Yvon Lapierre, Montréal Plant Manager, Owens-Illinois, Inc.
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MARCH 2012
VOLUME 65, NO. 3
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DOLLARS AND SENSE
Because innovation is often in the eyes of the beholder, making a case for any new packaging products as being truly innovative is rarely an easy task—especially in this new age of packaging sustainability awareness that generally tends to cast most consumer packaging in negative light to begin with, on the account of significant resources used to produce it and the considerable waste being left behind after use.
Although such general anti-packaging premises rarely stand up to serious science-based scrutiny, perception is often king in any business, and the global packaging industry is no different, despite the critical role played by modern packaging in helping modern global society maintain and improve the overall quality of life for the world’s bulging population—already past the seven-billion mark and on course to exceed nine billion people by 2050.
Any way you look at it, it’s a lot of mouths to feed, and doing so fairly and equitably will likely be the mother of all sustainability challenges for the global packaging industry and community.
“Modern society cannot survive without packaging,” the World Packaging Organization (WPO) unequivocally states in the group’s recentlypublished position paper titled Better Quality of Life through Better Packaging for More People. “Good packaging is a most-important tool for the well-being and safety of people, and for successful commerce.”
Be that as it may, the undeniable importance of packaging does not in itself excuse packaging product designers and manufacturers from continuously improving their wares both for the sake of the environment and the consumers, which is where the open-ended requirement for true innovation comes in.
Unfortunately, innovation rarely comes cheaply or free, which is why many possible breakthrough packaging designs and ideas never get to see the light of day due to the allegedly prohibitive costs of
R&D (research-and-development), commercialization and marketing.
Tragic but true, laments Scott Young, president of marketing consultancy Perception Research Services International in Fort Lee, N.J.
“Since many packaging innovations require significant upfront investments (retooling, etc.) and/ or incremental costs-per-unit (via more expensive materials), they are often seen as a roadblock of sorts,” states Young in a new report addressing the challenge of justifying the “business value” of new packaging innovations.
“While packaging engineers can demonstrate that the new system provides a functional benefit (easier-to-open, etc.), they often can’t provide marketers with the ‘evidence’ of increased sales they need to justify an investment,” says Young, explaining the inherent shortcomings of the widely-used “quantitative research” based on surveying hundreds of potential customers, compared to the “qualitative research” involving much smaller groups of target customers.
“In fact, the way companies test new ideas can also stifle innovation by killing ideas before they are fully developed and refined,” states Young.
“Given the costs of creating functional prototypes, companies are eager to gather ‘numerical’ evidence before investing further in a concept,” he explains. “This leads them to present new concepts to customers through drawings and written explanations, which rarely produce the same depth of feeling from customers as a functional package.
“Overall, at the early stages of packaging exploration and development, more will be learned from watching 20 people actually use and discuss a package than from surveying 200 people regarding a drawing and/or concept statement,” Young concludes.
So while quality inevitably has its price, in the greater scheme of things it is the price of ignoring quality for the sake of short-term savings and convenience that could well be the cost that packaging suppliers and their customers can ironically least afford.
DEPARTMENTS & COLUMNS
FEATURES
Ceilings By George Guidoni
Pierre Longtin.
PPC SEMINAR FOCUSES ON GOVERNMENT FUNDING
INAC Services president
David Reynolds summarizing the various funding programs available to the Canadian pulp and paper producers.
Underfunding can be a killer even for the best laid-out business plans and product innovations, but contrary to popular belief, Canadian manufacturing small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) enjoy access to a considerable pool of financial resources from both federal and provincial governments to get themselves on sound-enough financial footing to compete and succeed in today’s global economy, as demonstrated at a recent discussion forum hosted by the Brampton, Ont.headquartered industry group Paper Packaging Canada (PPC)
Organized as an information gathering session for PPC member-companies’ management personnel involved in capital investment planning and decision-making in key areas such as employee training, plant expansion and R&D projects, the sold-out seminar provided a comprehensive overview of the various government grants, funding support, and tax incentive programs available to Canadian companies.
“The funding often exists if you know where to look, and we do,” said president of INAC Services David Reynolds, who founded his consulting company after having experienced his family-owned printing business close down due to underfunding problems.
That setback prompted Reynolds to learn all he could about sourcing available grants, rebates and other government incentive programs in support of business ventures—in the process creating INAC Services, he related.
“From the Ontario Chamber of Commerce and
the Ontario Exporters Fund, to university research grants, to relatively obscure special interests and enterprises like ‘environmental benefits from organic substitutions for copper,’ even funding for breeding mosquito fish ... it is all about knowing how and where to look for that funding,” stated Reynolds.
“We manage the decision criteria defining the financial strategy before applying for a grant [and] then we do at least 80 per cent of the detailed submission preparation work,” added INAC client advisor Peter Scholze, explaining how the company works “at the grassroots level” to facilitate applications for funding.
“The client’s job is to accurately organize all the required information; our job is to eliminate errors or roadblocks to funding approval,” said Scholze, a former vice-president of procurement for Nestlé ’s Canadian and Russian operations.
While the application process usually involves often-complex and rigorous review procedures and approval criteria applied by various government departments, Canadian Manufacturers & Exporters (CME) association vice-president Ian Howcroft said the group’s recently-launched SMART Prosperity Now Program in Ontario— providing nonrepayable business funding grants to cover up to one-third (up to $75,000) of eligible expenses for manufacturers with an exporting focus—should make it easier to obtain vital government grant funding for the adoption of more productive technologies and equipment, along with funding to offset marketing and public relations expenditures.
Describing Canada’s current economic performance as “reaching a watershed period” due to global financial turbulence, Howcroft challenged the seminar audience to debunk the popular notion that “governments create jobs.
“Ideas and innovations create growth opportunities: that’s what creates jobs,” stated Howcroft,
noting that Canada’s manufacturers, exporters and their supply chains account for about 75 per cent of the country’s industrial production and 90 per cent of all exports.
Some of the CME SMART Prosperity Now Program eligible project areas include:
• International Market Expansion: developing a competitive strategy and a marketing mix;
• New Market Development: targeting potential customers in foreign markets;
• Commercialization, including marketing research and product advertising;
• Purchases of new or upgraded equipment and technologies;
• Investments in “sustainable” and “green” technologies, including reducing waste and using alternative fuels;
• Investments in the so-called “Lean Productivity Improvement” processes and practices.
For more information on the CME SMART Prosperity Now Program, go to: www.cme-smart.ca
SMI GROUP BOOSTS CANADIAN PRESENCE
Mississauga, Ont.-based industrial equipment distributor Omnifission Inc. has been appointed as the exclusive sales agent for the central and eastern regions of Canada—including stocking of spare parts and offering comprehensive after-sales support—for the complete “world-class” cold-fill filling lines, palletizing/depalletizing, conveying, shrinkwrapping, multipacking, case-packing and tray-packing equipment manufactured by the Italian-based SMI Group
Headed by chief executive officer Paolo Nava (see picture) and comprised of six globally-operating divisions—including SMIFlexi, SMIForm, SMILine, SMIPal, SMIMec and SMITec SMI Group boasts an extensive global installation base in over 130 countries worldwide, with the company’s client list including the world’s leading food-and-beverage multinationals such as Nestlé, Danone, Unilever, Coca-Cola , PepsiCo, Diageo, Heinz, Heineken , SABMiller, Inbev and Carlsberg
Employing over 650 people worldwide, the company’s divisions generated combined revenues of €101.2 million ($133 million) in 2011, with soft-drink and bottled-water markets accounting for nearly 70 per cent of total sales.
Serving a growing client base of over 200 customers in the food-and-beverage, brewing, pharmaceutical and chemical industries across North America and the Caribbean region, the privately-owned Omnifission Inc. employs 15 full-time staff (including nine technical personnel) to provide turnkey equipment installation services—including design assistance, procurement, installation, commissioning and personnel training. Contact Nick White at (905) 405-9777 or via email: nick@omnifission.com
Paolo Nava, CEO, SMI Group.
NEWSPACK
NATIONAL PACKAGING GROUP SEEKING GLOBAL STANDARDS ACCEPTANCE
Toronto-headquartered industry group PAC-The Packaging Association has secured the services of leading international third-party certification services provider IFS Management GmbH in an effort to achieve international recognition for the PACsecure food safety standard for individual packaging materials—jointly developed by the PAC and more than 100 leading Canadian-based companies comprising packaging manufacturers, their end-user customers and suppliers.
Jim Downham, President & CEO, PAC-The Packaging Association.
Already used as a de facto packaging equivalent of the widely-used HACCP (Hazard Analysis Critical Control Points) food safety certification—with several
prominent Canadian-based packaging producers achieving their accreditation in recent years— PAC president James Downham says it is imperative that the standards get formal recognition of the Paris, France-based GFSI (Global Food Safety Initiative) foundation to gain global credibility.
“While we firmly believe that PACsecure is the world’s foremost standard for primary and secondary packaging, a large proportion of the international food industry will only accept packaging that is recognized by GFSI, and IFS has fully demonstrated its expertise to partner with us in this endeavor,” states Donwham.
“It is already the owner of the GFSI-benchmarked IFS Food standard, the IFS Logistics and other supply chain standards with more than 12,000 certifications globally,” says Downham, also noting the name change from PACsecure to IFS PACsecure as part of the partnership arrangement with IFS.
“As PAC is a not-for-profit organization, it is not in a position to ‘go it alone’ in achieving GFSI recognition,” says Downham, adding that he is fully confident about obtaining GFSI recognition that will enable the standards “to ensure the safety and quality of packaging materials for the food industry.
“More importantly for the Canadian food and packaging manufacturing sector, it means their products will be more readily accepted by both the domestic and international food industry,” says Downham, citing the recent endorsement of PACsecure standards—covering 24 different manufacturing practices to produce specific packaging materials—by the influential, U.S.-based Food Safety Alliance for Packaging group, whose member-companies include General Mills, Nestlé, Kraft, ConAgra Foods, Sara Lee, Campbell Soup and many other high-profile food manufacturers and brand-owners.
KRAFT’S ICONIC COOKIE CELEBRATES SWEET 100 IN GRAND FESTIVE STYLE
Anniversaries rarely come bigger and prouder than centennial commemorations, and Torontoheadquartered packaged foods giant Kraft Canada Inc. certainly has many sweet reasons to celebrate with a festive, year-long birthday party for the company’s famed iconic Oreo cookie brand that has just turned 100 years old earlier this month.
Created in 1912 at a bakery in the Chelsea district of New York City, the sandwich-style dessert biscuits combining crunchy rich chocolate with smooth vanilla cream were originally sold for 30 cents per pound from bulk displays—quickly becoming a big hit with homemakers and other sweet-tooth consumers captivated by the cookie’s beloved “twist, lick and dunk” ritual persisting to this day, according to the parent company Kraft Foods Inc.
says Emmanuelle Voirin, senior brand manager for the Oreo product family, which has just been expanded with three new flavors— Oreo Ban-offee Parfait, Oreo Cookies & Cream No-Bake Cheesecake and Oreo White Chocolate Irish Cream Pots de Crème —as well as the launch of a limited-edition Oreo Birthday Cake cookie recipe combining two classic chocolate biscuits, embossed with a celebratory Oreo 100th Birthday design, sandwiching a special birthday cake-flavored crème and dotted with rainbow sprinkles.
“Whether the magic lies in the classic flavor combination or in the beloved “twist, lick and dunk” ritual,” Voirin notes, “Oreo has withstood the test of time with longevity and success that is unrivaled in the cookie business.”
their grandkids,” says Voirin. “While everyone has their own twist on the ritual, having fun with your Oreo cookie is a shared memory for millions around the world.
“It makes many people feel like a kid again, if only for a moment,” Voirin adds. “After 100 years, it’s this connection that keeps Oreo near and dear to our heart ... and to our glass of milk.”
Nowadays selling in over 100 countries worldwide, “Oreo cookies transcend age and time,”
Tom Wojcik Appointment
Nordson Canada, Ltd., Amherst, Ohio –based manufacturer of precision dispensing equipment has appointed Tom Wojcik as an Application Specialist and OEM Account Manager for the Adhesive Dispensing Systems division. Wojcik, who is fluent in French, English and Polish, will work with customers from portions of Eastern Ontario through to the Maritimes. With more than 13 years in the automotive and packaging industry in engineering, R&D and project management, Wojcik will be able to provide Nordson customers with exceptional sales and service support.
Featuring attention-grabbing, festive-looking packages developed by the Oakville, Ont.-based branding and package design consultants Pigeon branding + design under the supervision of Kraft’s packaging design manager Charles Fung, the new recipes are produced and packaged at Kraft Canada’s Montreal plant, according to the company, which is conducting a broad range of other high-profile marketing activities celebrating the venerable cookie’s anniversary and legacy, including:
• On-pack contests, including a $100,000 birthday gift giveaway;
• Special online Facebook activities to engage the estimated 850,000 Oreo cookie fans in Canada;
• A special draw to send some select Canadian Oreo fans to “an international gathering of Oreo lovers in September in New York City to represent our country at this global event”;
• A year-end launch of a special-edition Oreo Festive Tin, designed specifically for “holiday dunking and for every Oreo lover on your list,” according to Kraft.
“Grandparents who fell in love with Oreo when they were little will now get to share the fun of the ‘twist, lick and dunk’ with
With an estimated US$1.5 billion worth of Oreo cookies sold around the world each year— including some exotic recipes such as Oreo Green Tea Ice Cream in China, Oreo Duo in banana and dulce de leche in Argentina, and Oreo Blueberry Ice Cream in the Philippines—the Oreo Crème Sandwich cookies were first introduced to Canada in 1949, and have remained one of its bestselling cookie brands since.
Here are some other the relatively little-known facts about the Oreo cookie:
• The Kraft bakery on Viau Street in Montreal can bake over 1.1 million Oreo cookies over an eighthour shift, according to Kraft, enabling it to make an Oreo cookie for every Canadian resident in just 11 days;
• From mixing to baking to packaging, it takes exactly 59 minutes to produce a finished Oreo cookie;
• Each Oreo cookie face has 12 flowers stamped in the design;
• With more than 23 million Facebook followers, the Oreo cookie ranks among the top five brand pages in the world:
• To this day, the brand name itself continues to be a subject of lively debate among the product’s fans—with explanations ranging from the Greek word oreao (meaning hill or mountain) to the French word or (gold), to a combination of taking the “re” from “cream” and placing it between the two “o”s in “chocolate” to spell out “o-re-o.” According to Kraft, however, “It is just a fun, short and easy-to-pronounce name.”
FIRST GLANCE
EASY CALCULATIONS
Nordson Adhesive Systems has launched an extensive library of Adhesive Calculator Tools on the company’s website (www.nordson.com/adhesivecalculators) to enable adhesives end-users to evaluate and obtain most current information about their specific Nordson hot-melt systems and all the related dat about their adhesive usage and consumption. According to Nordson, the user just needs to input/enter a variety of requested information to determine the accurate amount of adhesive used daily and calculate annual adhesive savings based on implementing different products or processes. Providing a valuable tool for optimal performance measurement and for suggesting opportunities for further productivity enhancements and operational cost-savings, the online library covers a comprehensive range of applications:
• Adhesive and Substrate Savings Calculator to calculate the adhesive usage by film cost versus nonwovens;
• Adhesive Bead Savings Calculator (see image) to calculate the costs and savings of intermittent adhesive dispensing;
• Adhesive Usage Calculator to calculate the adhesive usage per product per day;
• BTU Usage Calculator to calculate energy usage and savings with SP Pump or BestChoice module;
• Elastic Adhesive Cost Calculator to calculate the adhesive usage costs using elastic application;
• Foam System Savings Calculator to calculate adhesive savings using the Nordson Foam System;
• Fulfill Fill System Savings Calculator to calculate annual savings by automating the adhesive filling process;
• Labeling Payback Calculator to calculate savings by switching from an open wheel-pot labeling system to a Nordson noncontact solution;
• Module Life Calculator to calculate the life of an e.dot module and the SpeedCoat module with PatternJet applicator;
• Packaging Cost Calculator to calculate costsavings per month for packaging using hot-melt versus tape;
• Power Consumption Calculator to calculate power usage of a Nordson adhesive applicating system;
• Product Savings Calculator to calculate adhesive cost-savings using Nordson equipment;
• PUR Cost Model Calculator to compare the PUR adhesive system costs by product;
• System Recap Field Guide Calculator to calculate ProBlue system savings;
• Total Cost of Operation Calculator to calculate both adhesive costs and equipment costs;
• Unity Cost Model Calculator to compare the adhesive cost-savings of Unity products/systems;
• Web Coating Calculator to calculate substrate material and adhesive savings. Nordson Canada, Limited 401
VIPER TRAIL
Designed for applications requiring precise high-speed automation, Adept Technology’s new high-performance Viper s1700D six-axis robot is outfitted with highspeed, highly-efficient new motors that help deliver higher-speed motion and increased productivity across a broad range of packaging, material handling, machine tending, cutting and assembly applications, according to the company. Boasting a long reach of 17 meters and robust 20-kg payload capacity, the small-footprint s1700D robot features the company’a Adept AC software to deploy the robot through a userfriendly interface, advanced self-diagnostics for proactive monitoring and quick troubleshooting, and full Ethernet TCP/IP connectivity to allow the robot to be controlled through a PC, a PLC (programmable logic controller) or a controller.
inking system to ensure high print quality and superior reproduction of fine details on the package surfaces—the highly flexible VSOP printing unit employs plate and rubber blanket cylinders as handy sleeves to facilitate quick change of print sizes without removing the entire printing inserts. Offering a comprehensive range of flexographic, screen, gravure and digital printing capabilities, along with finishing processes such as laminating, punching and sheeting, the VSOP press can be easily outfitted with an electron beam or UV equipment to cure the printing inks in food packaging applications—ensuring low-migration, odorless final packages.
Muller Martini 404
HITTING THE BOTTLE
Adept Technology, Inc. 402
PASSING THE TEST
Designed for noninvasive, nondestructive testing of thermoformed blisterpacks, the OpTech – O2 system from MOCON, Inc. employs a new-generation optical sensor that will “fluoresce,” or give off light directly related to the amount of oxygen present, according to the company, making it ideally-suited for determining oxygen headspace and ingress in both flexible and rigid packaging. According to MOCON, the OpTech – O2 system provides a far superior means for conducting oxygen analysis for blisterpack testing than the conventional methods— including invasive testing, complicated offline procedures and other labor-intensive practices—with unmatched accuracy in providing quick evaluation of what is happening inside a closed blister package under real-life conditions to help pharmaceutical and other end-users to identify the instances of modified-atmosphere packaging being compromised by poor packaging seals, material breakdown, weak barrier properties, pinholes, etc.
PRESS FREEDOM
The new LCX bottle unscrambler from Omega Design Corporation features innovative, patented rotary cam pockets and rigid, anodized aluminum frame construction with a compact footprint that make its well-suited for handling a broad variety of bottles across a diverse range of applications in the pharmaceutical, nutraceutical and personal healthcare industries. Offered in several different configurations and capable of achieving speeds of up to 300 bottles per minute, the unscrambler is equipped with a user-friendly OIT (operator interface terminal) touchscreen and a bulk supply hopper with an elevator, while also offering a broad range of options such as an extended discharge conveyor, servo controls, an integrated ionized air rinser, motorized adjustments, dedicated air jets, and a patented adjustable sorter. Easily integrated into most new and existing packaging lines, according to the company, the LCX unscrambler is also capable of incorporating print and vision processes to meet the growing demand for serialization solutions.
Omega Design Corporation
HEAVY METAL
MOCON, Inc. 403
The VSOP web offset printing press from Muller Martini is a cutting-edge hybrid system for flexible packaging, boxboard and labeling converters using standard offset plates which the company says cost significantly less than the conventional image carriers used in flexographic printing, while enabling greater operation flexibility and faster image and format changes. Equipped with tempered vibrator rollers and a high-efficiency
405
Distributed in Canada by Eckert Machines, the new ProScan series of metal detectors from Advanced Detection Systems (ADS) boasts innovative, patented vibration compensation software capabilities that virtually eliminate the incidence of “false” rejects, according to the manufacturer. Developed specifically for food applications, the ProScan metal detection systems are available in three different models and three basic configurations—pipeline, conveyor-mounted and free-fall gravity—to suit bulk, packaged and cased product applications. All of the ProScan series metal detectors are designed ensure high-speed, high-precision detection of ferrous, stainless-steel, copper, lead, aluminum and all other types of metals, according to ADS, with optimal sensitivity in both wet and dry product inspection.
Eckert Machines
406
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Eco-Pack Now
LEADING WATER-BOTTLER SPEARHEADS CITY-WIDE RECYCLING SUCCESS
City living may not naturally be the cleanest way of life out there, but it can be a whole lot cleaner when city residents are given the means they need to clean up after themselves in high-traffic public venues, as the fast-growing city West Coast community of Richmond, B.C., has illustrated with its highly successful inaugural, three-month pilot public spaces recycling program.
Jointly funded and administered by the Canadian Beverage Association, the federal Encorp Pacific environmental stewardship agency, and the Puslinch, Ont.-headquartered water-bottler Nestlé Waters Canada (NWC), the city’s Go Recycle! recycling initiative—involving installation of 81 recycling receptacle stations around Richmond’s four popular community landmarks of Garry Point Park, Hugh Boyd Playing Field, Steveston Community Centre and Steveston Village—resulted in a 27-percent reduction in the number of empty beverage containers ending up in its municipal wastestream.
Combined with 25-percent decline in the amount of recyclable non-beverage containers going to the wastestream, the program enabled Richmond to achieve a 35-percent diversion rate for all landfill-bound waste, according to Richmond mayor Malcolm Brodie.
“The public spaces recycling program has been highly successful and we are proud to engage in this progressive ‘green’ initiative, and to and lead British Columbia in doing so,” says Brodie. “The visitor experiences at our parks and in the village have improved significantly, and recycling makes our waste management much more efficient.
“I’m pleased to announce that due to the success of the pilot program, the city council has approved a plan for gradual expansion of the program on a city-wide basis, starting this year.”
Initially launched in Quebec in the summer of 2008, the Canadian beverage industry-led public spaces recycling program—designed to capture the so-called “last mile” of recyclables often discarded at park spaces, recreational facilities, arenas, street-
scapes, transit stops, bars and restaurants, elementary and secondary schools, convenience stores and gas stations—is a key part of the industry’s longterm goal of achieving a 70-percent diversion rate for beverage containers nationwide.
Now entering its third and final year in Quebec, the program has achieved province-wide average of 85-percent recovery for recyclable aluminum, glass, plastic and gabletop beverage containers, with some single locations reporting recovery rates as high as 97 per cent.
Since the launch of the Quebec pilot, the program has also been extended to the city of Sarnia and the Niagara region in Ontario, Halifax, N.S., and the province of Manitoba, which has since implemented the program on a permanent basis—becoming the first North American jurisdiction to do so.
In addition to providing the necessary recycling infrastructure in the form of recycling receptacles, the public spaces recycling program—scheduled to launch in Calgary, Alta., later this year—also includes public education campaigns and citizen participation activities.
With a population of nearly 200,000 people, the city of Richmond provided a resounding validation to the program’s credibility, according to NWC president John Zupo, calling the results “significant
and impressive, especially after just three months. “This rate was achieved even though the bins, signage and messaging were in place for only a short period of time, which bodes well for the ongoing effectiveness of the City’s future Go Recycle! permanent public spaces recycling program,” says Zupo, whose company’s many recent impressive environmental initiatives include:
• Making its Montclair natural spring water brand one of the first bottled-water products to feature a minimum of 50-percent recycled plastic content in each one of its formats;
• Saving over 12 million kilograms of GHG (greenhouse gas) emissions annually by manufacturing its own bottles at each of its bottling facilities to save the energy required to ship truckloads of empty bottles into its plants— a rough equivalent of 20,000 trailer loads of empty plastic bottles per year;
• Shipping more than 80 per cent of its product directly to retailers right from the bottling plants to achieve average source-to-shelf shipping distance of about 250 kilometers—compared to an estimated 2,400 to 3,200 kilometers for fresh fruit and vegetables, and most other consumer packaged goods;
• Commencing the use of hydrogen fuelcell forklifts and hybrid sales vehicles;
• Reducing the number of trucks traveling to and from the Puslinch facility by 1,500 since the $15-million expansion of the plant’s distribution center;
• Saving an estimated 20 million pounds of paper per year by continuously reducing the size of its paper labels, which are now 35-percent smaller that the previously-used labels;
• Reducing its use of corrugated secondary packaging by 88,000 tons over the last five years— an equivalent of 528,000 trees;
• Reaffirming its corporate commitment to developing a next-generation bottle made entirely from recycled materials or renewable resources by 2020.
CHEESEMAKER STICKING TO ITS GREEN FOCUS WITH BIO-BASED PACKAGING
Being the Big Cheese of a highly competitive global industry has many great rewards, but they often come with a big burden of responsibility of doing the right thing—especially when it comes to environmental and packaging sustainability.
And that’s perfectly fine for the Precious cheese brand of the French-owned dairy product multinational Groupe Lactalis, which has just repackaged its popular stick-shaped Precious Sticksters snacks in new film material made featuring 50-percent plant-based content— namely the renewably bioplastics derived fro the Ingeo PLA (polylactic acid) polymers produced by NatureWorks LLC of Minnetonka, Minn.
Produced by the Elk Grove, Ill.-based rigid and flexible packaging specialists Clear Lam Packaging, Inc. as part of its Project EarthClear initiative—launched to replace petroleum-based plastics with bio-based ingredients to reduce GHG (greenhouse gas) emission levels—the proprietary
bio-based layer used in the finished film is shipped directly to the Lactalis production facility, where it is processed on a range of horizontal form/fill/seal (H/F/ F/S) machines to produce the final packages of Precious Sticksters pouches.
Retailing in most U.S. states west of Mississippi, the new packages—containing a dozen individually-sealed cheese sticks apiece—are claimed to generate 35.2 per cent less GHG emissions, while using 36.8 per cent less energy to produce, than the petroleum-based plastic film they have replaced.
“We are very pleased to have partnered with Lactalis to help introduce this new, renewable package for their Precious Sticksters brand,” says Clear Lam president and chief executive officer James Sanfilippo.
“Clear Lam and Lactalis both conducted extensive internal R&D (research-and-development) and ‘real-world’ testing to ensure this material met our
rigorous standards for sustainability, durability and print quality,” Sanfilippo relates, adding that the finished bags—made from a lamination of plantbased plastic and an outer layer made from traditional petroleum-based plastic—performed well under a broad range of typical distribution conditions, while meeting all U.S. FDA (Food and Drug Administration) requirement for food use.
“It was very important to Lactalis that the finished materials had a lower carbon footprint and used less energy without losing production efficiencies or impacting product performance, with high-speed sealing being a critical production requirement,” he states.
“We achieved that and much more with this new packaging,” adds Frederick Bouisset, chief executive officer of the Buffalo, N.Y.-headquartered Lactalis American Group, Inc.
“We believe that by adopting this new packaging, we are promoting a better future by reducing our energy consumption and environmental impact—a long-term goal to which we are fully committed.”
From Left: Richmond mayor Malcolm Brodie, NWC director of corporate affairs John Challinor, and Encorp Pacific chief operating officer Bill Chan pose with one of the 81 new recycling receptacles installed at different public locations across Richmond, B.C., just north of Vancouver.
Eco-Pack Now
NEW TETRA PAK CARTON TO GIVE MILK PRODUCTSAREAL CUTTING EDGE
Combining enhanced consumer convenience with improved environmental profile is no easy task at best of times, but it appears to have become second nature to the leading aseptic packaging products supplier Tetra Pak , judging by early reviews of the company’s recently-launched, oneliter Tetra Brik Aseptic 1000 Edge milk cartons.
Featuring a new 30-mm LightCap screwcap with a distinctive sloping top panel to enable greater warehousing and shipping cost-per-pallet savings, the distinctive new carton was designed to maximize the size of the opening while minimizing the use of raw materials, according to Tetra Pak, by molding the base of the neck as flat as possible to the underside of the packaging material.
According to Tetra Pak, this was previously achieved only by employing the relatively costly DIMC (direct injection-molding concept) technology, but combining DIMC with prelaminated hole (PLH) technologies has significantly reduced the costs of incorporating this innovative closure design for a much broader range of shelf-stable product categories, including milks, vitamin-enriched milks, Omega-3 milks, flavored milks, dairy alternative soya beverages, juices, nectars, still drinks, wines and other similar product distributed in ambient conditions.
Moreover, the distinctive new sloping shape
allows users to fit up to 750 packages per standard pallet—compared to 720 Tetra Brik Aseptic cartons with SlimCap closures—to provide estimated four-percent savings in related transportation costs and GHG (greenhouse gas) emissions.
“The Tetra Brik Aseptic Edge is bringing us immediate advantages in the increasingly competitive long-life beverage market,” says Günter Berz-List, chief executive officer of a prominent German dairy product group Schwälbchen Molkerei AG
“Robust and efficient packaging saves us warehouse space and cuts the number of road journeys,” Berz-List says. “It looks great on the pallet and its sloping top and big screwcap ensures excellent pouring.
an ideal space for extra branding and messaging to draw attention to the large-size closure—with its five visible printing surfaces and a squarebottom format ensuring that the branding message is always facing out towards the consumer from the shelf.
In fact, the new package has already garnered so much acclaim that the renowned German Museum of Packaging in Baden named it the Package of the Year in late 2010, describing it as “a distinctive premium design which sets it apart on the low-priced milk shelf.”
“We have already had feedback from consumers, young and old, telling us that with the Tetra Brik Aseptic Edge, we got it right.”
Designed to satisfy the user requirements of the consumers of all age groups, the carton’s sloping top makes it easier to access and grasp the ridged cap with a low opening force, according to Tetra Pak, and the sloping top also means that the package doesn’t need to be lifted high off the surface to use and, while the 30-mm-wide opening makes pouring easier and smoother.
The large sloping top panel also remains fully visible to consumers as they browse—making it
In addition, leading German retail industry magazine Lebensmittel Praxis named new cartons as the consumer-voted Product of the Year 2011 and the retailer-voted HIT 2011 selections, describing it as a package that “guarantees smooth pouring without sputtering and making a mess.”
According to Tetra Pak, the one-liter Tetra Brik Aseptic 1000 Edge carton is scheduled for a fullout global launch, including Canada, this spring, with the 500-ml versions and other popular portion sizes to follow in 2013—to be available with FSC (Forest Stewardship Council)certified paperboard packaging material and the “green” HDPE (high-density polyethylene) closures made from sugar cane, enabling end-users to achieve additional carbon-footprint reduction for their products.
NEW EYE-CANDY POUCHES MAKEA S WEET ECO -FRIENDLY ALTERNATIVE
While Easter only comes around once a year, a lot of the discarded packaging used the wrap the seasonal Easter confectioneries is unfortunately bound to stick around landfills across the country for many years afterwards, if not decades. But not so for the new, composable stand-up pouches used by Canada’s oldest candy company.
Founded in St. Stephen, N.B., back in 1873, the venerable Ganong Bros., Limited has recently switched the packaging of its iconic Easter confectionery products—including Chocolate Covered Cherry Eggs, Easter Eggs, Chocolate Covered Marshmallow Eggs and Easter Animal Jellies —to standup pouches made from the fully-compostable, wood pulp-based NatureFlex film developed by the U.K.-headquartered Innovia Films Ltd
Formulated to break down at the end of its life-cycle either in a home compost bin or in an industrial compost environment in weeks, according to Innovia, the NatureFlex film boasts about 95-percent renewable bio-based content by weight, as defined by the North American ASTM D6866 standard for compostable packaging, and it has also been approved as being suitable for various ‘waste-toenergy’ techniques such as anaerobic digestion.
“We had two primary objectives in selecting the package: first and foremost was to improve sales and distribution and, secondly, to differentiate us from the competition,” says Ganong marketing vice-president Bruce Rafuse. “We considered several alternatives, but based upon feedback from consumers and retailers decided upon NatureFlex—due to it being compostable and the distinct competitive advantage this gives us.
“Our ultimate goal is to move all our products into compostable pouches.”
Retailing nationally in the run-up to this year’s Easter celebrations, the colorful stand-up pouches are converted by the Aurora, Ont.-based GenPak using compostable NatureFlex NKR film laminated to a biopolymer sealant layer.
“The NatureFlex film provides excellent barriers to oxygen and moisture, which helps ensure the product maintains its quality,” says GenPak business development manager Bill Reilly, “and the film has also printed and performed very well on all our machines.”
Positive Food Community Reaction
The recent announcement by Toronto, Canada-based PAC, The Packaging Association and Berlin, Germany-based, global standard owner IFS Management GmbH to join together in achieving international recognition of PAC’s PACsecure food safety standard is drawing favorable response from the food safety industry.
“We intend to submit IFS PACsecure for Global Food Safety Initiative (GFSI) benchmarking in June/July 2012. Until then, companies who want to be certified to PACsecure should continue down that path and understand that a relatively seamless transition process will take place. The steps to transitioning will be communicated throughout the rollout as information becomes available.” states George Gansner, IFS Management, Director, Marketing & Business Development, Manager, Americas.
“Retailers, manufacturers, consultants, auditors and certification bodies have all e-mailed, called, or approached me personally to offer their congratulations on the partnership and want to know more about the specific needs they have to achieve IFS PACsecure certification with GFSI recognition.”
“I’ve had interest from Germany, Argentina, Brazil, France, China, and of course the US and Canada just in the past couple days since the announcement. People in the food and packaging industries are excited to already move forward with IFS PACsecure.”
North American Support
Frank Schreurs, President and Chief Technical Officer of the Guelph Food Technology Centre, based in Guelph, ON., says the new agreement between PAC and IFS now joins a family of GFSI internationally recognized standards offered by IFS. Schreurs, who has been actively involved in the GFSI for many years, adds that the “PACsecure guidance documents will now become a valuable tool for packaging firms looking for certification to the GFSI recognized standards.”
PACsecure goes global with IFS
Seamless transition to IFS PACsecure
Larry Dworkin, Director, Government Relations for PAC, says for firms currently certified to PACsecure, the transition to the new IFS PACsecure standard should almost be seamless with very little change to the procedures they are implementing.
“We are currently making the required changes to the IFS PACsecure standard to meet the GFSI format and hope to have that completed within a short period of time. We will then submit it to GFSI for benchmarking.”
“IFS has fully demonstrated its expertise to partner with us in this endeavor. It is already the owner of the GFSI benchmarked IFS Food standard, the IFS Logistics and other supply chain standards with more than 12,000 certifications globally.
European Perspective
Hervé Gomichon, Head of Quality at Carrefour, the world’s second largest retailer.
“The development and manufacture of safe primary and secondary packaging materials for food products is very important to Carrefour and the food industry in general. The IFS PACsecure standard will provide a strong foundation for packaging suppliers to move toward GFSI recognition, as well as to ensure the industry they supply safe and quality packaging materials.”
“More importantly for the Canadian food and packaging manufacturing sector, it means their products will be more readily accepted by both the domestic and international food industry.”
“Similarly, to assist the packaging sector to implement the IFS PACsecure standard, we will continue to provide a series of easy to use workbooks to cover these processes in English and French for quality assurance managers.
Unlike some standards, our new IFS PACsecure standard is designed to be implemented at the shop floor rather than at 60,000 feet.” IFS PACsecure is a non-prescriptive standard. Rather it is science, and risk-based resulting in more costeffective solutions.
PACsecure has also been accepted by the US-based IOPP, Technical committee the Food Safety Alliance for Packaging. This committee includes companies such as General Mills, Nestlé, Kraft, ConAgra Foods, Sara Lee, Campbell Soup and many others.
IFS PACsecure Objectives
The objectives of the IFS PACsecure are:
• to provide food safety for packaging material guidelines
• to establish a common standard with a uniform evaluation system
• to work with accredited certification bodies and qualified IFS approved auditors
• to ensure comparability and transparency throughout the entire supply chain
• to reduce costs and time for both manufacturers and retailers
Coverage
What does the standard cover? IFS PACsecure was developed for:
• Flexible plastics
• Rigid plastics
• Paper
• Metal and glass packaging
The standard covers twenty-four different general manufacturing processes to make specific packaging material
Benefits
IFS certification is non-prescriptive and offers a number of key benefits to companies striving for excellence in quality, food safety and customer satisfaction, and seeking a competitive advantage in the market place.
Production department benefits
• Improved understanding between management and staff relating to good practices, standards and procedures
• Monitoring of compliance with food regulations
• More effective use of resources
• Reduction in the need for customer audits
• Independent third party audits
• Higher flexibility through individual implementation due to a risk based approach.
Marketing department benefits
• Improved business reputation as a manufacturer of highquality and safe packaging products
• Ability to trade with customers requiring third party audits
• Use of the IFS logo and certificate to demonstrate compliance with the highest standards.
CLEAR SUPERIORITY
Glass container manufacturer turns up the heat in pursuit of packaging perfection
BY GEORGE GUIDONI, EDITOR PHOTOS BY PIERRE LONGTIN
Ahalf-filled glass is always said to be halffull to the optimist and half-empty to the pessimists among us, but when it’s your own glass to begin with, it’s simply just twice larger than it needs to be, that’s all.
And with more than 350 different shapes and sizes of glass containers, jars and other packaging
products being produced around-the-clock at the Owens-Illinois, Inc. (O-I) glassmaking factory in downtown Montreal, a perfect-fit, upscale and reliable consumer packaging solution is never really out of reach for Canadian producers of beer, wineand-spirits, and processed food products who fully appreciate the multitude of branding, performance and environmental advantages afforded by one of the world’s oldest forms of packaging.
Originally opened up in 1905 under the ownership
of Canadian Glass Manufacturing Company, the historical, sprawling 700,000-square-foot manufacturing complex, set in a somewhat unlikely urban setting in the southwestern Montreal Island district of Pointe St-Charles, employs nearly 400 highlyskilled workers over a 24/7 operational schedule to produce over 500 million glass containers annually, according to plant manager Yvon Lapierre.
Having recently completed a major furnace upgrade in early 2012 and executing a series of
Montreal plant manager Yvon Lapierre surrounded by more than 350 different glass container designs produced at the sprawling, 700,000-square-foot Owens-Illinois glassmaking facility that rst opened up its doors back in 1905.
Rows of freshly-made beer containers entering the temperature-controlled lehr (curing oven) for a gradual cooling.
Beer bottles exiting the lehr are transported via a conveyor, controlled by and SEW-Eurodrive motor (foreground ), to the inspection area.
other critical capital improvements to enhance the plant’s flexibility, according to Lapierre, the Montreal plant is well-positioned to cope with the game-changing marketplace challenges from plastics, and other packaging alternatives, that have significantly eroded the one-time market dominance enjoyed by glass across a broad spectrum of food-andbeverage market segments in this early part of the 21st Century.
But as far as Lapierre is concerned, rumors of the inevitable impending demise of glass as major packaging material have been grossly exaggerated and overstated in recent years—despite the fierce competition from plastics—in the context of a global glass packaging market that is expected to surpass US$36 billion by 2015, according to a recent market report from Global Industry Analysts, Inc.
Lead Position
America business—including another, similar-sized glassmaking factory a short drive northwest of Toronto in Brampton, Ont.— Lapierre says he remains upbeat about the short- and long-terms prospects for the Montreal facility.
“The employees of O-I’s Montreal plant offer a high level of bottle-manufacturing skills to manufacture a wide variety of containers and complex designs,” Lapierre relates, “and O-I North America and its Montreal plant, which serves customers across Canada and many in the United States, are well-prepared to manage current demand and future growth.”
Adds Escobar: “The packaging industry is going through some major changes driven by technological innovation, but tremendous opportunities still exist for glass.
“The strong trends in markets where glass is the preferred packaging choice —wine, spirits and craft beer—speak to this opportunity.
Save Space and Increase Throughput.
And as the world’s runaway leading glass container manufacturer with an estimated 50-percent share of the global market, the Perrysburg, Ohio-headquartered O-I—posting global revenues of US$7.4 billion last year—naturally has an enormous stake in seeing the glass packaging industry maintain its keen market focus on select product segments where glass is still a top-of-class packaging option.
“The markets for wine, spirits and craft beer have experienced consistent growth in recent years, which is expected to continue,” says Miguel Escobar, president of the company’s O-I North America business unit in Perrysburg.
“Economic conditions, consumer prices and new consumption habits focused on ‘green’ products and packaging, as well as the age of the consumer, are just some of the elements driving these market dynamics.
“The growth in wine, spirits and craft beer is great news for the glass industry,” Escobar adds, “since glass is the preferred package in each of these segments, and O-I North America has enjoyed positive trends in these markets by following those segments closely, and capturing the opportunities that arose with those trends.”
And as one of 19 manufacturing locations operated across the continent by the company’s O-I North
“Our biggest competitors today are not just other glass manufacturers, but manufacturers of other types of packaging,” Escobar states. “The total rigid packaging market is enormous, and glass must be more competitive in cost, flexibility and innovation, to compete with other packaging materials.”
In part, that means producing more new-generation glass bottles that are both lighter and stronger, according to O-I, while also doing better job of educating the public about the significant environmental and safety benefits of glass packaging, compared to plastic.
Weight Loss
“Although weight only represents five per cent of a package’s cradle-to-cradle carbon footprint, O-I has made notable strides in lightweighting bottles, and these products have been popular with our customers,” relates O-I North America’s director of marketing Miguel Yanez, citing the company’s breakthrough 11.64-ounce Lean+Green glass wine bottle (see picture above)—winner of the Excellence in Sustainability award at last years’s Walmart and Sam’s Club Sustainable Packaging Expo —weighing 27 per cent less than its 16-ounce predecessor previously used to package The Wine Group’s Oak Leaf wine brand.
Continues on page 16
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A machine operator swabbing the high-performance mold equipment to ensure consistently high product quality.
Continued from page 15
“This 27-percent reduction in weight saved 3,168 tons of carbon-dioxide emissions, or the equivalent of taking 480 cars off the road, per year,” Yanez points out.
“Technological innovations in the way the glass is melted, formed, inspected and packed could substantially reduce costs, and reduce environmental impact,” Lapierre relates, “which is why O-I is conducting intensive inhouse research on the way glass is melted and formed, and partnering with experts from within and outside the industry to identify new ways to reduce emissions and energy use.”
Such ongoing improvements will undoubtedly be critical to helping glass recapturing some market momentum conceded to plastic over the last couple of decades, especially at a time when some brand-owners are starting to have second thoughts about plastic packaging in light of some recent high-profile health and environmental concerns and controversies over the use of various questionable chemicals in plastics processing and packaging.
“The pure ingredients used to make glass—limestone, sand and soda ash—combine to make a natural packaging material that does not break down into harmful chemicals and remains stable in its natural form,” points out Yanez.
“Being 100-percent recyclable allows glass to be used safely over and over again,” he adds, “and despite its heavier weight, single-use glass containers have a carbon footprint that is better than, or equal to that of aluminum or PET (polyethylene terephthalate) plastic, in all regions where O-I operates.
“Our own LCA (life-cycle assessment) studies for glass packaging show that the returnable, refillable bottle has the lowest carbon footprint of any widely used packaging material,” Yanez asserts.
“Research shows that new product development is the future of the glass business,” adds Escobar, citing a recent Mintel Group Ltd. research showing that U.S.-based CPG (consumer packaged goods) companies had introduced more that 3,800 new products packaged in glass during 2011 alone.
“Our company played a big role in this, and O-I North America customers in every end-use category have projects in the pipeline that will be launched in 2012,” Escobar notes.
Natural Advantage
“Because of its natural ingredients and infinite recyclability, glass is the most sustainable packaging material available for a multitude of applications,” says Escobar, citing O-I’s aggressive, companywide sustainability program—encompassing all of the company’s 81 worldwide facilities and over 24,000 employees—aiming to:
• Reduce global energy consumption by 50 per cent by 2017 from the 2007 levels;
• Reduce GHG (greenhouse gas) emissions by 65 per cent within the same time-frame;
• Achieve global average of 60-percent recycled content for tits products;
• Completely eliminate workplace accidents by 2017.
“O-I has also engaged in a number of projects in plants across North America to make improvements toward its 2017 sustainability goals,” Escobar confides.
“For example, many plants have installed new forming machines that increase productivity and decrease energy intensity, and many have installed energy-efficient lighting,” says Escobar, relating that one of the company’s glassmaking plants in Portland, Ore., has recently updated its equipment and capabilities to boost the recycled content in its products from 50 per cent to between 60 and 80 per cent.
“The company is deeply involved in initiatives to help increase recycling rates in the U.S., which will help us obtain more recycled glass for use in its manufacturing facilities,” he adds. “Using more recycled glass in the manufacturing process lowers
energy consumption and GHG emissions.”
Adds Escobar: “As a leader in glass manufacturing, O-I has a responsibility to help improve the recycling process in North America—not just for its business, but for the communities in which operates as well.
“Using recycled glass in the glass manufacturing process has many benefits, such as reduced energy consumption and reduced carbon-dioxide emissions, which in the end will help improve the company’s financial bottom line.
“We have set aggressive goals in each of the areas that move the company toward becoming the world’s most sustainable glass packaging manufacturer,” Escobar reiterates.
“Our sustainability efforts will create benefits for all of its stakeholders by striking a balance between the interconnected ‘triple bottom-line’ principles of people, planet and profits, whereby the company will maximize shareholder value through better use of financial and natural capital, more marketable products, and considerable cost-savings.
“To ensure successful implementation of O-I’s sustainability initiatives, the company has appointed a senior-level steering committee and created dedicated action teams to lead the efforts, oversee progress and ensure success,” relates.
Best in Class
“Our North American plants are implementing best practices to get the best performance using the technology they have today, while our engineering team is working to move the company toward the most environmentally efficient equipment currently available, with the research-and-development team working on technical advancements that will allow the company to further improve performance,” says Escobar.
To get the message across to the consumers and potential new customers, last year the company launched an extensive, multimedia Glass is Life marketing campaign to educate the public about the many attributes and advantages of glass packaging.
Enlisting Céline Cousteau (granddaughter of legendary explorer Jacques Cousteau) as one of the campaign’s several authoritative and widely respected participants, the Glass is Life marketing
Recently-installed new spiral conveying systems from Ryson International transferring loaded cases of empty Canadian whisky containers towards the palletizing area.
The Montreal plant employs advanced automated inspection systems and machine vision technology to ensure top-notch, defect-free product quality.
Industry-standard beer bottles in mid-stream production at the recentlyupgraded Montreal glass manufacturing facility.
A row of large-sized premium-brand whiskey bottles conveyed through their production stages.
initiative is centered on accentuating the six primary advantages of glass packaging compared to other materials:
• Taste: Glass protects the pure flavor of the product;
• Health: Glass is safe, pure and trustworthy;
• Sustainability: Glass is endlessly recyclable and safe for the oceans;
• Quality: Glass is beautiful, brandbuilding and iconic;
• Versatility: Glass is reusable time and time again;
• Transparency: Glass is honest.
“While the primary focus of the Glass is Life campaign has been targeted at brand-owners, O-I is reaching end consumers through branded social media channels on Facebook and Twitter social media network,” adds Yanez.
“We are using this campaign to create a movement and ignite a desire for safe, beautiful, versatile glass packaging.
“We really believe that given the information and the choice, consumers will want to purchase products in glass,” Yanez asserts.
Local Choice
This appears to ring especially true in the Canadian marketplace, according to the Montreal plant’s Lapierre.
“Canada is a trend-setting, consumer-conscious market in which glass plays a key role in delivering quality products to consumers,” Lapierre points out. “Canadian consumers are generally enthusiastic users of glass, and Canada’s practices in sustainability represent a strategic benchmark for O-I’s entire North American operations.
“Several of Canada’s biggest consumer brands are O-I customers, and O-I works with them to sustain and develop their brand offerings by providing them with the best, most sustainable packaging material, which delivers good tasting, premium looking, quality products,”
Lapierre relates.
“O-I has a key presence within the Canadian market and it is committed to further capitalizing on the many opportunities this market offers,” Lapierre concludes.
“That’s the why the company is dedicating substantial resources to support its customers in Canada by ensuring they continue to provide consumers with both quality and value in using glass packaging to bring brands to life by increasing their products’ attractiveness and shelf-appeal.”
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A close-up view of the Veritas machine vision cameras from Emhart Imex employed in the plant’s inspection systems to pinpoint even the tiniest manufacturing defects.
MoVIgEAR
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PSC
Planetary servo gear units
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Guenther Lotzmann, President and Master Butcher
Matt Nichol, Quality Assurance Manager
Bo Gedja, Vice-president, Finest Sausage And Meat Ltd.
FINEST INTENTIONS
Deli meats processor adds high-tech packaging sizzle to bring out the best of its high-end product range
ANDREW JOSEPH, FEATURES EDITOR
PHOTOS BY COLE GARSIDE
Using superlatives in any company’s name and branding naturally takes a lot of living up to, but that’s perfectly fine for folks at Finest Sausage And Meat Ltd. in Kitchener, Ont.
Located in the heart of a large German immigrant-based community in southwestern Ontario, the family-owned company’s well-refined knack for creating authentic, European-style pork, beef and other delicatessen meats and cold cuts has more than withstood the test of time since its 1975 startup, according to vice-president Bo Gedja, with a growing and fiercely loyal customer base to prove it.
“We get a large number of customers who will actually drive in to our deli shop from western, eastern and northern parts of Ontario just to get our high-quality and tasty products,” Gedja told Canadian Packaging during a recent visit to the company’s lively, 25,000-square-foot production facility turning out well over 100 different and often-unique SKUs (stock-keeping units) of cold cuts, sliced bacon, sausage and other flavorful, traditionally-crafted deli meats made in strict accordance with authentic German recipes to create an unrivaled taste profile and product texture.
“We are very lucky in the sense that our products almost seem to sell themselves,” says Gedja.
“Some of our customers have said we have ruined going out to breakfast for them, because no one produces a bacon as good as ours,” says Gedja, crediting the company’s co-founder and German-
born master butcher Guenter Lotzmann for a large part of its success and marketplace acclaim to date.
Processing an estimated 15,000 kilograms of meat per week—with pork accounting for about 90 percent of production and beef and turkey making up the remainder—the company operates both as a business-to-business and business-to-consumer processor, according to Gedja, with more than 98 per cent of its final product banded under its flagship brand label.
In addition to running its own on-site retail store, Finest Sausage also sells a good portion of its products via two popular local outdoor markets in the Kitchener-Waterloo region—namely the St. Jacobs Market and the Kitchener Farmer’s Market —along with supplying a growing list of small deli shops right across Ontario.
Employing 20 full-time people, “We are a fullproduction meat-processing facility manufacturing roughly 780,000 kilograms of product last year,” says Gedja, whose father Martin co-founded the company with Lotzmann.
With both families intimately involved in the company’s day-to-day operations, “It was their vision that has helped Finest Sausage and Meat grow to what it is today,” says Gedja, citing an impressively varied product portfolio that includes over 20 different varieties of fresh, cold-smoked, smoked, pre-cooked and fully-cooked sausage, as well as an expansive range of hams and bacon.
Continues on page 20
Finest Sausage And Meat vacuum packs its sliced bacon utilizing lm from XtraPlast.com, a division of VC999.
Andrej Kocevar, Production employee
Matthew Hocaliuk, Production employee
PACKAGING FOR FRESHNESS
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• Unmatched
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“At Finest Sausage, we really know our bacon,” states Gedja. “Although we don’t make just bacon, I am convinced that we make some of the best-tasting bacon out there that money can buy, which has in fact inspired us to create many new and exciting products like fresh sausage, deli meats, salami, gypsy salami and a variety of double-smoked meat products.”
With multimilliondollar annual sales, the company places a high premium on product innovation, explains Gedja, citing recent introduction of lowsodium hams, doublesmoked bacon, and the Bacon Roll Sausage luncheon meat made as a seasoned, ground ham sausage wrapped in the company’s signature sliced bacon.
“And of course with our master butcher being of German-stock, we also offer a great number of specialty
old-school European products such as tea sausage, headcheese, Kassler smoked pork, HausMacher liver sausage, and Leberkasse, which is a fine Germanstyle meatloaf that often has customers lining up for it,” states Gedja.
This is no small feat for a company operating in a region renowned for its abundance of artisan meatprocessing companies specializing in the production of European-style deli meats, Gedja relates, citing a string of ‘Best Sausage’ awards earned during the past Oktoberfest festivals held in Kitchener each fall—said to be the second-largest Oktoberfest celebrations of beer and sausage in the world outside their birthplace of Munich, Germany.
“We were up against all of the other sausage makers in the region, and there are plenty of them here in the Kitchener-Waterloo area, and we beat them all in a blind taste test,” he points out. “Not too shabby, I think.”
There is certainly nothing even remotely shabby about the company’s processing and packaging capabilities, which have grown infinitely since the early days, when the company’s two co-founders and its lone other employee would take turns stoking fires in the wood-burning smokehouses to bring their selected cuts of pork and beef to mouthwatering perfection.
“Right from the beginning, Finest Sausage and Meat has always kept up with the demands and needs of our industry by constantly purchasing more and more sophisticated machinery,” explains Gedja.
Featuring two processing lines and one packaging line, the company’s plant operates a single shift sevendays-a-week, relates Gedja, adding the facility is currently in the process of obtaining the coveted federal HACCP (Hazard Analysis Critical Control Points) certification that would enable it to ship its products to other Canadian markets outside of Ontario.
Continues on page 22
The Finest Sausage plant uses a recently-installed RS420c rollstock thermoformer manufactured by VC999 to create both modi ed-atmosphere and vacuum-packs.
PACKAGING FOR FRESHNESS
FINEST INTENTIONS
Continued from page 20
Despite the continuous influx and upgrades of modern-day processing and packaging equipment over the years to maintain an efficient production process, while ensuring a safe and longer-lasting final product, Gedja says he is proud of the fact that the operation has not compromised any of its relentless focus on quality and tradition in pursuit of higher production volumes.
One of the plant’s more notable recent capital upgrades involved an installation of a brand new RS42Oc rollstock thermoform packaging machine—manufactured by the well-respected, Swiss-headquartered machine-builder VC999 Packaging Systems —last November.
Purchased via the manufacturer’s VC999 Canada Ltd. subsidiary in St-Germain de Grantham, Que., the high-performance thermoformer has already proven to be a wise investment for the Kitchener plant.
“What a great machine,” Gedja extols. “Although we’ve only been in possession of it for a short time, and are still fine-tuning the way we can maximize
its potential, we are very happy with the results we have gained from it so far.
“Not only do we get the products with a superiorquality seal,” he says, “they look great as well.”
According to VC999, the RS420c is designed as a high-performance thermoformer ideal for highoutput industrial packaging.
Says VC999 Canada vice-president Remi Boudot: “We call the RS420c our compact line because it takes up minimum floorspace at only 11 feet in length.
“This unit has been very popular for small- to medium-sized processors, as it has a high-production output, delivers the same high-quality packages and doesn’t take up much space, which all helps reduce labor costs on any given packaging project,” he explains.
Boudot adds that Finest Sausage purchased several optional configurations to maximize packaging costs, including a gas-flush option for modified atmosphere packaging (MAP).
The multi-die, continuous-roll automated vacuum packaging machine produces high-quality results at a very rapid rate for Finest Sausage, according to Gedja.
“A best example of consistently achieved better packaging times came with our Landjaeger sausage, where what previously took 60 minutes, is now done in 25 minutes.”
While Gedja admits the company is still learning how to better reduce packaging waste even further and is confident it will come
soon, the thermoformer has already helped noticeably with the overall look of the many products being packaged.
“It’s a nice clear film that provides the customer with a cleaner view of the meat product inside,” offers Gedja. “As well, these films are strong—a higher quality—and we find that we suffer less product loss due to breakage now.”
The rollstock films for the RS420c are manufactured by VC999’s supplies division XtraPlast.com, who work with Finest Sausage to ensure they only purchase the film combinations they need to reduce cost and inventory, notes Boudot, adding that the same films can be used for MAP (modified atmosphere packaging) or skinpack packaging.
“We can pack Landjaeger and beefsticks by either gas or skinpack, and we do, but we tend to use the skinpack process for products like our Gypsy salami,
A worker hand-places pairs of Knackwurst wieners into the lower web supplied by XtraPlast.com before the VC999 RS420c rollstock thermoformer packs them via the gas ushing MAP process.
Atlantic Packaging Products supplies Finest Sausage with a large and sturdy corrugated carton for its heavier and larger transportation needs.
ham hocks and Lachsschinken, and use MAP for the beefsticks and beef jerky,” explains Gedja.
While it really does depend on the type of product being packed by the RS240c thermoformer, Gedja says that its bacon has a shelf life of eight weeks and its beef jerky even longer—and both have improved with the addition of the new thermoformer.
The MAP process uses a gaseous mixture injected into the package during vacuuming to prevent the product inside from being squashed, altered or deformed during the vacuum forming—while still maintaining the meat color and extended shelf-life.
While both MAP and vacuum skin-packs are packaging that both greatly increase the shelf-life properties, according to Boudot, gaining an optimal shelf-life really does depend on the product being packed.
“For example, a particular beef cut will turn a brown color after a few hours under vacuum, while the same cut MAP-packed will help keep the reddish color for an extended time, helping the consumer know that the product is still fresh and within a safe environment,” says Boudot.
“One is not necessarily better than the other: it really does depend on what you want to pack,” he states.
Other equipment utilized at Finest Sausage includes:
• an Ishida scale supplied by Interweigh Systems Inc. Markham, Ont. headquartered manufacturer and supplier of industrial weighing, bar code data collection (batch & wireless) and bar code printing solutions;
• a Datamax-O’Neil
I-Class printer that uses America’s LABELVIEW software to print adhesive-backed labels, applied to product packaging and secondary corrugated packaging;
• small 10-pound secondary corrugated shipping containers manufactured by G.T. French Paper Ltd. and the bigger 23x11x8inch cartons supplied by Atlantic Packaging Products primarily for larger orders.
Over the years, Finest Sausage has grown with the industry needs and requirements by purchasing more sophisticated machinery, but Gedja also
PACKAGING FOR FRESHNESS
credits the work ethic of its employees, who consistently follow the lead set down by the family founders. Sums up Gedja: “Since 1975 we have grown and adapted, but it is our hard work, attention to detail, and our ability to produce high-quality, tasty meat products that keeps customers coming back for our products again and again.” For More
Plump Black Forest Hams are vacuum-packed
Air Liquide supplies nitrogen gas for Finest Sausage’s
Whether you are looking for an end-of-the-line piece of equipment or a complete packaging line, we can help you find the right solution.
Packaging Solutions from Unisource
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We help you achieve your goals by understanding your business. By working closely with your team we can establish a strategic plan to help reduce your total cost of ownership.
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Automation can mean fewer people on the floor, less floor space and less waste. Devote these resources elsewhere and spend less on your packaging operations.
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Noah Frank, Director of Operations
Sean Frank, General Manager
FRANK RESPONSE
Canadian metal detection technology comes through in a crunch for family-owned granola processing business
ANDREW JOSEPH,
FEATURES
EDITOR
PHOTOS BY COLE GARSIDE
While the word granola may still conjure up images of care-free hippies and sandals even to this day, the real world of modern-day granola processing and packaging is much more about business acumen and entrepreneurship than the outdated stereotype of treehugging idealism and escapism.
Especially so for the smaller, family-owned companies—like the Toronto-based Stephano Group Ltd.—competing head-to-head against the vast resources, market reach and marketing muscle of food multinationals like Kellogg’s, General Mills, Kraft Foods and other mass producers of granolabased breakfast cereal and snack-bars.
Founded 35 years ago by a one-time New York City hairdresser Steven Frank, the privately-owned granola processor has certainly seen its share of
Installed at the Stephano’s plant last month, the new high-performance Stealth metal detection system from Fortress Technology is designed to ensure high sensitivity levels, fast processing speeds and greater durability.
changes and transformations in a once-niche business segment that has steadily grown into a multibillion-dollar industry.
Currently employing 20 people at a 9,000-squarefoot production facility in northern Toronto, the company has deservingly earned its keep in the Canadian granola industry with a solid work ethic and craftsmanship embodied by its popular flagship Stephano’s brand blends of tasty, high-quality cereal products made from baked Canadian-grown oats and other natural ingredients sweetened with Canadian-produced honey.
Family Bonds
“We make 40 distinct products, producing some 2.5 million pounds of product per year,” family patriarch Steven Frank told Canadian Packaging in a recent interview, relating the company’s formation and the key roles played in its success by his wife, Annette Blaeske, and their two sons, Noah and Sean.
“Our products can be found in a wide range of retail and foodservice accounts across Canada, quite often under third-party branding,” says the elder Frank, crediting the company’s time-honored commitment to high product quality and taste for its longevity in a highly competitive business.
“We constantly continue to source the highestquality ingredients for our products,” adds the company’s director of operations Noah Frank. “We may pay a little more for the ingredients up front, but the quality of the final product that we produce here is well worth it.”
The company first opened its doors in 1977 in the Killaloe area of the Ottawa Valley in Ontario, where Steven Frank moved to from the U.S. after
Continues on page 26
Steven Frank, Founder, Stephano Group Ltd.
Chunky Berry Patch Cereal is one of 40 high-quality, oatbased cereals manufactured by Stephano Group.
Annette Blaeske, Co-owner
METAL DETECTION
FRANK RESPONSE
Continued from page 25
years of operating a little chain of upscale hairdressing salons in New York City, named after himself with a little creative license.
“In the 1970s, if you were to call a New York hairdressing salon simply ‘Steve’s’, you were not really likely to get very much business,” he recalls.
Lot number and best-before data is applied onto the secondary carton packaging labels via an EBS-6200 inkjet coder.
“But naming it ‘Stephano’s’ lent it a tad more credibility and cachet in the mind of the customer.
“So we stuck with the name when I moved up here to Canada,” he says, “because Stephano’s just seems to have a very nice ring to it—for a food industry business anyways.”
After settling in the village of about 600 people and taking over a local Killaloe health-food store, Steven and Annette proceeded to quickly build up a solid, fast-growing client base in the OttawaKingston area, while also making some inroads in the Toronto-area market further west along Highway 401, Frank recalls.
After several years of brisk growth, the business started leveling out somewhat—prompting Noah and Sean to go off onto their own business venture of selling various ‘grab-and-go’ products to the coffee retail enterprises—ultimately resulting in a successful 2006 market introduction of the Summer Burst brand of single-use, single-serve packaging solutions such as dometop yogurt parfait that keeps granola and other toppings separated from the yogurt container below until mixed by the consumer.
With two separate but highly complimentary business lines now on solid footing, the company subsequently
moved to its current Toronto location that was big enough to house both operations under the joint Stephano Group entity, while also accommodating Franks’ strict product quality assurance requirements and traditional process craftsmanship.
“The big caveat was that we still had to create the granola in a traditional fashion with all-natural ingredients,” says Frank senior, who delegated the sales and financial roles to Noah and handson production responsibilities to his younger son Sean, who became responsible for automating the granola baking and production process without compromising the quality and taste expected by an expanding list of private-label, foodservice, bulk retail and further-processing customers.
“I would say that some 60 per cent of our business is derived from private-label enterprises, with the remainder catering to our own Stephano’s brands,” says general manager Sean Frank, who masterminded a recent installation of a brand new, leading-edge Stealth metal detection system at the Stephano’s plant earlier this year as part of the company’s well-executed automation upgrade strategy.
The Right Signal
Manufactured by the Toronto-based metal detection specialists Fortress Technology Inc., the Stealth system is a recent high-end, high-speed addition to the company’s core Phantom series range of automatic metal detection systems, boasting proprietary, powerful digital signal processing (DSP) technology with unmatched sensitivity levels to pinpoint the tiniest foreign objects, particles and contaminants at high processing speeds.
Featuring a sleek modular design with fewer moving parts for enhanced reliability, the extra-rugged Stealth metal detector offers fully-automatic testing and calibration capabilities to help Stephano’s personnel working with the machine easily achieve a true auto-balance and recovery from large metal contaminants, according to Sean, and to avoid detector blindness.
Sean Frank says he is also fond of the Stealth system’s ability to store and recall a vast amount of individual settings in its robust product library to facilitate simplified product changeovers, as well as its CONTACT communication software for enabling users to instantly capture data display performance results at a glance.
New Head of Marketing On-Board for Bosch Rexroth Canada
Tom Light, General Manager of Bosch Rexroth Canada is pleased to announce the appointment of David Lopes as the National Marketing Manager for Bosch Rexroth Canada. David brings to his new post over 28 years industrial, business to business marketing experience in Canada and Germany.
Over his career to date he has worked for such companies as Siemens, Samuel Strapping Group, Rittal Systems and Kraken Automation.
In his new position David is responsible for the strategic marketing plans and activities to support Bosch Rexroth Canada’s key business growth objectives in its marketplace. In addition, is the face to Bosch Rexroth Canada’s marketing activities within the company’s global marketing organization.
Outfitted with an 8.5-inch high aperture to make it ideally-suited for the Stephano’s product running through it, the Stealth system’s compact footprint is also a great bonus for the space-restricted production line, according to Noah Frank.
“In our shop, every single inch of space counts,” he states.
“Fortress customized the Stealth system for us, and we were all very impressed,” says Aseptik, Canadian Packaging
Stephano’s plant employs a high-speed Alpha 86 HS label applicating system from Weber Marking Systems for secondary carton identi cation.
Noah Frank, explaining that the new Stealth was purchased as a replacement for another older-generation metal detector also built by Fortress.
“The new Stealth is a lot shorter in length and is lower to the ground, which is absolutely perfect for our needs.”
For his part, Sean Frank says he looks forward to getting the most out of the Stealth system’s optional USB-ready port by effortlessly pulling data updates and retrieving quality assurance reports in ondemand fashion.
“Although we have only just begun working with the Stealth recently, we are extremely happy with it,” he states. “It provides us with a necessary level of confidence that our products are leaving this facility contaminant-free.”
Other key packaging equipment utilized on the Stephano’s production line includes:
• a foil lidder from Squire International Packaging Systems deployed on the parfait line, equipped with machine vision technology, to center the lid before sealing;
• an EBS-6200 inkjet single-head coder, manufactured by EBS Ink-Jet Systems USA, Inc., to apply lot data and best-before dates onto the finished packages;
• an Alpha 86 HS high-speed label application system from Weber Marking Systems for peeling the label from its liner backing and securing it onto shipping cartons;
• a custom-built paddle mixer, manufactured by PMG, for end-process and ejection bulk packing—used to gently break up and mix the baked granola product before it enters the bulk filler;
METAL DETECTION
• a model WFPS 5150 tape case-sealer manufactured by Wexxar/BEL
Last month, Stephano’s ordered a brand new, automated vertical volumetric-fill packaging line—manufactured by the Toronto-based Hauser Machinery Limited and purchased through packaging systems integrators Plan Automation of Orangeville, Ont.—for filling smaller-sized container tubs used to pack less than one pound of product.
“It’s a great machine that will be able to fill our granola and oatmeal tubs at a rate of 25 units per minute,” says Sean Frank, while complimenting Plan Automation for customizing the new filler to match the plant’s exacting requirements and space restrictions.
“Along with providing a very competitive sales price for a machine they customized for our needs, we looked at Plan Automation’s solid reputation in the industry and were sold,” he recalls.
While company founder Steven Frank says he still reminisces about the old days prior to the influx of industrial automation into his business, he grudgingly acknowledges the fact that the company needed to automate its production line to keep up with the growing customer base.
“Automating our production line was a tough decision for Annette and me,” he says, “but with two generations coming to a mindset regarding automation and producing traditionally-baked products, it was the only way we could compete with the larger companies in our industry,” he concedes.
“At the time it wasn’t an issue of capacity for Stephano’s—it was all about mechanizing where possible to speed up our production process without
costing ourselves the hand-crafted process around which our business was built,” adds Noah Frank.
“In the competitive market that exists in the food industry today, it is paramount to continuously improve and develop further process efficiencies,” he concludes.
“Our goal has always been to blend the integrity and wisdom of the past, while pushing ourselves forward into the future.”
Stephano’s Summer Burst brand of yogurt parfait features separately-domed granola mix packaged on a Squire foil-lidding system (right), employing a high-accuracy machine vision camera to ensure precise centering of the lid prior to sealing.
As granola product ows into a bagging machine, a digital scale manufactured by Toronto-based Mars Scale helps ensure highly accurate product weight.
After a large bag of oat-based product is hand-placed into a corrugated carton, it is run past a WFPS-5150 automatic tape case-sealer prior to palletizing.
FLEXIBLE PACKAGING
THE NUTS AND BOLTS
West Coast nut processor achieves standout stand-up packaging with fully-automatic bagging machinery
ANDREW JOSEPH, FEATURES EDITOR PHOTOS BY CHRISTOPHER GRABOWSKI
Widely considered to be one of the longest-enduring human dietary staples, nuts, beans and pulse crops have been around for so long—about 5,000 years for pulses, 7,000 years for beans and an astounding 780,000 years for nuts, according to some recent archaeological finds—that modern-day packaging for these types of products may seem like an unnecessary luxury to some.
But for Hamid Gamini, co-owner and general manager of the Richmond, B.C.-based NaturaPack Foods Inc., there is nothing wrong with adding a little contemporary packaging pizzazz and convenience to an important, healthy food group that is far too often hidden out of sight and out of mind in the supermarkets’ rather anonymous and easy-to-miss bulk bins in the back of the produce section, while also throwing a bit of welcome consumer educations and awareness into the mix.
“It was obvious to us that the consumers purchasing bulk foods at supermarkets don’t really always know just what they are purchasing,” Gamini told Canadian Packaging in a recent interview describing the company’s startup in May of 2011.
“Bulk food packaging contains no real data for the consumer to study; in fact, no one even knows for sure if the product has been handled properly according to the required health standards,” Gamini points out.
Less Mess
“And from the supermarket’s point of view, there is always the mess around the bins, and the cashier’s time wasted, associated with bulk foods,” he adds.
“And while we did not have to reinvent the wheel, we think we did come up with a novel approach to take on those challenges,” says Gamini, whose startup company is situated in a 5,000-squarefoot, all-in-one production, distribution and office facility currently employing five people to turn out 13 different SKUs (stock-keeping units) of two main product lines comprising pistachios and mixed nuts, and beans and pulses.
Projecting first-year sales of just under $5 million, Gamini says the company’s own flagship A Good Portion brand of packaged products—currently accounting for about a half of its revenues—has been well-received both by consumers and retail customers such as IGA and Super Valu, among others, while its private-label customers have been equally impressed by the company’s “one-stop solution” co-packing capabilities encompassing brand establishment, graphic design, packaging materials sourcing, packing, palletizing, storage and other value-added services.
Having already made a name for itself in several key western Canadian markets, the company is currently positioning itself for further market expansion into eastern Canada, the U.S. and Japan, according to Gamini, who credits the company’s strict adherence to the time-tested, authentic Persian-
style roasting and processing techniques for creating a unique taste profile for the California-grown almonds, hazelnuts, cashews, walnuts and whole pistachio nuts; raisins and mulberries imported from the Middle East region; and the all-Canadian lentils, chickpeas, red kidney beans, yellow split peas, cranberry beans and mung beans.
“Lentils are one of the largest Canadian exports around,” says Gamini, “but along with many other beans and pulses, they are mostly exported out all over the world in bulk because, unfortunately, these great, highly nutritional foods are not as well-appreciated by Canadian families as they should be for some reason.”
Group Effort
To address this alleged marketplace injustice, the company has worked with various industry groups such as the Winnipeg, Man.-headquartered Pulse Canada, a national industry association representing Canadian growers, processors and traders of pulse crops, “to better promote these bean and pulses superfoods to make them widely available in a more standardized packaging that will make it more appealing to Canadian families,” according to Gamini.
“So far it’s been working out very well,” says Gamini, citing impressive early sales of the company’s flagship brand packaged in attractive, vivid 454-gram and 907-gram stand-up pouches providing outstanding shelf appeal for A Good Portion products.
“From the outset, we just felt that the stand-up pouch format would present a far better visual shelf display compared to the traditional pillow-pouch packaging,” Gamini asserts.
Manager,
“Not only is our zipper pouch easily resealable, while giving the product a modern look,” he explains, “the stand-up design aspect of the pouch saves shelf space for both the retail customers at their stores and for the consumer at home.”
Hamid Gamini, General
NaturaPack Foods Inc.
A Swifty Bagger SB-3600 machine from WeighPack Systems incorporates a user-friendly Allen-Bradley PanelView Plus 600 touchscreen interface to facilitate high-accuracy lling of exible stand-up pouches at up to 45 pouches per minute.
The pouches are filled utilizing a Swifty Bagger SB-3600 manufactured by the well-respected Montreal-based machine-builder WeighPack Systems Inc.
By using the intermittent-motion Swifty Bagger SB-3600, Gamini believes that NaturaPack is the first Canadian company to package beans in standup pouches with automatic bagging machinery.
Gamini says NaturaPack carefully examined the market for bagging equipment and considered six different companies as potential suppliers, but ultimately went with WeighPack because the SB-3600 offered more of an up-side than its competition.
“The SB-3600 is a well-designed and well-built machine from a Canadian company,” says Gamini, praising the fact that it contained components from well-respected European and U.S. manufacturers.
“It was important for us to have Canadian support, in case we required it. Despite WeighPack being headquartered in Montreal and us located in Richmond, we have access to local support.”
Inhouse Design
Graphically-designed by NaturaPack itself, the attractive pre-made zippered pouches are manufactured overseas, Gamini relates.
To utilize these bags, WeighPack made a few adjustments to the SB-3600 ’s feeding stage to better enable it to grab hold of the NaturaPack bags, so that when the pouch is grasped by the SB-3600, it is quickly opened, upfilled and sealed before moving along a conveyor system supplied as a standard feature with the Swifty Bagger
The SB-3600 works with bag widths of 3.5 to eight inches, and lengths between six and 11 inches, according to WeighPack.
Although NaturaPack is only working with stand-up pouches, the SB-3600 is also more than capable of handling gusset, pillow, and flat-bottom bags, with its high-performance features including:
• a Rockwell Automation AllenBradley PLC (programmable logic controller) and PanelView Plus 600 color touchscreen interface;
FLEXIBLE PACKAGING
• Festo cylinders and valves;
• a no-bag, no-fill sensor;
• an integrated exit conveyor.
Situated atop the SB-3600 bagger, the PrimoWeigher 360 10-head, 1.5-liter bucket scale manufactured by CombiScale and amalgamated onto its bagging systems by WeighPack completes the bagging operation.
Smooth Operator
With a smooth mechanical design, the PrimoWeigher 360 offers a tool-less individual distribution system of discharge chutes that avoids product spiralling.
“This is a wonderful machine that we purchased when we began our operations in 2011,” explains Gamini. “It’s pretty quick, too.”
According to CombiScale, the PrimoWeigher 360 has been designed for easy use by operators, technicians, managers and executives, which means all key personnel can quickly and safely learn how to operate it to its full potential.
As a food-safe machine, the open-frame combination scale and multihead weigher offers a sleek, less cluttered mechanical design that is easy to
clean, with no place for harmful bacteria to hide.
“A key perk of the PrimoWeigher 360 is that it is easy to keep clean,” suggests Gamini. “It has a stainless-steel open construction that helps decrease the amount of time spent cleaning by 50 per cent, compared to other models we saw.”
Along with the increase in uptime, operators can also expect the robust machine to facilitate a reduction in service time by up to 80 per cent— adding up to significant savings in operating costs.
Gamini says he is also impressed with the quick installation of the equipment and its compact footprint, with the entire production line comprising 25 feet in length, 12 feet in width and 15 feet in height.
Another key piece of equipment on the NaturaPack bagging line is the 1210 model smallcharacter inkjet printer manufactured by Videojet Technologies Inc
Featuring an icon-driven operator interface, the operator-friendly 1210 is designed primarily for small-scale businesses that print between six to eight hours a day, five-days-a-week, offering
A close-up view of the 454-gram and 907-gram zippered stand-up pouches used for NaturaPack’s A Good Portion brand of beans, pulses and nuts packaged and sealed on the Swifty Bagger SB-3600 machine manufactured by WeighPack Systems.
FLEXIBLE PACKAGING
THE NUTS AND BOLTS
Continued from page 29
6,000 hours of use before requiring preventative maintenance.
According to Videojet, the 1210 can print up to three lines of code at speeds of up to 533 feet per minute.
Able to store up to 100 jobs, the 1210 also offers IP55 -rated washdown standard protection—a key factor in NaturaPack’s decision to purchase it.
“The pulses, beans and nut business is highly competitive in Canada, but there is still a very large untapped market for these kinds of food products,” Gamini reflects. “But we are very optimistic about our product.
“Not only do we insist on sourcing great-tasting product, but we are quite proud of the packaging we have created for the grocery store market,” he sums up.
An assortment of mixed nuts enter the multihead PrimoWeigher 360 CombiScale scale for accurate dispersion of product by weight, with all the pertinent production data and information displayed in real time on the operatorfriendly, touchscreen control panel above.
“Although we are still a young company that has only just begun to establish ourselves in the industry, I am more than satisfied at the feedback we have received from customers—both locally and internationally. Given a bit more time, I think NaturaPack will become a real force in this market segment.”
A food-grade incline conveyor system transfers raw product to the top of the mezzanine level prior to being dumped into the 10-head PrimoWeigher 360 bucket scale below.
PEOPLE NOTES & QUOTES
Reusable packaging products and services supplier ORBIS Corporation of Oconomowoc, Wis., has appointed Chad Feehan as general manager of pooling services at the company’s CORBI Plastics LLC subsidiary in DeForest, Wis.
Oklahoma City, Okla.-based Maxcess, manufacturer of web handling, guiding and tension control systems and components for converting, printing, textile, plastic and other industrial applications, has appointed Doug Knudtson as chief operating officer.
B&R Industrial Automation, Roswell, Ga.headquartered supplier of automation systems, technologies and equipment, has appointed Marc Wolf as business development manager for the company’s Global Packaging Solutions Group business unit.
Norwood Marking Systems, Downers Grove, Ill.-based Illinois Tool Works (ITW) subsidiary specializing in the manufacture of product coding and marking systems and supplies, has appointed Bhavin Davé as business unit manager—responsible for overseeing the operations of Norwood and its sister-companies Allen Coding Systems and Kingsley Machine Company in the U.S., Canada and Latin America.
Plastic packaging products group Plastic Technologies, Inc. (PTI) of Holland, Ohio, has appointed Thierry Fabozzi as managing director of the company’s Plastic Technologies, Inc. Europe (PTI-E) subsidiary in Yverdon, Switzerland.
Rollguard , Appleton, Wis.-based subsidiary of the Specialty Group unit of Great Northern Corporation specializing in design and manufacture of foam-, fiber- and plastic-based protective packaging systems for rolled and cylindrical products, has appointed Tom Brown as account manager for the U.S. midwest region.
Multivac, Inc., Kansas City, Mo.-based supplier of thermoform packaging systems and equipment, has appointed Ty Threedy as regional sales manager for the company’s food division, responsible for California and Nevada markets.
Key Technology, Walla Walla, Wash.-based manufacturer of process automation, integrated electrooptical inspection and sorting systems, has appointed Bret Larreau as manager of business development.
Kingsey Falls, Que.-headquartered paperboard packaging producer Cascades Inc. has announced plans for a permanent shutdown of the company’s Cascades Enviropac pant in Toronto by June 1, 2012. Currently employing 36 people, the Toronto plant manufactures the Technicomb brand of protective honeycomb packaging (see picture) used primarily for furniture packaging applications. “The decision to cease operations at the Toronto plant is due to a significant reduction in business volume, and it was taken to secure the group’s profitability and to improve its position as leader in the industrial packaging sector,” says Luc Langevin, president and chief operating officer of the Cascades Specialty Products Group unit. “Demand in the honeycomb packaging industry has been affected by challenging economic conditions over the past few years and it is imperative we adjust our operations based on this new economic environment,” says Langevin, adding that production of Technicomb products will be gradually shifted in coming months to other Cascades Enviropac plants in Berthierville, Que., and Grand Rapids, Mich.
Friedbert Klefenz. “Inspection technology is of prime importance to pharmaceutical manufacturers, because of rising demands on the production and packaging process due to increasing levels of safety requirements worldwide.”
Astro-Med, Inc., West Warwick, R.I.headquartered manufacturer of the QuickLabel range of digital color printing systems, electronic medical instrumentation, and test and measurement data acquisition systems, has completed the sale of its label manufacturing operation in Asheboro, N.C., to Label Line, Ltd. for an undisclosed amount. “The primary business of that facility, producing labels for distributors, was not fully compatible with the business of our QuickLabel Systems Product Group, which produces labels primarily for sale to end-user customers who own QuickLabel color printers,” explains Astro-Med chief executive officer Everett Pizzuti. “As Astro-Med has expanded its label manufacturing capacity over the past three years in Montreal, West Warwick and Frankfurt, Germany, the sale of the Asheboro plant will have little effect on the company’s capabilities to supply labels to our growing base of color label printer customers.”
Philadelphia, Pa.-headquartered PaperWorks Industries Inc. has announced the extension of environmental certifications for the company’s Packaging Group business unit, whereby the company now boasts both FSC (Forest Stewardship Council), and SFI (Sustainable Forestry Initiative) certification at all of its packaging facilities, FSC certification for all its Paperboard Group mills, and FSC , SFI a nd PEFC (Program for the Endorsement of Forest Certification (PEFC) accreditation at the company’s Paperboard Group converting sites. “As an environmentally conscious company, our role is to ensure that at no point in our process do we mix certified paper products with uncertified products,” says PaperWorks corporate sustainability director Kyla Fisher. “These certifications show consumers that the products they purchase have been assured for the best environmental and social management practices in forestry.”
German packaging equipment manufacturer Bosch Packaging Technology has signed a definitive agreement to acquire the machinery business companies of Eisai Co., Ltd., one of the leading Japanese pharmaceutical companies based in Tokyo, for an undisclosed amount. Specializing in inspection machinery and systems for the global pharmaceutical industry, the Eisai machinery companies—including Eisai Machinery Co., Ltd. in Japan, Eisai Machinery GmbH in Germany, Eisai Machinery Shanghai Co., Ltd in China, and Eisai Machinery U.S.A. Inc. generated combined sales of about $100 million in 2010. According to Bosch, the acquisition of Eisia’s inspection technology portfolio—used in the production of both liquid pharmaceuticals packaged in vials, pre-filled syringes, infusion bottles and ampules, as well as solid pharmaceutical like tablets—will significantly strengthen the company’s position in the global pharmaceutical markets. “We can see excellent growth opportunities,” says Bosch Packaging Technology president
Philadelphia, Pa.-headquartered metal packaging product manufacturer Crown Holdings, Inc. has announced plans to build a new beverage can manufacturing plant in Danang, a major port city in central Vietnam. Scheduled for startup in the second quarter of 2013, the new Crown plant is the company’s fourth major canmaking factory in the country—already operating two can production facilities in Ho Chi Min City and one in Hanoi—with initial annual production capacity of 750 million two-piece 33- cl cans. “Vietnam’s growing middle class is driving increased demand for beverage cans,” says Jozef Salaerts, president of the company’s CROWN Asia-Pacific subsidiary. “Our new facility in Danang, supported by a longterm contract with a major brewer, further extends our strong geographical footprint and ensures that we can continue to support our customers with the innovative packaging that consumers prefer.”
German-based industrial packaging product manufacturer MAUSER Group has completed the acquisition of Varicon Solutions, a well-established manufacturer of reusable containers made of PCR (post-consumer recycled) resins, plastic drums and IBC (intermediate-bulk container) systems at plants in Greenville, S.C. and Cleveland, Ohio, whose production will be the transferred to the group’s existing facilities operated by the MAUSER’s North American subsidiary National Container Group (NCG) of Willowbrook, Ill. “This acquisition is another milestone supporting our worldwide growth strategy, and it enables us to meet the increasing requirements for plastic packaging made out of PCR resin, including all related services, in the southeastern U.S.,” says Jeff Simmonds, MAUSER’s strategic business unit manager for North America, adding the deal “will strengthen our market leadership in North America and further enhance our ‘life-cycle management strategy’ for packaging.” Adds MAUSER’s chief executive officer Hans-Peter Schaefer: “In line with the global sustainability approach of our company, our customers will benefit from combining economy with ecology, which is becoming more and more important for today’s businesses.”
Knudtson
Threedy
Larreau
Davé
Wolf
Fabozzi
March 26-30
Chicago: Global Food Safety 2012, conference by BRC Global Standards. At Sheraton Chicago Hotel & Towers. To register, go to: www.brcfoodsafety2012.com
March 27-30
Cologne, Germany: Anuga FoodTec 2012, international trade fair for food and drink technologies by Koelnmesse GmbH. At the Cologne Exhibition Center. To register, go to: www.anugafoodtec.com
April 1-5
Orlando, Fla.: NPE 2012, triennial international plastics industry exhibition by Society of the Plastics Industry (SPI). At the Orange County Convention Center. Contact Martino Communications at (914) 478-0754; or go to: www.spe.org
April 3-5
Orlando, Fla.: RFID Journal Live! 2012, radio frequency identification technologies conference and exhibition by RFID Journal. At Walt Disney World Swan and Dolphin Resort. To register, go to: www.rfidjournalevents.com
April 11-14
Jakarta, Indonesia: indopack, indoplas, indoprint, packaging, plastics and printing exhibition by Messe Düsseldorf GmbH. At the Jakarta International Expo Center. Contact Messe Düsseldorf North America at (312) 781-5180; or go to: www.indopack.com
April 17-18
Guadalajara, Mexico: Label Summit Latin America 2012, labeling technologies conference and exhibition by Tarsus Group plc. At Hotel Transamerica. Contact Camilla Colborne at +44 (0) 20 8846 2731 or go to: www.labelexpo.com
April 17-19
Washington, D.C.: Food Safety Summit, annual conference and exhibition by BNP Media. At Walter E. Washington Convention Center. To register, go to: www.foodsafetysummit.com
April 18-19
Cleveland, Ohio: CPP EXPO, converting and package printing exposition by H.A. Bruno LLC. At I-X Center. To register, go to: www.cppexpo.com
April 18-21
Shanghai, China: CHINAPLAS 2012, international plastics and rubber show by Adsale Exhibition Services Ltd. At Shanghai New International Expo Center. To register, go to: www.ChinaplasOnline.com
April 29 - May 2
Palm Beach, Fla: Global 2012 Manufacturing Leadership Summit, by Manufacturing Executive. At The Brakers. To register, go to: www.mlsummit.com
May 3-16
Düsseldorf, Germany: DRUPA 2012, world market fair for print, media, publishing and converting technologies by Messe Düsseldorf GmbH. At Düsseldorf Trade Fair Center. Contact Messe Düsseldorf North America at (312) 781-5180; or go to: www.drupa.com
May 7-9
Seattle, Wash.: TAPPI Place 2012 Conference, by Technical Association of the Pulp and Paper Industry (TAPPI). At Grand Hyatt Seattle. To register, go to: www.events.tappiplace.org
May 9-11
Montreal: SIAL Canada 2012, North American food marketplace exhibition by Comexposium. Concurrently with the SET Canada 2012 food processing, foodservice and retailing equipment and technologies exhibition. Both at the Palais des
Congrès. Contact Julien Paquette at (514) 2899669; or go to: www.sialcanada.com
May 14-16
Montreal: Montreal Manufacturing Technology Show (MMTS), by the Society of Manufacturing Engineers (SME). At Place Bonaventure. Contact Gail Bergman at (905) 886-1340; or go to: www.mmts.ca
May 22-24
Philadelphia, Pa.: EastPack, packaging technologies exhibition by UBM Canon. Concurrently with MD&M (Medical Design & Manufacturing) East, ATX (Automation Technology Expo) East, Atlantic Design & Manufacturing and Green Manufacturing Expo. All at Pennsylvania Convention Center. Contact Lonnie Gonzales at (310) 996-9418; or via email: Lonnie.Gonzales@ubm.com
CHECKOUTJULIE SAUNDERS
POOCH POUCHES A REAL PACKAGING TREAT
Having recently become a novice, firsttime dog-owner has opened up a whole new area of retail shopping for me in the form of packaged dog treats. It just makes it so easy for me now to rationalize a little impulse purchasing when I know that it will make my dog happy and, more importantly, motivate him to learn some new commands. So far, I have noticed that there seem to be two basic schools of thought on graphic design for dog-treat packaging: one emphasizing serious, healthy nutrition; the other all about indulgent, over-the-top fun.
The Natural Defense Oral Health premium snacks from Mars Incorporated definitely come down on the serious side of dogtreat packaging, with the muted green coloring and botanical motif graphics emphasizing the snack’s all-natural recipe. It also happens to be one of the few remaining boxes in the sea of flexible pouches on the shelves—generating an impression of the product being a critical part of maintaining your dog’s health, rather than just a casual snack. In fact, it even takes a second glance to confirm that the product is in fact intended for dogs, as there’s only a tiny image of a canine silhouette to give shoppers a visual clue. The image of the treat itself—a bone marrow encased in the classic bone shape and texture—is a better tip-off, albeit I have a bit of a quibble with the product photo showing the treat to be much smaller than life-sized, resulting in the disappointment of opening the box to find only three large-sized treats inside.
more information on Classi ed Advertising, please contact: 416-510-5198
As is so often the case with the President’s Choice private-label packaging, the clean white background of the stand-up pouch of the Nutrition First Salmon & Pumpkin dog biscuits, along with a detailed photograph of a happy puppy sensing a tasty reward on the way, projects an unmistakable impression of high product quality, even though one can see the outlines of the biscuits through the semi-transparent plastic film. While the product’s main emphasis is on sound nutrition, the packaging does not take itself too seriously—using a dog photo shot with a wide-angled lens to make the head look a bit oversized and a little goofy, in the nicest sense of the word.
Similarly, the Pup-Peroni Lean Beef Flavor dog snack pouches from Del Monte Corporation also feature a dog photograph taken with a wideangle lens to make the head appear larger than real life, but depicting the dog as licking its chops and raising the paw in a begging motion is a nice complement to the witty play-on-words used for the brand name. While the product image itself is not terribly exciting—a bunch of thin sticks—the snazzy color scheme and strategically-positioned health claims trumpeting the product’s attributes, such as 90-precent fat-free content, make an effective sales pitch, like all good packaging should. On the practical side, having these aroma-rich Pup-Peroni sticks come in easy-to-reseal zippered pouching is critical for sealing in the distinctive scent and the soft texture of these treats, as I parcel them out over time.
For their part, the Tiny-Mini T-Bonz dog snacks from Nestlé Purina PetCare Canada come across as a product being marketed at children, rather than dogs, with the cartoonish dog images having been deftly Photoshopped to emphasize the glazed-over hungry eyes and irresistible, wide-open grins. The graphic setting is also a bit surreal—featuring the T-Bonz treats cooking on a barbecue grill, with streams of fake white smoke wafting up to the dogs’ nostrils. With the bright-blue, purple and red coloring— accentuated with a hot “T” brand logo stamped into place—the packaging implies lots of action and energy, which is what all dog-owners must have in abundance to keep up at the dog park.
However, nothing tops the Snausages In a Blanket chewy snacks for dogs from Petco Animal Supplies, Inc. for pure amusement value. There in nothing remotely realistic going on this package: not the name (Snausages, really?); the playful dog sketch (a wildly grinning distant Scoobie-Doo relative grasping a treat in his Homer Simpson-like hand); or the treat itself, with its odd pinkish-brown color and plastic-like smooth texture. Instead of stretching the truth to pretend this dog treat is particularly healthy, the company took the smart route of marketing the product as just pure indulgent fun, which is a big part of what dog ownership is all about.
by Julie Saunders
Julie Saunders is a freelance scientific artist and writer based in Toronto.
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Successful food and packaging operations need to maximize flexibility without sacrificing productivity or increasing costs. Innovative Rexroth drive and control technology helped Paper Machinery Corporation launch the first all servo-driven paper cup forming machine, enabling faster changeovers while cutting both energy use and machine development time. Only a technology leader like Rexroth can help its customers, and theirs, create and sustain that kind of competitive advantage. The Drive & Control Company
Results from Rexroth: Increase productivity, save energy, grow faster
Successful food and packaging operations need to maximize flexibility without sacrificing productivity or increasing costs. Innovative Rexroth drive and control technology helped Paper Machinery Corporation launch the first all servo-driven paper cup forming machine, enabling faster changeovers while cutting both energy use and machine development time. Only a technology leader like Rexroth can help its customers, and theirs, create and sustain that kind of competitive advantage. The Drive
