.; and in Calgary, Winnipeg, and Regina.
WestRock’s prolific Canadian presence is suitably underlined with its continued active membership in PAC Packaging Consortium, the leading packaging industry advocacy in Canada.
Originally obtained back in 1950 by one of Rock’s many ancestor companies Martin Paper Product Limited, the company’s PAC membership remains a source of pride and a strong show of respect for the markets that WestRock serves, according to James.
“WestRock’s membership in PAC is part of our efforts to be better informed and connected to the packaging industry as a genuine global sector in its own right,” says James.
“Being able to sit on the PAC board and advise on how to engage in some of the shifts pertaining to sustainable packaging is exceptionally valuable for us.
“It is great to hear other perspectives on the markets that might come from other segments within the packaging market,”James adds.
“We genuinely appreciate the opportunity to listen to and learn from a wide range of perspectives from the market, and to branch out past our industry into
A cheerful commemorative group staff photo outside of WestRock Company’s folding carton manufacturing facility in Montreal.
CPG (consumer packaged goods) and retail communities.”
According to James, PAC’s wellrecognized knowledge and expertise in the area of packaging sustainability aligns perfectly with the company’s deep-rooted commitment to its own sustainability agenda.
Citing the widely lauded WestRock Packaging Sustainability Study, released in December of 2018, “Three-quarters of consumers say packaging is an important way for them to learn more about a brand’s interests around sustainability,” James points out.
“Helping our customers win means developing new ways to connect people to products through packaging that enhances relationships between brands and their customers, while also minimizing environmental impact,” James explains.
“Our Packaging Matters data show that these two priorities are not mutually exclusive.”
As James proclaims, “It’s time to think of sustainability not only through the lens of reducing our impact on the environment, but also increasing our transition to the Circular Economy at large.”
While WestRock acknowledges the positive impact on paper producers generated by the unfolding public backlash against plastic packaging, James stresses that material substitution alone is not the answer to true packaging sustainability.
“Plastics replacement is important, but we are thinking beyond replacing plastics and exploring ways to advance the strength and sustainability of fiber-based packaging,” James explains.
“The challenge facing us all is to move towards packaging that is right-sized, made from renewable materials, and recyclable and/or compostable,” she states, while complimenting PAC president and chief executive officer Jim Downham for maintaining a “material-neutral” agenda for PAC membership.
“The PAC does a great job of remaining bipartisan and ‘packaging neutral,’ giving its stakeholders the security that they are in a safe place to discuss key topics to the market,” James states.
“Both PAC and Jim Downham have been solid advocates for the packaging industry that they represent, with the PAC positioning itself very well with governmental and non-governmental stakeholders throughout the years,” she adds.
“Above all, PAC continues to add value to our business through educational programs and industry collaborations,” says James, stressing the importance of cross-industry collaborations going forward to address mounting environmental challenges for the packaging community.
“Our vision is to be the premier partner and unrivaled provider of winning solutions to our customers,” James proclaims.
risk and improve their sustainability.
“Our ability to bring innovation and insights to help our customers win is unmatched,” says James.
“We understand the global marketplace and we always strive to implement new, improved ways of meeting customer needs through the solutions we deliver and the ways we operate—especially when it comes to advancing sustainable packaging,” James concludes.
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PUT IT DOWN IN WRITING
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AS HOOD AS IT GETS
Colorful history sets the stage for a promising future
Not many packaging companies in business today can trace their roots all the way back to the 19th Century, but Hood Packaging Corporation is not your ordinary packaging company.
Originally incorporated in Montreal as Canada Jute Company in 1882 and later amalgamated into The Canadian Bag Company in 1906, the privately-owned firm is a unique embodiment of ageless corporate longevity and reinvention.
After forming a joint-venture company with the U.S. based Bemis Corporation in 1937, the new entity—specializing in but jute, cotton and sewn bags— was acquired in 1941 by the U.K.-based Thomas Bonar Company, which proceeded to modernize the purchased facilities to meet growing demand for the then-groundbreaking paper bags.
During the 1960s, Bonar & Bemis/Thomas Bonar Company Ltd carried out a series of acquisitions to grow and consolidate its market share—ultimately moving its headquarters to Burlington, Ont., in 1973.
During that period, Bonar added new manufacturing facilities in Calgary and Guelph, Ont., while upgrading its central plant in East Angus, Que., with modern high-speed production equipment.
South of the border, meanwhile, Southern Bag Corporation, Ltd. (which changed its name to Hood Packaging Corporation) was going through a period of rapid growth and expansion during the 1990.
In 2000, it purchases Bonar, Inc. to became a true binational leader in the packaging industry.
With headquarters in Burlington, Ont., and Madison, Miss., Hood Packaging Corporation today operates 23 manufacturing facilities in 16 states and provinces across North America.
Employing about 2,350 people in total, the company serves a highly diverse range of industries, including cement, grout and mortar; bakery and flour, dairy, foodservice, frozen food, animal feed, lawn and garden, insulation, and shingle and roofing.
PAC is doing “an outstanding job” in respect to industry advocacy on issues related to sustainability, environment and government regulations.
“As a progressive corporate leader, we see it as a good way to show leadership and also to give back to the industry we are a part of,” says Morris, lauding the extensive range of valuable training and educational programs initiated by PAC year after year.
“These programs provide exceptionally good value for us,” Morris states. “We have a number of employees attending PAC courses, conferences and seminars each year.”
Moreover, Morris says the PAC is doing “an outstanding job” in respect to industry advocacy on issues related to sustainability, environment and government regulations.
“This is a very valuable service both to our company and the industry at large,” Morris states, “and we a proud to be part of an organization that spares no effort in serving its members as well as it does.”
PAC CELEBRATES 70 YEARS
THANKS TO OUR FOUNDING MEMBERS
“We are focused on low-cost manufacturing, organic growth, and careful acquisitions to develop our operations with the skills and equipment necessary to be an innovative packaging business,” says company president Robert Morris.
“We provide a complete range of flexible packaging materials, packaging formats, and printing capabilities,” says Morris, citing the company’s expansive product portfolio comprising multiwall paper packaging, flexible plastic packaging, woven polypropylene bags, liquid packaging, and specialty coated materials.
“With 23 plants across North America and a wide variety of paper, plastic and poly-woven packaging products, we are proud to offer our clients a true ‘onestop shopping’ advantage.”
According to Morris, the company highly values its ongoing membership in PAC Packaging Consortium, which it joined under the Bonar name right from the outset back in 1950.
PAC GLOBAL LEADERSHIP AWARD WINNERS 2020
BEST OF SHOW
BRAND MARKETING DAINTY
Brand Owner: DaintyFoods
Entering Company: PigeonBrands
Dainty’s identity is articulated in white-on-black to give it a premium touch, carefully selected to position the brand in a highly competitive universe. Each package has a photograph evocative of the country of origin of the specific variety, with the sepia treatment contributing to the superior quality of the rice in this range. The black blocking effect makes the brand attractive, unique and easy to identify in the rice category. The new bag takes less space in the store, offers a longer shelf-life, and provides convenient resealability for easy storage.
PACKAGE INNOVATION
Herbal Essences
Brand Owner: Procter&Gamble
Entering Company: Procter&Gamble
As part of the laser marking process, Herbal Essences are displacing material to create peaks and valleys that act as a a sensory system, thereby delivering feedback to the consumer on which product they are interacting with. The objective of this development was to enable consumers who are blind and/or those with impaired vision to identify the difference between the Shampoo and Conditioner products—improving the in-shower experience. The inclusive design elements are uniquely distinct from any other package in market.
BRAND MARKETING BEST IN CLASS
BRAND MARKETING NOMINEES
BRAND MARKETING
PACKAGE INNOVATION
TRANSCONTINENTAL TRANSFORMATION
Montreal printer transforms itself into a global flexible packaging powerhouse fueled by unrelenting focus on research and entrepreneurship
Changing with the times is all part of growing up and becoming an industry stalwart, even when those changes come from most unexpected sources.
For Montreal-headquartered flexible packaging giant TC Transcontinental, which was actually formed in 1976, the company’s flurry of intense M&A activity in the latter part of the last decade has led it to acquire a wealth of historical legacy that can be traced right back to formation of the Packaging Association of Canada (PAC) back in 1950.
That year, former Toronto-based flexible packaging and film coatings producer Nor Baker Inc. joined 14 other like-minded companies to found the 70-year-old industry group today known as PAC Packaging Consortium
In 2000, Nor Baker was acquired by the U.S.-based Plassein Packaging Corporation, which was then acquired by Exopack in 2003.
In 2005, Exopack itself was acquired by U.S.-based venture capital fund Sun Capital Partners and merged with the fund’s other packaging assets, comprising Cello-Foil Products, Inc. and The Packaging Group.
In 2013, Chicago-based Exopack Holdings S.A. rebranded itself to Coveris as part of a merger with several European-based packaging firms also acquired by Sun Capital.
Around the same time, TC Transcontinental set out to diversify its core print-
Sustainability is definitely on everyone’s lips today, and our membership with PAC certainly helps us position TC Transcontinental Packaging as a thought leader on the subject within the industry.
ing and media business units by aggressively investing into the growing North American flexible packaging business, starting with the acquisition of Clinton Mo.-based flexible packaging supplier Capri Packaging in 2014.
“This acquisition represented an important strategic move for the corporation into a new promising growth area,” says Mélanie Montplaisir, Transcontinental’s manager of public relations and brand management.
“We evaluated various industries where we could leverage our manufacturing competency and we make sure to remain agile to find the most promising
opportunities to ensure sustainable and profitable growth,” Montplaisir explains.
“The printed flexible packaging industry was rapidly identified as a natural fit, given that some of the production processes were similar to TC Transcontinental’s printing operations and that the market offered many opportunities for growth.”
Following the purchase of Capri, the company’s newly-formed TC Transcontinental Packaging division swiftly proceeded to acquire and integrate another five strategicallylocated flexible packaging plants in the U.S. and Canada in the next few years—building up a well-knit operational network stretching from the West Coast of Canada to the U.S. eastern seaboard.
This busy stretch of M&A activity hit its grand peak in 2018 with the game-changing “transformative” US1.69-billion acquisition of Coveris Americas assets from Sun Capital.
The landmark purchase instantly moved Transcontinental Packaging into one of North America’s top 10 flexible packaging producers, employing about 4,300 people at 28 manufacturing facilities in Canada, the U.S., Latin America and New Zealand.
“Today, the TC Transcontinental Packaging network is comprised of one pre-media studio and 29 pro-
duction plants specializing in extrusion, lamination, printing and converting to offer a broad variety of flexible plastic and paper products, including rollstock, bags and pouches, shrink films and bags, and advanced coatings,” Montplaisir relates.
“This enables us to serve a diverse variety of markets,” she says, “including dairy, coffee, meat and poultry, pet food, agriculture, beverage, confectionery, industrial, consumer products and supermarkets.”
Led by a highly competent senior management team
headed by chair of the board Isabelle Marcoux, daughter of Transcontinental’s founder Rémi Marcoux, and wife of chief executive officer François Olivier, the company has quickly proven itself to be a natural-born industry leader built on four critical core competencies.
According to Montplaisir, these include:
• Strong R&D (research-and-development) teams and entrepreneurial spirit, “Allowing us to meet our customers needs and create products that are ahead of the market trends.”
Heat and pressure from above and below create two superior seals.
What do bad seals really cost? Rework. Returns. Food safety problems. Lost customers. Supervac automatic belt vacuum chamber packaging machines feature a Double Biactive high-pressure sealing system that provides two superior seals to every bag, virtually eliminating leakers and the problems they cause.
Superior seals are just the start. Supervac machines reduce labor costs while increasing productivity. Their ergonomic design allows a single operator to load, style and run the packages. Supervac’s exclusive Expansion Cushion reduces evacuation times by up to 30%, pushing the operator to keep up with the machine and resulting in more packages at the end of the day. Their small footprint allows the Supervac to fit into tight areas where other machines cannot. Its low cost of ownership and stainless steel construction make Supervac the smart choice.
Transcontinental president CEO François Olivier taking the stage at the recent PAC retail conference in Montreal.
• Commercialization of recyclable and compostable products, including the new vieVERTe portfolio of sustainable products.
• Ability to provide exceptionally fast turnaround times for the customers.
• A remarkably broad range of flexible packaging solutions that, according to Montplaisir, “allows us to respond rapidly to the needs of the market for a variety of applications.”
As Montplaisir relates, TC Transcontinental Packaging is proud to be an active member of PAC Packaging Consortium, crediting the organization for spearheading a concerted industry effort to make consumer packaging more sustainable.
“Sustainability is definitely on everyone’s lips today,” says Montplaisir, “and our membership with PAC certainly helps us position TC Transcontinental Packaging as a thought leader on the subject within the industry.
“It also allows us to stay informed and exchange ideas with our industry peers in a collaborative environment,” says Montplaisir, citing PAC’s busy educational and networking agenda comprising training courses, summits, conferences, seminars, webinars and various social activities.
“Those networking opportunities bring collaborations and great partnerships to the table—making sure our industry continues to evolve and that we always continue to get better at what we do,” she states.
Adds TC Transcontinental Packaging’s account manager for business development Roberto Travaglini: “The PAC has been an amazing support partner for addressing all the key challenges facing packaging producers in all key sectors like corrugated, folding cartons, rigid plastics, flexibles, etc.
“The sheer multitude of different events that they organize provides us with insight into other packaging sectors that we would not normally encounter,” Travaglini states.
“It allows you to network with a large variety of people with different skillsets and different contacts.
“Above all, the PAC does a great job in supporting all its members by keeping us up to date with the ever-changing legislative and regulatory information related to packaging,” Travaglini points out.
“This, in turn, saves us a lot of valuable time and other associated efforts that do not fall into our area of expertise,” Travaglini concludes.
VALUED PROPOSITION
Respect for the environment is key to respecting all the markets we serve
BY JESUS ATIAS
Dow Chemical Company sprang into being back in 1897 as a brainchild of Canadian-born American chemical industrialist
Hebert Henry Dow—an electrochemical pioneer who first gained fame and commercial success in 1891 by introducing a novel way to separate bromides from brine by using electric current.
While his parents had moved from his birthplace of Belleville, Ont., back to the U.S. just a few weeks after Henry’s birth, the company he founded went on become a household name in the Canadian manufacturing circles a few decades later—starting up its first Canadian manufacturing facility in 1942 in Sarnia, Ont.
Since then, Dow has been proudly operating in Canada continuously for 78 years—developing basic chemicals and plastics used to make a broad range of innovative and technology-based products and solutions in the packaging, industrial, infrastructure, and consumer care industries.
Today, the company employs approximately 1,000 people in Canada at several locations, including its headquarters in Calgary, and at its manufacturing locations in Fort Saskatchewan and Prentiss, Alta., West Hill and Corunna, Ont., and at its Eastern Canada Regional Sales Centre in Toronto.
With net sales of US$50 billion in 2018, the globally operating company employs 37,000 people at 113 manufacturing sites around the globe—ranking as one of the world’s three largest chemical producers—with its Dow Packaging and Specialty Plastics (P&SP) division being its largest business unit.
In addition to being one of the world’s largest producers of polyethylene resins, functional polymers and adhesives, Dow P&SP is a leading innovator and collaborator across the value chain on sustainable applications development and the Circular Economy life-cycle design for plastics.
Dow’s ability to innovate at the intersection of chemistry, engineering and material science has brought solutions that differentiate its customers while positively impacting the world—including lightweight carbon fibers for cars and a broad range of packaging solutions that help make food safer and stay fresh longer.
Dow has benefitted from the many opportunities provided by PAC to collaborate and foster conversations around sustainability and innovation with like-minded organizations.
We are working to keep plastic out of the environment by innovating new applications for recycled plastics to demonstrate that a circular world is not that far out of reach. For example:
• Dow is working with partners around the globe to construct polymer-modified asphalt roads with PCR (post-consumer recycled) plastic.
With plastic waste widely acknowledged to be one of the most important and pressing sustainability issues of our time, Dow believes that plastic is too valuable to be lost as waste, and that is should be an integral part of a Circular Economy, whereby the value of plastic is retained from design to disposal.
To this end, we are engaged in numerous initiatives to “close the loop” and ensure that no plastic ends up in the environment or is lost to landfill.
Our three-part strategy represents our commitment to finding ways in which we can continue to provide the convenience of plastic, the protection of plastic, the affordability and safety of plastic, while ensuring that none of that plastic ends up in the environment or is lost to landfill.
Recently, the company was named to the Fortune magazine’s 2019 Change the World list for collaborating with value chain partners to build nearly 100 kilometers of asphalt roads with PCR content across Asia, Europe, North America and Latin America.
The projects have diverted nearly 200 metric tons of plastic, equivalent to 50 million flexible pouches, from becoming litter or entering a landfill.
• Dow is also helping to build structures using self-assembling bricks made out of recycled plastic. (See picture on left)
We’ve built four schools to date in Colombia to create new learning spaces for more than 400 students, while diverting 16 tons of plastic waste. There are currently eight more such schools under construction.
We know that we can’t solve the plastic waste issue alone. It will take all of us—industry peers, associations, governments, non-governmental organizations,
brands, retailers and consumers— working together to make a difference.
We are all partners in this cause to end plastic waste in the environment, which is why Dow is proud to be a founding a founding member of the Alliance to End Plastic Waste (AEPW)
This newly-formed organization has jointly committed more than US$1 billion—with the goal of raising another $1.5 billion over the next five years—to develop and scale solutions that manage plastic waste and promote post-use solutions for plastic.
Implementing a four-part strategy that focuses on infrastructure, innovation, education and clean-up, AEPW is developing scalable solutions that will minimize and manage plastic waste, while promoting solutions that will drive a circular economy for plastic.
Dow is also a founding investor in Circulate Capital’s $100-million Ocean Fund, which is the first fund and incubatory focused specifically on preventing ocean plastic—particularly in South Asia.
Many countries in that part of the world have been identified as contributing disproportionately to ocean plastic pollution—primarily because they lack the critical waste infrastructure to manage the problem.
Working with our partner UPM Biofuels in Europe, Dow is turning waste residue from paper production into naphtha, creating an alternative and renewable feedstock for plastics production.
Sourced from sustainably managed forests, this waste product is extracted as a residue when separating wood fiber for pulp production.
Naturally, Dow is also proud of its status as one of the original founders of PAC Packaging Consortium
While much has changed in the 70 years since Dow supported the creation of PAC, the organization’s value to the Canadian packaging community has remained as relevant as ever.
Over the years, PAC has offered a wide range of opportunities for innovation, networking and training, and Dow has benefitted from the many opportunities provided by PAC to collaborate and foster conversations around sustainability and innovation with like-minded organizations. Collaboration across leading organizations such as PAC in the packaging value chain is more important than ever as we continue to innovate packaging solutions that move us to-
wards a Circular Economy.
One of those exciting new product innovations is AGILITY CE, which is the first of Dow’s new polyolefins portfolio to incorporate a percentage of post-consumer plastic waste.
Manufactured for use in shrink films as secondary packaging for transporting packs of cans or bottles, the material’s formulation consists of a low-density polyethylene (LDPE) compound incorporating up to 70-percent post-consumer plastic waste, while ensuring the consistency of the material and functionality for its final application.
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By any measure, Dow is genuinely passionate about advancing recycling capabilities, designing products for recyclability, innovating recycling technologies, and finding new ways to incorporate recycled content into the resins we sell—with the single ultimate aim of increasing the amount of plastic recycled and reused worldwide.
Jesus Atias is sustainability manager for North America at Dow Packaging and Specialty Plastics in Midland, Mich.
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PUT IT DOWN IN WRITING
Continued from page 13
serve the packaging profession in Canada back in 1949,” Dean recounts.
After selling the merits of the idea to his boss and future Maclean Hunter president Donald Hunter, Cornell invited a group of select packaging suppliers, end-users, retailers and other industry stakeholders to convene at the MacleanHunter headquarters in downtown Toronto, where the group formed an action plan to bring the proposed association into being the following year.
Since then, Canadian Packaging and PAC have collaborated on countless joint initiatives for the benefit of both the PAC membership and the Canadian packaging community at large, while duly respecting each other’s autonomy, interests and spheres of influence.
“Canadian Packaging is a proud member of PAC,” Dean asserts, “and we are committed to working hand-in-hand with the association to promote its services to its members and to encourage others to become members.”
Ironically, the Canadian Packaging magazine has in many respects experienced the impact of accelerated industry consolidation that mirrors the overall thinning of the ranks within Canada’s packaging in recent years as a result of relentless industry-wide M&A (mergers and acquisitions) activity on a global scale.
After Maclean Hunter was acquired by an integrated media giant Rogers Communications in 1994, Canadian Packaging was eventually sold to Vancouver-headquartered B2B media group Glacier Media in 2011, which in turn sold the publication to its current owner, Annex Business Media, three years
CONGRATULATIONS
later.
While these ownership changes naturally had some impact on some of the magazine’s day-to-day activities, most long-time subscribers to the publication probably remain oblivious to those changes, which is exactly how it should be for any magazine aspiring to retain and grow its readership base.
If anything, the magazine’s mutually beneficial relationship with PAC Packaging Consortium has only grown stronger over the years, according to its editor George Guidoni, who joined the publication during its Rogers Media days in 1997.
“As an editorial resource, PAC provides unrivaled opportunities for making new contacts within the industry and helping us stay on top of packaging trends and hot-button issues impacting the industry: from integrating printed electronics into packaging, for example, to packaging sustainability and the impact of government legislations,” Guidoni says.
“No wonder it is such a highly respected voice of authority on the Canadian packaging business around the world among its peers and counterparts,” Guidoni points out.
“The PAC has been absolutely instrumental in advancing the cause of sustainable packaging across Canada and beyond for the last decade,” he notes.
“Its close collaboration with Walmart Canada around the turn of the last decade, focusing on retailer’s then-revolutionary Walmart Packaging Scorecard, produced several outstanding two-day conferences attracting hundreds of attendees from across the country, year after year, to listen to the world’s foremost thought leaders on packaging sustainability, along with senior executives from some of the world’s biggest CPG and retail companies,” Guidoni adds.
“And that’s just one example of many outstanding initiatives that PAC has implemented under the leadership of president Jim Downham to reinforce its status as the undisputed champion of Canada’s packaging community and its causes.”
Adds Dean: “We find it most interesting to see how PAC has evolved as a leader in training, education, and accreditation and certifications in sustainability and food safety.
“We believe that PAC has much to offer in advocacy in areas such as sustainability, plastics and packaging end-of-life, while maintaining a packaging material neutrality that treats all packaging materials and styles as equals, whereby each has something to offer for the greater good of the industry and society at large,” he points out.
“The biennial PAC conventions, along with newer events such as the One of 100 branding conferences in New York City, continuously offer high-quality speakers and networking experiences that cannot be easily duplicated in the global packaging community,” Dean adds.
“With the growing demands and expectations being placed on CPG companies and their packaging suppliers by consumers and retailers, “Dean concludes, “we believe that PAC has more than ever a critical role to play in educating, rallying and advocating on behalf of one of the most utilitarian and useful inventions of the modern age—packaging.”
General Conveyor Inc.
Lenze Americas
Newmapak Ltd.
Omron Canada Inc.
Pilz Automation Safety Canada LP
Plan Automation Inc.
Rockwell Automation, Inc.
Siemens Canada Limited
Sort Production Products Ltd.
Tri-Tronics Company
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Abbey Packaging Equipment Ltd.
Aesus Packaging Systems, Inc.
Ahearn & Soper Inc.
Alex E. Jones & Associates Ltd.
ATS - Tanner Banding Systems Inc.
Auto Labe
B&R Industrial Automation Inc.
Banding Systems Bandall
Bizerba Canada Inc.
MD Packaging Inc.
Mettler-Toledo Inc.
Multivac Canada
Plan Automation Inc.
Rockwell Automation, Inc.
Shawpak Systems Ltd.
Siemens Canada Limited
SteelNor / Inventure Engineering & Machinery
Techno Pak Packaging Systems Inc.
Tri-Tronics Company
VC999 Canada Ltd.
Zarpac Inc.
Videojet Technologies
Visuascan Inc.
Weber Marking Systems of Canada
Zarpac Inc.
INSPECTION EQUIPMENT: METAL DETECTORS
Abbey Packaging Equipment Ltd.
Capmatic Ltd.
Eagle PI Eriez
Fortress Technology Inc.
Heat and Control Canada, Inc.
Loma Systems, an ITW Company
MD Packaging Inc.
Mettler-Toledo Inc.
Multivac Canada
Plan Automation Inc.
Rockwell Automation, Inc.
Sesotec Canada Ltd.
Shawpak Systems Ltd.
Siemens Canada Limited
SteelNor / Inventure Engineering & Machinery
Thermo Fisher Scientific
Tri-Mach Group Inc.
VC999 Canada Ltd.
INSPECTION EQUIPMENT: VISION
Abbey Packaging Equipment Ltd.
Aesus Packaging Systems, Inc.
Ahearn & Soper Inc.
Alex E. Jones & Associates Ltd.
ATS - Tanner Banding Systems Inc.
B&R Industrial Automation Inc.
Bizerba Canada Inc.
BluePrint Automation (BPA)
Capmatic Ltd.
Charles Downer & Co. Ltd.
Cognex Corp.
Eagle PI
Edson Packaging Machinery Ltd.
Filamatic
Harlund Industries Ltd.
MD Packaging Inc.
Mecano Industrie
Mettler-Toledo Inc.
Multivac Canada
Nita Labeling Equipment
NJM Packaging
Omega Design Corp.
Omron Canada Inc.
Pineberry Manufacturing Inc.
Plan Automation Inc.
PMR Packaging Inc.
Rockwell Automation, Inc.
Sesotec Canada Ltd.
Shawpak Systems Ltd.
Sort Production Products Ltd.
SteelNor / Inventure Engineering & Machinery
Techno Pak Packaging Systems Inc.
Valco Melton
VC999 Canada Ltd.
Videojet Technologies
Visuascan Inc.
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Propack Processing & Packaging Systems Inc.
Reiser (Canada) Co.
Robatech Gluing Technology (Robatech Canada)
Rockwell Automation, Inc.
Schubert North America, LLC
Standard Knapp Inc.
SteelNor / Inventure Engineering & Machinery
Syntegon Packaging Technology, Inc.
Techno Pak Packaging Systems Inc.
Trinamics Incorporated
Yaskawa America, Inc.
Yaskawa Canada, Inc.
Yaskawa Motoman
Zarpac Inc.
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ATI Industrial Automation
Bradman Lake
Charles Downer & Co. Ltd.
Edson Packaging Machinery Ltd.
Emerson Festo Inc.
General Conveyor Inc.
Geosaf Inc.
Honeywell Intelligrated
MD Packaging Inc.
Mecano Industrie
Mpac Langen
Multivac Canada
Omron Canada Inc.
Pilz Automation Safety Canada LP
Pineberry Manufacturing Inc.
Plan Automation Inc.
PMR Packaging Inc.
Premier Tech Chronos
Propack Processing & Packaging Systems Inc.
Robatech Gluing Technology (Robatech Canada)
Rockwell Automation, Inc.
Schubert North America, LLC
SteelNor / Inventure Engineering & Machinery
Yaskawa Canada, Inc.
Zarpac Inc.
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ABB Inc. - Business Unit Robotics
Abbey Packaging Equipment Ltd.
Alex E. Jones & Associates Ltd.
ARPAC LLC
B&T Sales Inc
Beumer Corporation
BluePrint Automation (BPA)
Bosch Packaging Systems AG
Charles Downer & Co. Ltd.
Chisholm Machinery Solutions
Consolidated Technologies Inc.
Cousineau Packaging Inc.
Delkor Systems, Inc.
Edson Packaging Machinery Ltd.
Endflex Packaging Machinery
Euroimpianti Spa
FANUC Canada, Ltd.
Flexi-Pack Machinery Solutions Inc.
Gebo Cermex Canada Inc.
General Conveyor Inc.
Geosaf Inc.
Honeywell Intelligrated
KUKA Robotics Canada Ltd.
M & M Packaging Associates Ltd.
MD Packaging Inc.
Mecano Industrie
Mpac Langen
Multivac Canada
Nalbach Engineering Company, Inc.
Newmapak Ltd.
Nuspark Inc.
Omron Canada Inc.
PACKPRO SYSTEMS Inc.
Pilz Automation Safety Canada LP
Plan Automation Inc.
PMR Packaging Inc.
PPI Technologies Group
Premier Tech Chronos
Propack Processing & Packaging Systems Inc.
Robatech Gluing Technology (Robatech Canada)
Rockwell Automation, Inc.
Samuel Packaging Systems Group
Schubert North America, LLC
SteelNor / Inventure Engineering & Machinery
Techno Pak Packaging Systems Inc.
Toptier
Yaskawa America, Inc.
Yaskawa Canada, Inc.
Yaskawa Motoman
Zarpac Inc.
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ABB Inc. - Business Unit Robotics
Abbey Packaging Equipment Ltd.
Alex E. Jones & Associates Ltd.
ATS - Tanner Banding Systems Inc.
B&T Sales Inc
BluePrint Automation (BPA)
Bosch Packaging Systems AG
Bradman Lake
Capmatic Ltd.
Charles Downer & Co. Ltd.
Chisholm Machinery Solutions
Consolidated Technologies Inc.
Cousineau Packaging Inc.
Delkor Systems, Inc.
Edson Packaging Machinery Ltd.
Emerson
Euroimpianti Spa
FANUC Canada, Ltd.
Festo Inc.
Flexi-Pack Machinery Solutions Inc.
Gebo Cermex Canada Inc.
General Conveyor Inc.
Geosaf Inc.
Harpak-ULMA Packaging, LLC
Honeywell Intelligrated
igus Inc.
M & M Packaging Associates Ltd.
MD Packaging Inc.
Mecano Industrie
Mpac Langen
Multivac Canada
Nalbach Engineering Company, Inc.
Newmapak Ltd.
Nuspark Inc.
Omron Canada Inc.
Pilz Automation Safety Canada LP
Pineberry Manufacturing Inc.
Plan Automation Inc.
Plexpack
PMR Packaging Inc.
PPI Technologies Group
Propack Processing & Packaging Systems Inc.
Reiser (Canada) Co.
Robatech Gluing Technology (Robatech Canada)
Rockwell Automation, Inc.
Samuel Packaging Systems Group
Schneider Electric Canada Inc.
Schubert North America, LLC
Siemens Canada Limited
SteelNor / Inventure Engineering & Machinery
Syntegon Packaging Technology, Inc.
Techno Pak Packaging Systems Inc.
Trinamics Incorporated
VC999 Canada Ltd.
Yaskawa America, Inc.
Yaskawa Canada, Inc.
Yaskawa Motoman
Zarpac Inc.
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Sort Production Products Ltd.
SteelNor / Inventure Engineering & Machinery
Tri-Tronics Company
Zarpac Inc.
Edson
Omron
Rockwell
Sensor Products Inc.
Siemens Canada Limited
Sort Production Products Ltd.
SteelNor / Inventure Engineering & Machinery
Steeltek - A Div. of 877418 Ont. Ltd.
Zarpac Inc.
SENSORS: BARREL
Ahearn & Soper Inc.
ARPAC LLC
Balluff Canada Inc.
Carlo Gavazzi (Canada) Inc.
Emerson Festo Inc.
Harlund Industries Ltd.
Pineberry Manufacturing Inc.
Rockwell Automation, Inc.
Schneider Electric Canada Inc.
Siemens Canada Limited
Sort Production Products Ltd.
Steeltek - A Div. of 877418 Ont. Ltd.
Zarpac Inc.
SENSORS: COLOR MARK
Ahearn & Soper Inc.
ARPAC LLC
Balluff Canada Inc.
Baumer Inc.
Capmatic Ltd.
Carlo Gavazzi (Canada) Inc.
Harlund Industries Ltd.
Omron Canada Inc.
Pineberry Manufacturing Inc.
Rockwell Automation, Inc.
Schneider Electric Canada Inc.
Sick, Inc.
Siemens Canada Limited
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Ahearn & Soper Inc.
ARPAC LLC
Balluff Canada Inc.
Carlo Gavazzi (Canada) Inc.
Emerson
Festo Inc.
Gebo Cermex Canada Inc.
General Conveyor Inc.
Harlund Industries Ltd.
Omron Canada Inc.
Pineberry Manufacturing Inc.
Rockwell Automation, Inc.
Schneider Electric Canada Inc.
Siemens Canada Limited
Sort Production Products Ltd.
SteelNor / Inventure Engineering & Machinery
Steeltek - A Div. of 877418 Ont. Ltd.
Visuascan Inc.
Zarpac Inc.
SENSORS: OBJECT DETECTION
Ahearn & Soper Inc.
ARPAC LLC
Balluff Canada Inc.
Baumer Inc.
Capmatic Ltd.
Carlo Gavazzi (Canada) Inc.
Cognex Corp.
Emerson
Festo Inc.
Fortress Technology Inc.
Harlund Industries Ltd.
Omron Canada Inc.
Pineberry Manufacturing Inc.
Rockwell Automation, Inc.
Schneider Electric Canada Inc.
Sensor Products Inc.
Siemens Canada Limited
Sort Production Products Ltd.
SteelNor / Inventure Engineering & Machinery
Tri-Tronics Company
Visuascan Inc.
Zarpac Inc.
SENSORS: PHOTOELECTRIC
Ahearn & Soper Inc.
ARPAC LLC
Balluff Canada Inc.
Baumer Inc.
Capmatic Ltd.
Carlo Gavazzi (Canada) Inc.
Cognex Corp.
Festo Inc.
Gebo Cermex Canada Inc.
Harlund Industries Ltd.
Omron Canada Inc.
Pineberry Manufacturing Inc.
Rockwell Automation, Inc.
Schneider Electric Canada Inc.
Sick, Inc.
Siemens Canada Limited
Sort Production Products Ltd.
SteelNor / Inventure Engineering & Machinery
Steeltek - A Div. of 877418 Ont. Ltd.
Tri-Mach Group Inc.
Tri-Tronics Company
Visuascan Inc.
Zarpac Inc.
SENSORS: PROXIMITY
Ahearn & Soper Inc.
ARPAC LLC
Balluff Canada Inc.
Baumer Inc.
Carlo Gavazzi (Canada) Inc.
Cognex Corp.
Emerson Festo Inc.
Gebo Cermex Canada Inc.
Harlund Industries Ltd.
Omron Canada Inc.
Pineberry Manufacturing Inc.
Rockwell Automation, Inc.
Siemens Canada Limited
Sort Production Products Ltd.
SteelNor / Inventure Engineering & Machinery
Steeltek - A Div. of 877418 Ont. Ltd.
Visuascan Inc.
Zarpac Inc.
SENSORS: ULTRASONIC
Ahearn & Soper Inc.
ARPAC LLC
Harlund Industries Ltd.
Omron Canada Inc.
Rockwell Automation, Inc.
Siemens Canada Limited
Sort Production Products Ltd.
SteelNor / Inventure Engineering & Machinery
Steeltek - A Div. of 877418 Ont. Ltd.
Tri-Tronics Company
Zarpac Inc.
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Capmatic Ltd. Festo Inc.
Filamatic
Lapp Group Canada
Omron Canada Inc.
Balluff Canada Inc.
Baumer Inc.
Carlo Gavazzi (Canada) Inc.
Cognex Corp.
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per second;
m/min; 1970 ft/ min
x 50 up to 180 x 180 mm (character height from 0.6mm to size of mark field)
Unlimited Increased power and speed, combined with an optional IP65-rated version, result in the D620i laser, that is equal to the most demanding applications and environments. RapidScan makes our lasers 20% faster for high-speed applications than other scribing lasers. V120i The smart upgrade to digital coding - and the most cost effective solution for flexible packaging in its
MARKEM-IMAJE INC.
Markem-Imaje
production environments where space is limited; Laser head can be rotated 90° in less than 5 minutes; Scribing technology produces non-dot matrix, razor sharp marks on a variety of substrates; All-in-one design for fast installation and line changes; Ideal coding alternative where CIJ
to
wpm < 1g to 8,000g 14 head IP66, 67 & 69K waterproof, self-draining surfaces, auto set-up, wireless control 200 presets Ishida CCW-R to 400 wpm various various 10,14,16,18,20,24,28 head Models for all applications: dry, washdown, USDA 200 presets
Ishida CCW-R RH/VH to 95 wpm to << 0.5g 800g 10-30 heads USDA Dairy-Accepted Digital metering 200 presets
Ishida CCW-R 218/224/228-WB to 120 wmp <<0.5g - 1g to 400g Product mix-weighing High speeds, gentle handling products
Ishida CCW-R-GS (gentle slope) to 130 wpm <0.5g - 1g to 4000g Large and small capacity models Gentle handling
Ishida CCW-R-214WB (screw feeder) to 45 wpm <0.5g - 1g to 1,600g 14 head Dual screw feeders move fresh meats, pasta, other sticky foods; IP66 washdown
Save Space and Increase Throughput.
Like to minimize the cost of ownership?
Ryson can help. Our Spiral Conveyors need less floor space than conventional conveyors and are faster and more reliable than any elevator or lift. All our products are designed for low maintenance and long life and our proprietary modular construction makes future reconfiguring cost effective.
Quality and service come first at Ryson. We are the number one spiral manufacturer in the USA. For application assistance or more information, give us a call or visit www.ryson.com.
See us at PACK Expo East - Booth 2012
HONEYWELL INTELLIGRATED
IntelliQ ZoneFlex
Accuglide ZoneFlex
Motor Driven Roller (MDR) conveyor
E-Z Set live roller conveyor
Accumat
V-belt live roller conveyor
Belt-driven, zero presure accumulation
Chain-driven, zero-pressure accumulation
Zero contact accumulation
Positive transportation and low-pressure accumulation
Rollerless plastic-belted zero pressure accumulation
Flexible configurations to transport product through curves, skews, merges and sorters
Brake meter conveyor Control merge releases and provide consistent gaps between cartons at high speeds Casemat Modular plastic belt surface well-suited for food, beverage and consumer product applications
Pallet Accuglide conveyor
Multiple zone live roller for positive transportation and
belt styles and conveyor configurations to reduce product damage and spills, simplify sanitation, and fit most any equipment layout.
EDL PACKAGING ENGINEERS, INC. (in Canada: Flexi-Pack Machinery Solutions Inc., Woodbridge, ON) EDL Packaging Engineers, Inc. Various makes and models available
From Product to Pallet
Whether your business is big or small, when it comes to protein packaging and automation, only Harpak-ULMA does it all. We've got the industry's widest array of solutions, including tray sealers, thermoform/fill/seal, flow wrappers, vertical baggers, stretch overwrap, FLOW-VAC equipment, and secondary packaging solutions — plus plant automation for everything from denesting and robotic product loading to pick and place, tote loading/handling, and palletizing. Our personal attention and top-rated customer service maximize your uptime with 24/7 technical support, remote diagnostics, and more. To wrap up all your packaging challenges, contact Harpak-ULMA today!
One Supplier For A Complete Line!_ AD
Trim
Single Supplier Providing Complete Solutions!
From the processing of your product to the finished pallet, Multivac can assist you with designing a purpose fit solution that will limit the manual handling of your product.
- Fully integrated Line solutions
- Enabling you to utilize skilled employees in other areas of the facility
n Produces MAP packages using preformed trays of almost any size or shape –easily packages your
n Consistently produces packages with reliable, high-quality seals that extend shelf-life.
n Fast, highly flexible, and extremely easy to operate.
n Innovative tool/storage cart allows rapid, tool-less changeovers between tray sizes in 10 minutes or less.
n Stainless steel washdown construction and IP67 components.
n Compact footprint allows it to fit into tight areas.
n Test the Ross IN for yourself. Contact us to set up a
Pack 240 Pro Up to 120mpm and 1500ppm Air Knife, Piston Arm, Drop Nose, Etc. Up to 242mm in Width and 101mm in Height Packaged Product Inspection: Automatic product inspection and rejection for: contaminants, check-weighing and defects. Patented MDX Dual
Pack 430 Pro Up to 120mpm and 1500ppm Air Knife, Piston Arm, Drop Nose, Etc. Up to 434mm in Width and 152mm in Height
Pack 1000 Pro Up to 120mpm and 1500ppm Air Knife, Piston Arm, Drop Nose, Etc. Up to 729mm in Width and 558mm in Height
Packaged Product Inspection: Automatic product inspection and rejection for: contaminants, check-weighing and defects. Patented MDX Dual Energy X-ray for unparalleled detection of low-density contaminants.
Packaged Product Inspection: Automatic product inspection and rejection for: contaminants, check-weighing and defects.
The four-day seminar provides an overall view of the subject of machinery safety and gives to attendees the understanding of safety regulations and standards in reference to existing machinery, as well as to the design and construction of new machinery. The training provides guidance on how to implement the legal and statutory requirements pertaining to machinery.
Don’t hesitate to contact us if you would like to have the
ADDRESSES
Bear Label Machines
See Chisholm Machinery Sales Limited, Niagara Falls, ON Beckhoff 7-2900 Argentia Rd Mississauga ON L5N 7X9 Tel: 2896271900 Fax: 9058521535
3-226 Industrial Parkway N Aurora ON L4G 4C3 Tel: 9057375400
Niagara Falls, ON ARPAC LLC
9555 W Irving Park Rd Schiller Park IL 60176 Tel: 8476789034 Fax: 8476717006 Artypac Automation Inc. 3315 boul Industriel Laval QC H7L 4S3 Tel: 4506686600 Fax: 4506686633
3505 Rue Isabelle Suite O Brossard QC J4Y 4R2 Tel: 450-619-9973
3555 rue Isabelle bureau 111 Brossard QC J4Y 2R2 Tel: 4506199973 Fax: 4506199976 ATG Pharma Inc.
2730 Brighton Rd., Unit C1 Oakville ON L6H 5T4 ATI Industrial Automation 1031 Goodworth Dr Apex NC 27539 Tel: 9197720115 Fax: 9197728259 Atlantic Packaging Products Ltd.
Progress Ave Scarborough ON M1P 2Y9 Tel: 4162988101 Fax: 4162972218 ATS - Tanner Banding Systems Inc. A-2390 Wyecroft Rd Oakville ON L6L 6M8 Tel: 9058159999 Fax: 9058150443
Can Am Packaging Systems (Caps)
5700 Chemin St Fracois St Laurent QC H4S 1B4 Tel: 5149561525 Fax: 5149561831
Canadian Corrugated & Containerboard Association
3-1995 Clark Blvd Brampton ON L6T 4W1 Tel: 9054581247 Fax: 9054582052
5600 Keaton Cres Mississauga ON L5R 3K2 Tel: 9053624502
Hibar Systems Limited
35 Pollard St Richmond Hill ON L4B 1A8 Tel: 9057312400 Fax: 9057316035
HMA Systems 12-185 Advance Blvd Brampton ON L6T 4Y3 Tel: 9054588182 Fax: 9054580758
Honeywell Intelligrated
2075 Forbes Street, Building B Unit #1 Whitby ON L1N 9X1 Tel: 9057435000
I
ICE USA, Mack Brooks Exhibitions Inc. 405-641 West Lake St Chicago IL 60661 Tel: 3128099260 ID Technolgoy 5051 N. Sylvania Ave., Ste. 405 Fort Worth TX
Newmapak Ltd.
Design Corp. See Packaging Equipment Solutions Inc. Omron Canada Inc.
Consilium Place Suite 802 Toronto ON M1H 3E3 Tel: 8669866766 Fax: 4162866648
Optima Machinery Corp. 1330 Contract Dr Green Bay WI 54304-5681 Tel: 9203392222 Fax: 9203392233
Orion Packaging Inc.
100 Crescent Dr Collierville TN 38017 Tel: 8003336556 Fax: 9013651071
Ossid 4000 College Rd Battleboro NC 27809
P Pack Rite
3026 Phillips Ave Racine WI 53403 Tel: 2626356966 Fax: 2626340521
PPI Technologies Group See Aesus Packaging Systems, Pointe Claire, QC
ANNOUNCEMENT
Sheldon Gouthro, BBA
President and Chief Executive Officer
The Board of Directors of Maritime Paper Products GP Limited is pleased to announce the appointment of Sheldon Gouthro as President and Chief Executive Officer of the Company.
Sheldon has been with Maritime Paper for twenty-nine years and brings a wealth of industry experience to his new role. Most recently, he held the position of Vice President and Chief Operating Officer and prior to 2018, the position of Vice President of Sales for thirteen years.
Sheldon holds a Bachelor of Business Administration degree from Acadia University and diplomas from the Queen’s University Marketing, Sales Management and Executive Management Programs.
Maritime Paper Products LP is a leading manufacturer and exporter of corrugated packaging products in Atlantic Canada. We pride ourselves in offering technically advanced and innovative solutions throughout Eastern Canada and abroad. The Company has operations located in Dartmouth, Nova Scotia; Moncton, New Brunswick; Summerside, Prince Edward Island and St. John’s, Newfoundland and Labrador.
Maritime Paper Products LP is part of the Scotia Investments Group of Companies.
1 800 565 5353 maritimepaper.com
Premier Tech Chronos 1 av Premier Rivière-du-Loup QC G5R 6C1 Tel: 4188688324 Fax: 4188626642
Riley Product Handling See Charles Downer & Co. Ltd.
RJP Packaging 3317 Mainway Dr Burlington ON L7M 1A6 Tel: 9053197562 Fax: 9053356734 Robatech Gluing
Remi Boudot, president and owner of Pack3000 Canada ltd, is specialized in food packaging applications. Introducing complete lines of equipment and automation from primary to secondary packaging lines and robotic.
All Pack3000 equipment is designed to meet Canadian federal and provincial standards. Our equipment is built for fresh food (meat, poultry, fish and seafood) as well as dried and frozen foods (fish, seafood, vegetables, pastas, beans, entrees, prepared foods, snack foods, rice, etc…).
We supply complete solutions including packaging supplies for flexible, rigid, coloured, and printed materials. We also offer a variety of materials for special applications such as resealable, recloseable, boilable, recycling material in bags, rolls of film, zipper applications, and more.
I am proud of my long experience in food packaging, serving VC999 Canada as president for 18 years & 15 years at Sipromac as manager position. I know the Canadian food industry coast to coast with its diversity and demanding needs.
Pack3000 Canada Ltd is strategically based in Drummondville, Qc and supports Canada coast to coast with equipment, service, and supplies: remi.boudot@pack3000.com tel:819-471-3573.
Our customers products are our passion and we will help to take their product to the next level.
Shanklin, Sealed Air Corporation 100 Westwood Rd Ayer MA 01432 Tel: 9787723200 Fax: 9787725660
Shawpak Systems Ltd. See Mettler Toledo SIAL Canada 601-2120 rue Sherbrooke E Montréal QC H2K 1C3 Tel: 4384762239 Fax: 5142891034 Sick, Inc. 6900 West 110th St Bloomington MN 55438 Tel: 9529416780 Fax: 9529419287
Siemens Canada Limited 1550 Appleby Line Burlington ON L7L 6X7 Tel: 9053193600 Fax: 9053157923 SIG Combibloc 881-2425 Matheson Blvd E Mississauga ON L4W 5K4 Tel: 9053612825 Fax: 9053612610
9057912999
Signode 3650 W Lake Ave. Glenview IL 60026 Tel: 847-6577945 Sipromac II Inc. 2555 rue Alfred-Nobel Drummondville QC J2A 0L5 Tel: 8193955151 Fax: 8193955343
Smipack
See CiMa-Pak Corporation
Solbern
See Chisholm Machinery Sales Limited, Niagara Falls, ON
Sort Production Products Ltd. 8-2266 Drew Rd Mississauga ON L5S 1B1 Tel: 9056737678 Fax: 9056737637
Spacekraft - A Weyer Haeuser Co. 4901 West 79th Street Indianapolis IN 46268 Tel: 3178716999 Fax: 3178716993
Spee-Dee Packaging Machinery, Inc. 1360 Grandview Pky Sturtevant WI 53177 Tel: 2628864402 Fax: 2628865502
Speedway Packaging Machinery 10 Gormley Industrial Ave Unit 2-3 Gormley ON L0H 1G0 Tel: 9058885344 Fax: 9058885374
Leading-edge Product Inspection Systems for Unparalleled Food Production Safety
METTLER TOLEDO’s innovative range of product inspection equipment, designed to integrate seamlessly and connect your busy manufacturing processes with the future, is setting the bar for industry 4.0 advancements with leading-edge metal detection, checkweighing, x-ray, and vision inspection technology.
Let METTLER TOLEDO help you achieve safety and production excellence. Learn more and get your free copies of our comprehensive product inspection guides today by visiting www.mt.com/pi-guides
