CPAC03_2011

MARCH 2011 | $10

www.canadianpackaging.com

Marc Guay, President, PepsiCo Foods Canada

Publication mail agreement #40070230. Return Canadian undeliverables to: Canadian Packaging, Circulation Department, 7th floor, 1 Mount Pleasant Road, Toronto, ON, M4Y 2Y5

Helmi Ansari, Director, Sustainability & Productivity

ALL CHIPS ON THE TABLE PepsiCo Foods Canada comes clean on packaging sustainability, product innovation and manufacturing excellence Story on page 15

WHIP IT GOOD! Page 20

IN THIS ISSUE: STRETCHWRAPPING • CORRUGATED PACKAGING • FILLING & CAPPING

Brand Your Packaging Green

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What does world-class uptime look like to you?

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The new Videojet 1610 – setting the standard for productivity and uptime.

Introducing the new Videojet 1610 continuous ink jet printer engineered for high speed applications, such as beverage and canning. The latest addition to the 1000 Line of ink jet printers, this advanced printer delivers up to 12,000 hours of operation before required preventive maintenance. Automated setup, calibration and cleaning ensure consistent performance and superior print quality, even in the harshest environments.

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UPFRONT

HEAVY TALK ON HEAVY BURDEN

MARCH 2011

VOLUME 64, NO. 3 SENIOR PUBLISHER Stephen Dean • (416) 764-1497 stephen.dean@packaging.rogers.com EDITORIAL DIRECTOR Lisa Wichmann • (416) 764-1491 lisa.wichmann@rci.rogers.com EDITOR George Guidoni • (416) 764-1505 george.guidoni@packaging.rogers.com FEATURES EDITOR Andrew Joseph • (416) 764-1529 andrew.joseph@packaging.rogers.com ART DIRECTOR Stewart Thomas • (416) 764-1547 ADVERTISING SALES Munira Khan • (416) 764-1507 munira.khan@packaging.rogers.com PRODUCTION MANAGER Natalie Chyrsky • (416) 764-1686 natalie.chyrsky@rci.rogers.com CIRCULATION MANAGER Celia Ramnarine • (416) 932-5071 rogers@cstonecanada.com ROGERS PUBLISHING LIMITED Brian Segal, President & CEO ROGERS BUSINESS & PROFESSIONAL PUBLISHING John Milne, Senior Vice-President Paul Williams, Vice-President, Financial Publishing, Brand Extensions & Online Services Keith Fulford, Director of Audience Development (416) 764-3878 • keith.fulford@rci.rogers.com Tim Dimopoulos, Executive Publisher, Industrial Group.

(416) 764-1499 • tim.dimopoulos@rci.rogers.com CORPORATE SALES Sandra Parente, General Manager, Corporate Sales (416) 764-3818 • sandra.parente@rci.rogers.com WEB David Carmichael, General Manager, Online Operations (416) 764-3820 • david.carmichael@rci.rogers.com RESEARCH Tricia Benn, Senior Director, Rogers Connect Market Research (416) 764-3856 • tricia.benn@rci.rogers.com EVENTS Stephen T. Dempsey, General Manager, Conferences & Events (416) 764-1635 • steve.dempsey@mtg.rogers.com HOW TO REACH US: Canadian Packaging, established 1947, is published monthly by Rogers Publishing Ltd., a division of Rogers Media Inc. One Mount Pleasant Road, Toronto, ON M4Y 2Y5, Tel: (416) 764-2000 EDITORIAL AND ADVERTISING OFFICES: One Mount Pleasant Road, Toronto, ON M4Y 2Y5, Tel: (416) 764-2000; Fax (416) 764-1755.

I

t’s always refreshing to hear people tell it like it is, without grandstanding or sugarcoating, and PepsiCo Foods Canada president Marc Guay is certainly a breath of fresh air in an industry that has been virtually raked over the coals in the last few years for its assumed complicity in North America’s alleged obesity epidemic.

Even for the soft-mannered, easygoing Montreal native, suggestions that the products marketed throughout Canada by his company and its competitors are major culprits behind the nation’s rapidly expanding wastelines are a sore point to which the life-long fitness enthusiast takes serious exception—not only on a personal level but also as an affront to facts and reality.

“We are very proud of our proven record of health benefits of our product portfolio, whether they are truly healthy products like the Quaker’s instant oatmeal mix, which is good for your heart and will lower your cholesterol, or the ‘fun-foryou’ products like potato chips and other snacks,” Guay recently told Canadian Packaging over a visit to the company’s headquarters in Mississauga, Ont. (See full story starting on page 15) “We fully understand our responsibility as a leader in snacks to make sure they are healthy,” Guay asserts.

“That’s why we were the first major food company in Canada to eliminate transfats by moving to nonhydrogenated oils six years ago; why we reduced sodium content with a new line-up of low-sodium products and cut sodium by at least 25 per cent in all our regular potato chips; why we introduced our mini 100-calorie packs for many popular brands; and why we will continue to develop innovative new products to satisfy the Canadian consumers’ desire to eat healthier.”

But at the end of the day, he points out, it really is up to Canadian consumers themselves to do their part with disciplined eating moderation and portion control.

COVER STORY

ADVERTISING BRANCH OFFICES: 1200, avenue McGill College, Bureau 800, Montréal Québec H3B 4G7, Tel: (514) 845-5141; Suite 900 - 1130 West Pender Street Vancouver, BC V6E 4A4, Tel: (604) 683-8254.

SUBSCRIBER SERVICES: To subscribe, renew your subscription or to change your address or information, please visit us at www.rogersb2bmedia.com/cpac SUBSCRIPTION PRICE PER YEAR (INCLUDING ANNUAL BUYERS’ GUIDE): Canada $72.10 per year, Outside Canada $106.00 US per year, Single Copy Canada $10.00. Canadian Packaging is published 11 times per year except for occasional combined, expanded or premium issues, which count as two subscription issues.

Contents copyright © 2006 by Rogers Publishing Limited, may not be reprinted without permission. Canadian Packaging accepts no responsibility or liability for claims made for any product or service reported or advertised in this issue. Canadian Packaging receives unsolicited materials, (including letters to the editor, press releases, promotional items and images) from time to time. Canadian Packaging, its affiliates and assignees may use, reproduce, publish, re-publish, distribute, store and archive such unsolicited submissions in whole or in part in any form or medium whatsoever, without compensation of any sort.

15

PepsiCo Foods Canada comes clean on packagin product innovatio n and manufacturing g sustainability, excellence Story on page 15

IN THIS ISSUE: STRETCHWRA

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WHIP IT GOOD! PPING CORRUGATED PACKAGING

Page 20

FILLING & CAPPING

CASH IN THE CHIPS By George Guidoni

Growing into a runaway leader in the Canadian market for potato chips and other salty snacks is a validation of PepsiCo Foods Canada’s vibrant corporate culture based on cutting-edge innovation, top product quality, real employee empowerment and deep respect for the environment, according to company president Marc Guay.

Cover photography by Sandra Strangemore

DEPARTMENTS & COLUMNS 5 6-7 8 9 10 12 33 34

MARCH 2011 • CANADIAN PACKAGING

MARCH 2011 | $10

ALL CHIPS ON THE TABLE

Canadian Packaging, USPS 010-576 is published monthly by Rogers Media.

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The root of the obesity problem, according to Guay, lies in the lazy, passive and sedentary lifestyle made all too easy by a multitude of marvels of modern technology and other everyday conveniences and distractions that keep Canadian adults, and especially kids, from getting much-need physical activity.

“We believe in a balanced lifestyle of good foods and exercise,” says Guay, whose typical workday begins waking up at 5:00 a.m. to squeeze in a high-tempo workout in the basement gym at home before heading out to work.

“I personally believe that one’s weight and health are a function of calories-in and calories-out,” says Guay, an avid golfer who makes it a point of principle to never use a cart to get himself around a golf course—always walking each of the many golf courses he has played around the world with a 75-pound loaded golf-bag on his back.

As Guay correctly points out: “According to StatsCan, the amount of calories consumed by an average Canadian today is the same as it was 20 years ago—about 2,200 calories per day. So the calories-in has not changed, but the caloriesout obviously has—and that’s why I think that Canadians, on average, are getting heavier.

“Unfortunately, my point of view is not shared by a lot of people in the government circles,” Guy laments, “but I personally feel really passionate about the need to get our Canadian kids off their butts and to get them physically active again.

“Alas,” he sighs, “in this day and age of public service cutbacks, the things you hear so often about these days are more closings of public pools in Toronto, or the shutting down of parks and playgrounds where kids used to play because there’s no more money for maintenance.

“Frankly, that drives me just crazy,” states Guay, “because in my view physical inactivity is the biggest problem we have in this country insofar as how it relates to kids today.”

And frankly, we could not have said it better ourselves.

UPFRONT By George Guidoni NEWSPACK Packaging news round-up from across Canada.

NOTES & QUOTES Noteworthy industry briefs and updates.

FIRST GLANCE New technologies for packaging applications.

ECO-PACK NOW All about environmental sustainability. imPACt A monthly insight from PAC-The Packaging Association.

EVENTS Upcoming industry functions.

CHECKOUT By Julie Saunders Joe Public speaks out on packaging hits and misses.

NEXT ISSUE: Coding & Labeling, Packaging for Freshness, Sustainability

FEATURES 20

WHIPPED INTO SHAPE By Andrew Joseph Leading aerosol whipped cream producer Gay Lea Foods keeps its production prowess in tune with the times after well-executed packaging equipment upgrades.

24

BACK TO SCHOOL By Andrew Joseph Attractive new packaging helps innovative baked goods manufacturer grow its reach in the fast-growing market for nut-free treats and snacks.

28

THE FINISHING STRETCH By George Guidoni Tracking the latest design trends and innovations in automatic strechwrapping systems.

30

SHRINK THE INK By Andrew Joseph Top Tier labeling and flexible packaging converter racking up big cost-savings with innovative ink inventory management and replenishment services.

WWW.CANADIANPACKAGING.COM • 5

NEWSPACK

METRO LABEL PLAYING IT SAFE WITH FOOD-CONTACT STANDARDS CERTIFICATION

Toronto-based pressure-sensitive labeling manufacturer Metro Label Company Ltd. has become the first Canadian label company last month to achieve the PACsecure standards certification of PAC-The Packaging Association—developed as a voluntary set of safety standards for packaging materials that come into direct or indirect incidental contact with food-and-beverage products.

Designed to help packaging converters and producers to harmonize their safety procedures within the framework of the internationally-recognized HACCP (Hazard Analysis Critical Control Point) protocol widely embraced by the world’s leading food-and-beverage manufacturers, the voluntary the PACsecure certification program—developed with federal funding from Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada and the Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA)—comprises five food standards covering 24 different packaging manufacturing processes for f lexible and rigid plastics, paper, metal and glass packaging.

Since the launch of PACsecure certification in 2008, the program has certified 10 major pack-

aging manufacturers across Canada, according citing their recognition and informal validation to PAC president James Downham, with past by the Food and Agriculture Organization recipients including such notable (FAO) and the World Health packaging suppliers as Chantler Organization (WHO) agencies Packaging, Silgan, Graphic of the United Nations.

Packaging, Jones Packaging, “I congratulate and thank Norampac and Sonoco.

Metro Label for its considerAccording to Downham, the able time and efforts invested to PACsecure standards were devised achieve this certification, which as a logical extension of HACCP will provide the company with scrutiny into the food-and-bevera significant competitive edge age manufacturers’ supplier base— in attracting new clients in the training packaging companies to food-and-beverage industries,” identify and eliminate any potential Downham states. biological, chemical and physical “The company’s commitment to hazards through preventative corproduct safety provides a compelrective actions, rather than via finling example of industry leaderished product inspection. ship and competitive foresight that “Based on our knowledge, the PAC president Jim Downham preI strongly urge other packaging senting the PACsecure certifi cation new PACsecure standards are the product manufacturers in Canada most comprehensive food safety plaque to Metro Label Company’s to consider emulating as part of standards for packaging materi- manager of quality assurance, health their future growth and marketals in the world,” says Downham, and safety Joanna Liu. ing strategies,” Downham adds.

PREMIUM FROZEN SOUPS OFFER CANADIANS TASTY GLUTEN-FREE OPTIONS

Food allergies and intolerances are a sad fact of life for many modern consumers, but thanks to companies like premium soup producer Kettle Cuisine, enjoying a tasty gluten-free meal is becoming easier for thousands of Canadians at risk of contacting celiac disease, which attacks the immune systems by damaging the small intestine after consuming gluten—a protein found in wheat, rye, barley and some varieties of oats.

Produced and packaged at the soupmaker’s production facility just outside of Boston in Chelsea, Mass., the all-natural, hand-prepared frozen soups—offered in the Angus Beef Steak Chili with Beans, Chicken Soup with Rice Noodles, New England Clam Chowder, Three Bean Chili and Tomato Soup with Garden Vegetables varieties—were launched in the frozen natural foods sections of major Canadian grocers last month to respond to growing consumer demand for gluten-free foods at Canadian super-

FOR MORE INFORMATION CIRCLE

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markets, according to the company, Estimated to affect about 330,000 Canadians, celiac disease is considered to be one of the most under-diagnosed chronic diseases in the world—its rates more nearly doubling across western countries in the last 25 years—with the only known proven treatment restricted to maintaining a strict gluten-free diet that is often extremely difficult to follow, due to the heavy reliance on wheat and wheat-based products in the food supply chain.

“Following a gluten-free diet can be a challenge for consumers, as it can be difficult to identify hidden sources of gluten contained in a product, and occasionally the quality and taste of gluten-free products are not on par with those containing gluten,” says Toronto-based registered dietician Sue Mah. In soups, gluten is found mostly in pastas and noodles, as well as in the form of wheat f lour roux mixes that are often used to thicken soups, says

Mah, citing a recent consumer survey finding that 83-percent of Canadians have difficulties finding gluten-free foods—despite the fact that sales of gluten-free foods are forecast to grow to $42 million in Canada by 2014.

Packaged in 10-ounce, recyclable PET (polyethylene terephthalate) plastic bowls inserted in highly decorative folding cartons designed by the Pleasantville, N.Y.-based branding specialists LAM Design, the gluten-free Kettle Cuisine soups are made using only top-quality raw ingredients— including naturally-raised chicken and beef—and are certified by the Gluten-Free Certification Organization (GFCO) to ensure that the product is gluten-free.

Says Mah: “The Kettle Cuisine soups offer consumers a high-quality, great-tasting, convenient meal option that is prepared with strict cooking procedures so that all soups are safe to eat for consumers with gluten allergies and intolerances.”

NEW SHOW TO BREAK THE ICE

With the North American package printing and converting industry finally starting to show strong signs of rebounding from one of its worst downturns in recent history, next month’s inaugural ICE USA exhibition in Orlando, Fla., promises to offer a unique opportunity for paper, film and foil converters to capitalize on the market upturn with a comprehensive display of the latest converting machinery and technologies to help them beef up their production capabilities and know-how.

Running at Orlando’s newly-built Orange County Convention Center (OCCC) April 6-8, 2011, the first U.S. edition of the highly successful ICE (International Converting Exhibition) series—also comprising similar expositions in Europe, Asia and South America—will fill a long-standing void in the North American converting industry for a leading dedicated, comprehensive and focused converting technologies showcase, according to the ICE show organizers Mack Brooks Inc., Burlington, Mass.-based subsidiary of the U.K.-headquartered Mack Brooks Exhibition Group.

“The ICE USA show will provide converters with new products, technologies and solutions they can’t find anywhere else,” states ICE USA show director Michael Boyle, adding that it will be the only major event in North America this year to cover all facets of the paper, film, foil and nonwovens converting industries.

For more information on ICE USA, contact Mack Brooks Exhibitions Inc. at (781) 791-5011; or go to: www.icde-x-usa.com

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Absolutely.

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NOTES & QUOTES

In keeping with our commitment of providing our customers with

Innovative Packaging Solutions, Labelad is proud to be the first Canadian

 Canadian paper packaging and tissue group Cascades Inc. of Kingsey Falls, Que., has reached an agreement to sell its Avot-Vallée linerboard mill in northern France to private equity firm OpenGate Capital for an undisclosed amount. Formerly operating as part of Cascades’ Norampac corrugated packaging products subsidiary, the 160-employee Avot-Vallée mill has annual capacity to produce 145,000 tons of linerboard made from 100-percent recycled fibers. “Since Norampac’s priority is to consolidate its leader position in North America, Cascades came to the conclusion that it would be more strategic for the group to sell the Avot-Vallée mill to a company that has the ability to ensure its development and continuity,” says Norampac president Marc-André Dépin. Adds Cascades president Alain Lemaire: “This transaction is part of our strategy to simplify our portfolio of assets, reduce our debt and concentrate on developing and improving the competitiveness of our key operations in packaging, tissue papers and recovery.”  Multivac, Inc., Kansas City, Mo.-based supplier of thermoform fill-seal rollstock packaging equipment, vacuum chamber systems, tray-sealers, shrink tanks, and both cross-web and inline labelers for food, medical and consumer product applications, has been awarded the prestigious 2011 Supplier of the Year award of the U.S.-based National Meat Association (NMA) during the group’s annual MeatExpo conference in Las Vegas, Nev., last month, with the company’s food division director of sales Rob Koch singled out for

special praise in recognition of his professionalism and long-time dedicated service to the meat and poultry industries. “Multivac is deeply honored to receive this distinction from the NMA,” says Multivac, Inc. president Jan Erik Kuhlmann. “It is a validation of our commitment to exceptional customer service and getting things right the first time, no matter how big or small the project. We also appreciate the recognition of Bob Koch, whose energy, integrity and dedication to our customers are a keystone to the success of our food division.”  St. Louis, Mo.-headquartered plastic containers and rigid packaging group TricorBraun has completed the acquisition of Penn Bottle and Supply Co., Philadelphia, Pa.-based distributor of rigid packaging with annual revenues of about approximately US$50-million, which has been operated by the Probinsky family since the company’s formation back in 1920. “We’re very pleased and excited to welcome Penn Bottle to the family,” says TricorBraun president Keith Strope. “The combination of Penn Bottle’s presence in the east with our current business there significantly strengthens our position in that geography,” says Strope, adding the Penn Bottle purchase marks TricorBraun’s 12th corporate acquisition to date, further solidifying its presence in the North American personal care, healthcare, household and industrial chemicals, food and wine, and other core markets. “There are a lot of similarities: long, rich histories in the industry, company cultures and customer service focus,” states Strope, “and together we will provide our customers an even greater array of packaging options designed and engineered to deliver success in their markets.”

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WE CARE ABOUT SUSTAINABILITY

FIRST GLANCE THE BUCKET LIST The new five-liter Big Bucket PrimoWeigher combination scale from CombiScale Inc. is designed for handling a wide range of free-f lowing and non-free-f lowing products such as cheese, clothing, confectionery, dry goods, electronics, fresh meat, produce, petfood, etc, according to the company, with its groundbreaking open-frame design facilitating optimal user-friendly operation, washing, servicing and access to all of the scale’s major parts and components. Designed to ensure accurate product dispensing from four ounces up to 55 pounds, the Big Bucket scale features a swing-out center hopper to enable a much quicker and simpler product changeover, according to the company, as well as fast resetting of the height of the hopper.

CombiScale Inc.

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IN FINE PRINT The new RX Series small-character inkjet printers from Hitachi America, Limited’s Industrial Component and Equipment Division are designed as versatile, low-cost inkjet printing solutions featuring an innovative new ink circulations system for ensuring low f luid consumption and evaporation for low-cost operation, combined with full inline or 90-degree standard printhead f lexibility to print codes and variable data virtually anywhere on the package. Featuring automatic nozzle cleaning with “Auto ShutDown” feature, the RX Series printers boast large, 10.4-inch color LCD touchscreen panels

with high resolution and viewing angle, along with intuitive, user-friendly software guidance for simplified operations and maintenance, as well as full Ethernet connectivity to enable seamless integration into existing manufacturing process infrastructure.

Hitachi America, Ltd. (In Canada: Harlund Industries Ltd.)

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TITANIC EFFORT The new wide Titan ER610 compact slitter from Atlas Converting Equipment Ltd. is a twinshaft cantilever slitter designed as a more environmentally-friendly slitting-and-rewinding solution with lower energy requirements, featuring allelectric, oil-free operation without hydraulics; a CCD edge-guide camera for reducing product waste; a running speed of 450 m/min (1,500 ft/ min); and an option for slit widths as narrow as 35-mm (1.37-inch). Boasting a simple design to facilitate quick-and-easy installation, the ER610 can process a broad range of f lexible packaging materials, including plain, printed, coated or metallized film from 20 to 200 microns, as well as various laminates and papers from 30 to 200 gsm.

Atlas Converting North America, Inc.

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CHARACTER TRAITS The new enhanced Videojet 2300 Series of large-character inkjet printers from Videojet Technologies Inc. is said to be designed to deliver superior code quality and improved f lexibility for easier production line integration and operation, according to the company, with each of the new Videojet 2340, 2350 and 2360 printer models all featuring the company’s patented ‘automatic printhead micropurge’ feature to provide automated micropurging of the printheads during operation—helping eliminate frequent downtime, while maintaining high-quality printing even in dusty environments. Capable of inline printing of text, logos, barcodes and other variable information up to 2.7-inch height directly onto the cases inline, the Videojet 2300 Series printers are equipped with a molded, rounded front plate to protect the printhead from impact with boxes on the line— ensuring consistent print quality in secondary packaging applications—with the optional remote user interface, based on the intuitive CLARiTY operating system, making it easy to change settings or select messages for printers in hard-toaccess areas, such as on an elevated conveyor or in tight production environments.

Videojet Technologies Inc.

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ECO-PACK NOW

COCA-COLA AND HEINZ TEAM UP FOR GLOBAL PACKAGING SUSTAINABILITY If teamwork and cooperation are key to making sustainable packaging stick in the marketplace, then leading U.S. food-and-beverage producers H.J. Heinz Company and The Coca-Cola Company just may have rewritten the blueprint for sustainable collaboration with a strategic partnership enabling Heinz to produce its ketchup bottles using Coca-Cola’s breakthrough PlantBottle packaging, which the soft-drink giant launched to widespread acclaim just over a year ago.

Under a deal hailed by both companies as “an industry first,” the Pittsburgh, Pa.-headquartered Heinz plans to introduce about 120 million PlantBottle packages in 2011 to market the company’s iconic f lagship Heinz Ketchup condiment brand, with the Atlanta, Ga.-headquartered Coke committing to retailing more than five billion PlantBottle containers—boasting up to 30-percent con-

Coca-Cola chief executive Muhtar Kent (left) and Heinz president William Johnson pose with the PlantBottle packaging originally launched by Coke in late 2009.

Accuracy. Speed. Precision.

tent derived from plants—before the year’s end.

According to Heinz, the switch to PlantBottle containers—currently made with sugarcane ethanol imported from Brazil—represents the company’s biggest packaging overhaul since 1983, when it first introduced plastic bottles to replace glass.

“The partnership of Coca-Cola and Heinz is a model of collaboration in the food-and-beverage industry that will make a sustainable difference for the planet,” says Heinz president William Johnson. “Heinz Ketchup is going to convert to PlantBottle globally, beginning with our bestselling 20-ounce variety of Heinz Ketchup, which will reach consumers this summer.”

To be supported by a special promotion utilizing “talking labels” on all 20-ounce ketchup bottles starting in June, along with a special logo and on-pack messages, the partnership with Coke will play an important role in enabling Heinz to reach its publicly-stated goals of reducing GHG (greenhouse gas) emissions, solid waste, water consumption and energy usage by at least 20 per cent by 2015, according to the company, which ultimately plans to convert all of its ketchup packaging to PlantBottle containers.

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For its part, Coca-Cola says it plans to transition all of its beverage packaging to PlantBottle containers—currently retailing in Canada, Mexico, Chile, Brazil, Japan, Denmark, Sweden, Norway and the U.S.—by 2020, as well as introducing them to 11 new global markets before the end of 2011.

“The PlantBottle packaging is revolutionizing plastic, and our partnership with Heinz is paving the way for industry-wide collaboration,” says Coca-Cola’s chief executive Muhtar Kent. “This partnership is a great example of how businesses are working together to advance smart technologies that make a difference to our consumers and the planet we all share.”

According to an initial lifecycle analysis conducted by the Imperial College London university in the U.K., the use of PlantBottle packaging enables a 12to 19-percent reduction in carbon impact, which in 2010 alone helped Coke to eliminate the equivalent of almost 30,000 metric tons of carbon-dioxide, or approximately 60,000 barrels of oil.

CANADIAN PACKAGING • MARCH 2011

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ACCESS THE GLOBAL PACKAGING NETWORK ACCESS THE GLOBAL PACKAGING NETWORK

Industry leaders endorse PAC Leadership Awards “This is a truly unique forum to showcase the great work that designers and overall packaging industry are doing and to have it recognized by one’s peers. We’re long time participants because we see it as a special way to say thanks to our clients for the opportunity to ply our craft.”

Aubrey Ferguson,President, Bridgemark Branding “The PAC Leadership Awards continue to showcase innovative thinking in packaging, fresh compelling designs and technical excellence. This measure of excellence both confirms the quality of work the industry is delivering which could not be achieved without our client-partners.”

Bob Cockerill, Regional Managing Director, Schawk!

2011 Call for Entries - Join These Previous Best of Show Winners Canadian Packaging Consumers’ Voice Award Whole Meals Mars Petcare US Inc. Graphic Designer: Bridgemark Pre-Press: Anthem Worldwide Printer: Alcan Packaging Canada Ltd.

PAC Packaging Award

Higgins & Burke Coffees and Teas Mother Parkers Tea & Coffee Inc. Graphic Designer: Bridgemark

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Important dates • April 1, 2011, Early bird discount deadline for all entries • April 18, 2011, Sustainable Packaging Competition (on-line submissions only), final entry deadline • May 4, 2011, National Packaging Competition, final entry deadline

Awards on display • June 21, 2011, Toronto, PAC Leadership Awards Gala, Toronto Congress Centre held in conjunction with: • June 21-23, 2011, PACKEX Toronto Visit www.pac.ca/index.php/pac/competiton for more information

To find out more about PAC, our initiatives or events, contact Lisa Abraham at 416.460.7860 x213, labraham@pac.ca OR visit www.pac.ca 12 • WWW.CANADIANPACKAGING.COM

CANADIAN PACKAGING • March 2011

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COVER STORY

LAYING DOWN THE CHIPS

Snack-food giant serving up a winning recipe of relentless product innovation, world-class manufacturing prowess and a progressive environmental mindset

BY GEORGE GUIDONI, EDITOR PHOTOS BY SANDRA STRANGEMORE

T

hinking globally while acting locally is not a radically new notion in 21st Century manufacturing. But it is surprising how relatively few Canadian-based companies manage to pull it off on a daily basis with the level of skill, aplomb and reward that has enabled PepsiCo Foods Canada to become the country’s runaway leader in the fiercely competitive snack-food market in last decade under the thoughtful and energetic leadership of president Marc Guay.

“I joined PepsiCo because I saw an organization that was global, but liked to operate its businesses locally—having the resources of a very big company, but also empowering every global market where it operates to make decisions that are right for their local business,” says the youthful-

A random sampling of a multitude of bestselling snack and cereal brands (above center) produced in Canada by PepsiCo’s Frito Lay and Quaker operations, including the busy, 375,000-square-foot facility in Cambridge, Ont., which produces more than 110 million pounds of potato chips and other popular snack products (see pictures above), accounting for about 45 per cent of all the Frito Lay chip production in Canada.

MARCH 2011 • CANADIAN PACKAGING

looking, 52-year-old Montreal native who joined the Mississauga, Ont.-headquartered Canadian subsidiary of global food-and-beverage giant PepsiCo 25 years ago.

Having just reached his 10th anniversary as president of a multibillion-dollar enterprise employing more than 5,500 Canadians at eight manufacturing operations across the country—including the Frito Lay Canada snack-food plants and the Quaker cereals, bars and snacks Having led PepsiCo Foods Canada to a leading marketplace position during his past 10 business—Guay cred- years as president, Marc Guay says the company is determined to solidify its hardits the Purchase, N.Y.- earned gains in coming years with continued emphasis on product and process innovaheadquartered parent tion, along with pursuing an ambitious environmental sustainability agenda. company’s long-mainof many inspiring examples of Canadian innovatained tradition of entrusting its global subsidiaries tive savoir faire helping the company reap enormous with sufficient autonomy and decision-making global marketplace gains. authority to nurture genuine product innovation “We wanted to get into snack-mix business back for its stellar growth in Canada. in late 1990s,” Guay recalls. “We let our employees “There were not a lot of global companies that pick out the brand name, which was already a masoperated this way 25 years ago, and I guarantee cot name for our for Hostess brand of chips, pick you that there are even fewer companies operating out a whole bunch of different snacks, put them like that today,” Guay told Canadian Packaging in into bowls in a kitchen, try the different mixes, a recent interview at the PepsiFoods Canada headrate them ... and 15 years later we have a billionquarters in Mississauga, about a half-hour drive dollar global business. northwest of Toronto.

“The Munchies product line is a truly made-inOne of a Kind Canada brand that has been adopted by that name in “I suspect we may be one of the last top 20 food many other countries, including in the U.S., where companies in Canada today to operate in such a they just rebranded their entire line of single-serve decentralized way as we do,” says Guay, whose crackers from Frito Lay to Munchies crackers,” first post-university work experience took him to relates Guay, adding that the rebranding earned Frito Switzerland for a year to learn the ropes of a family Lay a Best Innovation of 2010 award of the National business operated by his parents.

Association of Convenience Stores in the U.S. “While I really enjoyed living in Switzerland “It’s all about entrepreneurship, which goes back and learning about the family business, the one to that notion of being a decentralized operation big thing I learned really well was that I did not that creates a culture of entrepreneurship where want to be in a family business,” he chuckles. “So people feel empowered to come up with new ideas I came back to Canada, began working in sales for and new ways of doing things,” states Guay.

Procter & Gamble, and after five years there I got The value of such autonomy was fully displayed last an opportunity to come and work at Frito Lay.” fall when PepsiCo’s popular SunChips brand found Says Guay: “Because we are so decentralized, itself in a maelstrom of online consumer criticism in Canada has been a source of great innovation for the U.S. on the account of allegedly excessive noise PepsiCo and for other PepsiCo countries, about emitted by the recently-launched compostable PLA 150 of them, around the world. (polylactic acid) bags made from renewable plastic “There are brands that we have created here, in resins—derived from corn starch—produced by leadfact entire product categories, which now exist in ing bioplastics manufacturer NatureWorks LLC. dozens of other countries, including the U.S., and I Stung by the viral nature of the “anti-noise” dare say that Canada has been perhaps the number online campaign carried out via YouTube clips and one source of innovation for PepsiCo around the Twitter messaging, PepsiCo responded by quickly world—not only in terms of brands, but also the switching five of the six SunChips f lavors sold in innovation in terms of the ingredients we use, our the U.S. back to the original noncompostable bags, production process, and so forth.” while promising to work on developing a new Guay cites the remarkably fast growth of the range of quieter PLA bags.

Continues on page 16 company’s Munchies brand of mixed snacks as one

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COVER STORY

Director of sustainability and productivity Helmi Ansari (left) and Marc Guay showing one of the high-recycled-content corrugated carriers, manufactured by Atlantic Packaging Products Limited, that are reused several times after the initial product delivery to customer as part of the company’s intensive recycling and waste reduction efforts.

LAYING DOWN THE CHIPS Continued from page 15

While the new bags are now all set to debut in both the U.S. and Canada later this year, Guay points out that the Canadian Frito Lay business not only decided to stick it out with the original PLA bags, but also bought ad space in daily newspapers and posted its own video clips on YouTube to point out the bags’ many environmental virtues, while playfully offering free earplugs to all Canadian consumers requesting them.

“Our plan was always to stay the course in Canada because we know that Canadians are much more receptive to environmental initiatives like this one,” Guay remarks.

“It’s not that they are not committed to sustainability in the U.S., where they also got some positive feedback as well, but the fact is that the composting

rate for the U.S. households is about three per cent, whereas it is close to 30 per cent in Canada,” Guay points out. “We had over 8,000 new ‘friends’ signing up on our Facebook page within a few days of creating it—telling us to keep the compostable bags here in Canada.”

Adds PepsiCo Food Canada’s director sustainability and productivity Helmi Ansari: “The original compostable package was a huge innovation—it was the first PLA package that you could metallize but still maintain all the compostability specifications so that it breaks down in an acceptable period of time.

“This new bag is another huge step forward in that technology right to the next level—making it a much softer and quieter material at room temperatures,” Ansari says, revealing that initial work on the quieter PLA bags, conducted jointly with the company’s exclusive f lexible packaging supplier Bryce Packaging, Inc., commenced more than two years ago.

A Videojet thermal coder (below) and a Vertex metal detection system from Fortress Technology (left) are employed above every Ishida form-fill-seal bagging machine located throughout the busy Cambridge facility’s packaging lines to ensure optimal produce safety, quality and traceability.

16 • WWW.CANADIANPACKAGING.COM

Plant floor quality assurance team members conduct a meeting at the Cambridge plant’s Packaging Wall meeting room to evaluate the taste, freshness, odor and texture of random product samples pulled off the running packaging lines as part of the facility’s strict quality assurance protocol.

Quiet Time “In terms of noise, the new package is very comparable to the standard polypropylene bags even though its is made from PLA, which is normally a much crisper material at regular room temperatures,” says Ansari, noting that the new PLA bags emit at least half less noise compared to their predecessors, while also maintaining their crisp shape much better on the store-shelves even after repeated handling.

“I don’t know of any other package in the history of consumer packaged goods in Canada that has generated so much public attention and so many strong feelings,” Guay ref lects. “In the end there was a lot more positive consumer feedback in Canada

than negative, which is why we kept the compostable bag across the whole SunChips portfolio.”

That said, Guay fully respects how PepsiCo went about its bag switch in the U.S., commending the ability of different global PepsiCo businesses to respond to their respective market challenges f lexibly as they see fit.

Says Guay: “The bulk of people don’t buy our snacks because of anything other than that they taste great and they are affordable: that’s the number one reason why people buy our products.

“Even if we had zero waste and used no water or energy, if our products did not taste good, I’m not sure most consumers would necessarily buy our stuff just on those basis alone,” he reasons. “Maybe some would, but at the end of the day it’s all about quality and affordability of our products.”

This relentless focus on product quality and pricing has paid off handsomely for the Frito Lay business over the last 10 years, Guay reveals.

“When I joined the company, Frito Lay was number four in the Canadian salty snacks market,” he recalls. “It is now taken for granted that we’re the number one player but that wasn’t always the case.

But these days about two of every three dollars spent in Canada on snacks is spent on Frito Lay snacks.”

According to Guay, the company’s approach to packaging and customer service has played a major role in Frito Lay’s growth in the last decade.

“For one, we make most of what we sell in this country, whereas a lot of other companies import from the U.S.,” he states. “We have always believed, going way back, that being close to our markets has significant benefits, so operating eight plants in Canada, on the food side alone, really helps drive the employment here.

“The other reason we employ more people than other food companies,” he explains, “is due to the fact that we go to market using direct-to-store delivery, which means maintaining a large sales force that actually delivers products to the stores daily and merchandises them for the customer.

“There are about 2,000 salespeople who work on the food side of PepsiCo’s Canadian business, and that’s a lot more than any other food company in this country,” points out Guay.

“Our people will actually take the bags and the boxes out of the shipping case and put them on the shelves for our retail customers, build the POP (point-of-purchase) displays in the store and so on,” he expands. “There’s also the issue of freshness.

CANADIAN PACKAGING • MARCH 2011

COVER STORY We have a limited shelf-life for our products, so it’s really important to us that they are well-rotated and, in the odd case that a product expires on the shelf, that we pull it off as quickly as we can.

“We like to do that work for the retailers so that they don’t have to worry about our products,” Guay states, adding that having similar control over the company’s packaging strategies and development is also crucial to its ongoing success in the marketplace.

“All our graphic design work is done locally, because not only do we want to maintain control of the identity of the brand in Canada, we also need to maintain the alignment with what the brands look like at the rest of PepsiCo’s markets,” Guay relates. “It’s no coincidence that a bag of Lays chips you’ll find in Canada will look familiar with what you’ll see in Japan or elsewhere in Asia.

“Snack-food product categories are highly-impulsive: over half of all purchase decision are made at the store—making our packaging our last point of contact with the consumer before they buy the product,” says Guay. “So it’s very important that the package looks good and attractive, and that it communicates the information of the brand, the flavor, the size and so on, in a very clear way to the consumers.

“Packaging has always been a very important marketing vehicle, and it is becoming even more important as efforts to build brands are becoming ever more complex, due to the inf luence of traditional media declining in our collective lives,” he expands.

“People definitely watch far fewer TV commercials today than they did 10 years ago, for example, and it’s becoming much more difficult to reach the consumer in other traditional ways, so the importance of good packaging will continues to grow in terms of package design and how well it communicates with the consumers.”

According to Guay and Ansari, having full control of its packaging enables Frito Lay to pursue a proactive approach to packaging sustainability, whereby a lot of its secondary packaging get reused many times after the initial delivery to retailers— most notably the corrugated shipping carriers supplied to Frito Lay by the Toronto-based Atlantic Packaging Products Limited.

“Each one of our shipping cartons get reused five or six times on average,” points out Ansari. “We did some rough math on this, and over the last three years alone, we estimate we have saved over

A fully-automatic Wulftec turnable stretchwrapping system applies layers of OXO-Biodegradable stretchwrap film, developed by Intertape and distributed by Canpaco, onto a palletized load of product.

MARCH 2011 • CANADIAN PACKAGING

An overview of secondary packaging operations at the busy Frito Lay manufacturing facility in Cambridge, which employs over 600 people on a 24/7 schedule to turn out hundreds of SKUs (stock-keeping units) of some of the company’s perennial bestselling brands.

Packaging machine operator Bruce Haines makes on-thefly adjustments to the fully-automatic Douglas Machine case-packing line that utilizes high-performance suction cups to ensure gentle placement of bags of potato chips into the corrugated shipping boxes.

two million trees by reusing these boxes multiple times before ultimately recycling them, rather than using them once and sending them to recycling.”

Adds Guay: “Again, this is possible because of our direct-to-store delivery system, whereby our people are in the stores everyday and they can collect these boxes for reuse.

“We simply couldn’t do it without having all those salespeople out there, we’d become just like any other company that sends its cardboard boxes to the retailers’ warehouses and thus lose control and sight of our cases,” he elaborates.

environmental excellence in Canada—including the Environmental Sustainability Excellence Award of the Canadian Council of the Ministers of the Environment; the Energy Conservation Award of Natural Resources Canada; the Green Supply Chain Award of Transport Canada; and a long list of others—PepsiCo Foods Canada takes a surprisingly low-key approach to publicizing its environmental accomplishments.

States Ansari: “While we are proud and happy to get this recognition, that is not our objective.

“Sustainability and all the other work we do around here is all part of our culture of operational excellence—we do it because we think it’s the right thing to do, and we always have,” he asserts.

“It’s not something we do so we can go and brag to people and to the market about our environmental practices—this is just our operational culture,” says Ansari, who has spent 14 years with PepsiCo, including a stint as manufacturing (plant) manager at the Cambridge, Ont., plant.

While he nowadays spends about half of his time at the Mississauga headquarters, Ansari remains a frequent and popular visitor to the busy, 375,000-square foot production facility operating on an around-the-clock, 24/7 production sched-

Second Life “We’ve been using reusable cartons for as long as I remember,” Ansari concurs. “There is probably more secondary packaging used for our products than primary packaging.

“When people think about a bag of chips they only relate it to the primary package itself, but the fact is there is far more material used in the secondary packaging, which also has the highest amount of recycled and recyclable content that we can get in there,” he asserts.

“As for the primary packaging, we always work to make the material as lightweight and thin as possible, but still maintain the freshness of the product and the crisp appearance that you want the package to have on the shelf.”

Despite being a past recipient of some of the most prestigious awards to be handed out for

Strapped stacks of palletized pre-printed corrugated boxes, manufactured by Mitchel-Lincoln Packaging, are stored on steel racking in the Cambridge plant’s vast warehousing area near the shipping docks.

Continues on page 18

The Cambridge plant makes a big use of CHEP Canada’s pallet pooling services as part of a proactive commitment to minimizing waste and reducing the carbon footprint of its manufacturing and distribution operations.

WWW.CANADIANPACKAGING.COM • 17

COVER STORY LAYING DOWN THE CHIPS Continued from page 17

ule to turn out over 110 million pounds of potato chips and other snack products per year, including bestselling global brands such as Cheese Puffs, Sun Chips, Lays, Ruffles, Miss Vickies, Tostitos and Doritos, among others.

Employing 615 people, the Cambridge plant accounts for about 45 per cent of the entire Canadian production of Frito Lay snacks, relates Ansari, whose first-name-basis familiarity with the plant’s dedicated and highly-motivated workforce helps facilitate an ongoing exchange of helpful ideas and suggestions on how to continue reducing the plant’s environmental footprint.

“The culture at PepsiCo and Frito Lay has always been completely team-driven: our frontline employees run and drive our day-to-day business,” Ansari states.

“Every one of our employees at the Cambridge plant is on a team—be it a packaging team, a production team, a quality team or a maintenance team,” says Ansari, crediting the plant’s Green Teams for many improvements in packaging sustainability and waste reduction, including a recent introduction of the compostable OXO-Biodegradable brand of stretchwrap film—supplied by Canpaco Positioned just above the Cambridge plant’s packaging lines, a multibucket scale dispenses precisely-measured quantities of freshly-made potato chips down to the Ishida form-fill-seal baggers below.

Inc. of Concord, Ont.—to the plant’s end-of-line packaging operations.

“We also have Resource Conservation teams, driven by frontline employees, whose role is to reduce energy consumption, water use and waste associated with the plant’s food production,” Ansari elaborates, “as well as Zero Landfill teams who specifically focus on reducing our landfill waste.

“As a result of all this teamwork to innovate our processing and packaging processes, over 95 per cent of the waste produced in our facilities across Canada never goes to a landfill, but is instead diverted for some possible reuse,” Ansari confides.

“For example, the leftover starch produced when we slice the potato chips is now converted into dry starch instead of being thrown out as waste, which can be used as a processing ingredient in other industries.

“We had our Green Teams in place back in the 1990s—long before it became a cool thing to do,” says Ansari, noting the that plant now uses 40 per cent less water to produce a bag of chips than it did in 1999, as well as 20 per cent less natural gas and 20 per cent less electricity.

“We are now targeting to reduce our water use by 75 per cent [compared to 1999] and our energy intake for natural gas by 50 per cent, and although this is something we jokingly refer to us BHAGs— Big Hairy Audacious Goals—we think we’ll get there soon by continuing down the path to a corporate vision that we call ‘Leave no Trace.’

“We aspire to a vision that one day all manufacturing, ours and others’, will operate with no environmental footprint at all,” says Ansari. “We

COVER STORY operation” among the 37 Frito Lay manufacturing plants operating across North America.

“Using a balanced ‘scorecarding’ process, we measure and act on performance metrics on an hourly basis,” Ansari relates. “Our highly engaged teams and team members review performance at every packaging line hourby-hour, and get together multiple times each shift to action-plan and work on their key metrics such as safety, package qualOne of several 3M-Matic case-sealing machines from the 3M Company used to secure ity, packaging machine bags of potato chips inside the corrugated shipping cases. operating efficiency, packaging material usage know that this is a very challenging and bold vision, efficiency, schedule attainment, ingredient converand a very long-term vision, but we have already sion efficiencies, total labor utilization efficiencies, taken some important steps to getting there.” energy efficiencies and waste reduction.

Given the highly competitive nature of the snack“Those metrics are very detailed and there are food business, especially with the strong growth of various sets of scorecards that are maintained and lower-priced private-label competition during the acted on by various teams across the facility to recent recession, the Cambridge facility is continuachieve the high targets we set for ourselves.” ally challenged to retain its competitive edge by Ansari explains that the continuous improveoperating as a truly lean manufacturing enterprise, ment process employed at Frito Lay’s Cambridge says Ansari, noting that despite being the largest Frito and other Canadian facilities is rooted in rigorous Lay plant in Canada, it only ranks as a “mid-sized implementation of the Lean Six Sigma quality man-

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agement methodology for quality management and assurance, as well as strict adherence to the highest possible sanitary and hygienic standards in all parts of each and every facility.

“We utilize Lean Six Sigma as a key tool to drive improvements across all parts of our business operations, using a group of internal Lean Six Sigma black belts, green belts and many Kaizen leaders for continually driving projects and initiatives to deliver broad spectrum improvements in safety, quality, productivity, sustainability and service,” Ansari relates.

“Given our market leadership and scale advantages,” he sums up, “we have developed one of the most stringent and effective quality systems for our products in the world.

“These are tightly monitored processes that are built on ISO principles, and are audited internally and externally at every facility on a regular basis.”

For More Information: Mitchel-Lincoln Atlantic Packaging Products Limited Canpaco Inc. Fortress Technology Inc. NatureWorks LLC CHEP Canada Inc. Wulftec International (Div. of M.J. Maillis Group) Ishida Canada Inc. Douglas Machine Inc. 3M Canada Company Videojet

409 410 411 412 413 414 415 416 417 418 419

FILLING & CAPPING Aerosol Whipped Department production supervisor, Jeff Miller says Gay Lea’s new heat shrink tunnel (inset) manufactured by Associated Packaging Equipment has helped the dairy processor become more efficient.

eeping it real has always come naturally for folks at Gay Lea Foods Co-operative Limited, a well-established dairy cooperative founded in 1958 and today owned and operated by about 1,200 Ontario dairy farmers— accounting for about a quarter of all of the province’s dairy farm operations.

Headquartered in Mississauga and operating six manufacturing plants across Ontario, the coop enterprise—originally called United Dairy and Poultry Co-operative Limited (UDPC)—has grown over the years to become a prominent staple in the Canadian dairy product markets, with its diverse product portfolio comprising many popular, bestselling brands such as Lacteeze LactoseReduced Milk, Gay Lea Sour Cream, Nordica Cottage Cheese, Nordica Single Serve Cottage Cheese with Fruit, Gay Lea Sour Cream Dips, its award-wining salted and unsalted Gay Lea Butter, and the aerosol topping Gay Lea Real Whipped and the iconic Gay Lea Real Whipped aerosol cream topping.

Today employing over 500 full-time staff at its six production plants—including the country’s only aerosol whipped-cream products plant in Guelph, Ont.—the company converted about 374 million liters of milk last year to produce products worth just over $441 million in the 2010 fiscal year, continuing a long tradition of bottom-line growth fueled by its widely-acknowledged high product quality.

“Our products’ success is what drives us,” Jeff Miller, production supervisor for the aerosol whipped department at the company’s Delta facility,

one of two Gay Lea plants operating in Guelph.

Between them, the two Guelph plants last year shipped out 13.6 million kilograms of butter; 22 million kilos of skim milk powder and powder blends, and about 12 million units of aerosol whipped cream products, Miller told Canadian Packaging during a recent visit to the 34,000-square-foot main Delta facility, which produces aerosol whipped creams and butter.

Miller relates that since changing its name to Gay Lea (meaning ‘happy meadow’) to ref lect the sale of the cooperative’s poultry and egg business, the company’s marketplace success has made the Gay Lea brand actually better-known across Canada than the name of its manufacturer, which today also sells its powdered products to several export markets such as Mexico, Malaysia, Philippines, Sudan, Thailand, Tunisia and Belgium, among others.

“We serve the entire Canadian market as a whole for all of our products,” states Miller, explaining that the all-important HACCP (Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Points) certification of the Canadian Food Inspection Agency approved (CFIA) provides Gay Lea with the with formal regulatory approval to supply major food manufacturers and retailers such as Campbell Company of Canada, Kraft Canada, Unilever Canada, Loblaws, Sobeys, Chapman’s Ice Cream, Baskin Robbins, Maple Leaf Foods, Ferrero Canada and many others.

While majority of Canada’s dairy cooperatives have fairly similar product lines, the $10-million

aerosol line at the Delta plant gives Gay Lea a unique competitive edge, according to plant manager Mario Dicunto, “because it is the only one in Canada that produces such a product.”

Installed about five years ago, the high-performance, state-of-the-art line—normally running at an average operating speed of just under 200-upm (units per minute)—boasts annual production capacity to produce up to 40 million aerosol cans per year, according to Miller.

“Gay Lea is always looking for new ways to do things—like creating a better package or product, or even finding a more efficient way of operating our packaging line—and this line has helped us do that,” exclaims Miller.

Miller explains that maintining the marketing success of the whipped cream product means using only top-quality packaging components, such as aluminum cans supplied by Ball Corporation and Crown Holdings; nozzles from Clayton Corp.; and full-bodied wraparound decorative labels from Labelad.

“We’re in the food production business, not the packaging production business,” says Miller, “so we rely on our packaging suppliers to send us nothing but the very best packaging they can.”

After the plant receives a bulk shipment of aerosol cans, the conatiners are depalletized, rinsed, sanitized and conveyed to a cleanroom for filling, Miller explains.

“The cans then get a spray nozzle crimped on, the nitrous-oxide (NO2) gas is added in, and the cans are then weighed and coded,” he elaborates.

“The aerosol cans are then rinsed again and have a body label applied to each before passing through a heat shrinktunnel to have them adhere to the surface properly.

Gay Lea utilizes a Polyclad 200 Series roll-fed labeler manufactured by Associated Packaging Corp. of Markham, Ont. that features a Schneider Electric Telemecanique Magelis viewscreen and SICK Stegmann, Inc. motors to apply the labels around the aerosol whip cans. And while the folks at Gay Lea can’t speak highly enough of the labeler, Dicunto notes that a second Associated Packaging machine—a custom-designed and built heat shrink tunnel used in the next stage of the production line—has been a key factor in helping Gay Lea become more efficient in the way it runs its business.

The Polyclad ST-005 heat shrink tunnel from Associated Packaging is used to apply localized heat

After each aerosol can is rinsed, an Admark dryer supplied by RE Morrison blow dries the can to allow a proper label application seal.

Utilizing a Schneider Electric Telemecanique Magelis viewscreen, an Associated Packaging system wraps labels around cans of Gay Lea Real Whipped Cream.

Manufactured by Weber Marking Systems, a labeler applies a pressure-sensitive label to cartons of aerosol whipped products at Gay Lea’s main Guelph facility.

WHIPPED INTO SHAPE K

Aerosol whipped cream manufacturer uses new technology to beat the heat

20 • WWW.CANADIANPACKAGING.COM

CANADIAN PACKAGING • MARCH 2011

FILLING & CAPPING

A Douglas Machine case packer uses ELAU servo motors to package product into coprrugated cartons.

A PCTA2100 automatic pallet wrapper manufactured by Phoenix Innotech secures product for transportation.

at the top and the bottom of the aerosol can to slightly shrink the film wrap around the label—by allowing the label to shrink against the can, it gives it a neat and clean finished appearance.

Despite giving Gay Lea exactly what it asked for, initially, the dairy cooperative had concerns.

Martin Malthouse, president of Associated Packaging explains: “Gay Lea came to us noting that because our heat shrink tunnel and labeler both obviously emitted a fair amount of heat in their utilization, and they were concerned that they were losing a large amount of cooling capacity. Basically our machines emitted heat meaning their air-chilled clean room needed to work harder to keep the room at the proper temperature.”

Because the option of using a closed tunnel system to contain the heat was not considered as aerosol cans are subject to explosion if over-heated, Malthouse

notes that while some heat was still going to be emitted by the hot-melt adhesive required for the labeler, it could devise a way to capture the hot air being blown by the open-design heat shrink tunnel and then recycle it.

“While an added cost, it was a no-brainer for Gay Lea when they realized its ROI (return on investment) was only three years,” mentions Malthouse.

So, to lessen the air-conditioning refrigerating load in the plant, Associated Packaging devised a shrink system to work in conjunction with the Polyclad lebeler. The company developed a return duct and a make-up duct connected to the inlet of a fan within the shrink tunnel. A specially developed butterf ly valve used in conjunction with a thermostatic control regulates the temperature of the air supplied to the tunnel by varying the amount of air supplied from the return to the make-up ducts.

“We’re very proud to be the first company in

North America—perhaps the world—to offer a straight-line rotary drive that shrinks the necks of film and also provides an energy-savings aspect to it,” reveals Malthouse.

Installed in February 2008, Gay Lea’s green shrink tunnel immediately began running 24/7 for six months with only minor bugs to iron out—as the financial and environmental savings of five kilowatts per operating hour is worth a lot to the company.

Aside from Associated Packaging’s contributions to the aerosol whipped line, other equipment includes: • An XODUS can depalletizer and a MarmionoX SRL 12-head plastic capper from Priority One; • A Priority One conveyor system that uses SEWEurodrive motors to power it; • A 20-head Serac Inc. 720 filler utilizing a Rockwell Automation Allen-Bradley PanelView 600 touchscreen; • Admark can rinser and Air Knife dryer;

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An Allen-Bradley PanelView 600 control panel and SEW-Eurodrive motor help power a cap distribution system on Gay Lea’s aerosol packaging line.

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FILLING & CAPPING

After the aerosol whipped products are packed, a Nordson ProBlue 10 hot melt applicator applies adhesive to seal the corrugated carton.

• A Videojet Technologies Inc. Excel inkjet coder to apply lot and coding data.

• A Douglas Machine Inc. casepacker featuring a Siemens Simatic MultiPanel Touch viewscreen that

packs 12 aerosol cans at a time into a carton using ELAU servo motors to push product into cartons; • a FANUC Robotics Canada, Inc. M-410iB 160 robotic palletizer; • corrugated cartons converetd by Norampac Inc.; • a PCTA2100 automatic pallet wrapper from Phoenix Innotech.

Another recent addition to the aerosol whip line is an accumulation system built by Lagrotta Packaging Group Inc. and installed in June of 2010. Gay Lea required accumulation between the labeler and the capper units.

“We installed the accumulation system in June of 2010 during an eight-hour window so as not to disrupt our production,” explains Miller. “It needed to fit within a 12’ x 4’ footprint, which was accomplished by keeping all of the cans in a singlefile and using a tight turn radius to loop back and

Cartons of product are directed toward a FANUC Robotics M-410iB 160 robotic palletizer.

forth within the space provide.”

When Gay Lea first began to produce the whipped cream, it used pre-printed cans, but the convenience of using bright cans with labels manufactured by Labelad proved to be a better fit for them.

“Since we’ve begun using Labelad, they have helped improve our lead times while also giving our products a high graphic quality and great inventory management services,” offers Dicunto.

Both Miller and Dicunto agree that thanks to the help of some fine equipment manufacturers and great suppliers, Gay Lea has been a company on the move.

“The quality of our products speaks for itself, as does the fact that we continue to garner new customers,” states Dicunto. “It’s even better that thanks to our new production line, we can better serve our customers while also doing our part to remain a lean company.

“Even though the dark days of the recent recession are now in the past, Gay Lea is always striving its best to keep our costs down—and with ongoing tweaks to our facility and the way we run our production lines, we’re going to continue that trend well into the future.”

For More Information: Ball Corporation Crown Holdings, Inc. Clayton Corporation Labelad, Inc. Associated Packaging Equipment Corporation Lagrotta Packaging Group Inc. SEW-Eurodrive Serac Inc. Rockwell Automation Schneider Electric SICK Stegmann, Inc. Videojet Technologies Inc. Douglas Machine Inc. Siemens Canada ELAU GmbH FANUC Robotics Canada, Inc. Norampac Inc. Phoenix Innotech Weber Marking Systems of Canada

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CANADIAN PACKAGING • MARCH 2011

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PACKAGING FOR FRESHNESS

BACK TO SCHOOL BASICS Manufacturer of peanut-free treats tastes success with sharp new paperboard packaging

BY ANDREW JOSEPH, FEATURES EDITOR PHOTOS BY COLE GARSIDE

E

ven the most jaded consumer might wonder how a baked, sweet-tasting treat can be moist to the palette even after immediately being taken from the freezer. But when you also factor in that the product is nut and peanut-free, it’s easy to see why one Ontario-based bakery has found the winning recipe to success. It just wasn’t overnight, though.

Treasure Mills Inc. bakes and packages School Safe, a nut- and peanut-free brand of sweet treats that defies logic by being healthy and nutritious, while also providing a very tasty product that both kids and adults can enjoy.

With 45 employees working at the 30,000-squarefoot, 100-per-cent nut- and peanut-free HACCP (Hazard Analysis Critical Control Points)-certified manufacturing and baking facility in Newmarket, Ont., Treasure Mills company president and chief executive officer Robert Johnson explains that despite knowing he had a fantastic product, the road to success was a hard-fought battle for him.

Controlled by a Rockwell Automation Allen-Bradley PanelView Plus 700 (top left) operator panel, a Campbell Wrapper Heritage horizontal flowwrapper with film supplied by Vista-Pak is used to individually seal in the freshness of its School Safe baked prooducts.

24 • WWW.CANADIANPACKAGING.COM

Thanks to a new paperboard window package from Cascades, the Newmarket, Ont.-based Treasure Mills has had a successful launch of its School Safe brand of individually-wrapped peanut- and nut-free baked treats.

The trials and tribulations of Treasure Mills “One way we did that was to take all of our baked began in 2003 when Johnson purchased a bread and packaged goods and then freeze them. When bakery that was in receivership, he recalls although retailers were ready to place them on the shelf, they the determining factor in buying the facility was could unfreeze them and then code it themselves with that it was built to launch a line of frozen breads, a best-before date,” says Johnson. and thus had ample freezing capacity.

“By doing things via this method, we saved a couple “I’m an entrepreneur,” Johnson told Canadian of days on our end, and while the product remains Packaging during a recent visit to the facility. “Despite frozen, its shelf-life remains static. The shelf-life is the set-up, I decided not to do breads, and instead only a concern after the initial thawing of the product created nut- and peanut-free cookies. by our customers.

“At that time, believe it or not, we were the first “We had more success, to be sure, but it wasn’t commercial company in that particular game.” good enough,” offers Johnson. “I knew I was going Not one to do anything small, Johnson launched to have to try and launch the product for a third time his cookies with both Loblaws Companies if I wanted this company to thrive like I knew it Limited and Sobeys Inc., but in should.” order to keep up with demand, the Determined that if he was going to fail company needed more cash-f low to he would not go down without a fight, purchase more production equipJohnson hired noted packaging design ment. To help tide things over, guru Don Watts of DW+Partners Johnson purchased a working bread Inc., a retail strategy and design group business, and while he acknowledges based in Toronto, to create a new brand that it is a tough business to comicon and a new 12-pack container for pete in, he continued to build it up the product that was launched in 2008. between 2004 and 2006 doing busi“Along with bright and colorful ness with Sobeys and other privategraphics, we added a large clear winlabel enterprises. dow to the top lid, which allows the However, when Effem Foods got Robert Johnson, customer to see a part of each product into the nut- and peanut-free cookie President and CEO, within,” explains Johnson. “I love it— business in 2006, Johnson sold his Treasure Mills Inc. being open like that, it correctly offers bread business and poured the money the perception of freshness, suggesting back into the baked sweet products. we aren’t trying to hide anything.”

“When Effem got into the peanut-free retail The result has been a success for Treasure Mills, sector, we tried to launch our own nut- and peathough Johnson did note that it did alter its packnut-free product into a more niche sector,” notes aging in September of 2010, when it reduced its size Johnson about his School Safe brand of cookies. to an eight-pack to ensure customers had a chance “We looked—and continue to look—not at targetto eat all the snacks before it expired. ing people with allergies; rather targeting everyone “School Safe products are still baked goods, and that has to deal with the school mandate banning as a result it has a short life, but, customers can nut and peanut products.” extend that life by placing it in the freezer and “We launched, and we had a bit of success,” taking them out as required,” mentions Johnson. recounts Johnson. “But because our product was “You don’t even have to thaw them, as they still considered baked goods, we were limited with a maintain most of their softness and moistness even shelf life of only 12 to 14 days.” when eaten directly from the freezer.”

Despite the fact that the cookies were individAccording to Johnson, his company has not only ually f lowwrapped and hand-placed into a papermanaged to survive, but thrive, despite the onslaught board closeable tray, Johnson needed to find a way of private-label competition that has entered the to extend the life of the product on the shelf. same school market.

CANADIAN PACKAGING • MARCH 2011

PACKAGING FOR FRESHNESS Along with number one sellers Banana Chocolate Chip Mini-loaf and Brownie Bars, Treasure Mills also bakes and packages School Safe brands in tasty Raspberry Banana Snack Cake, Chocolicius Cookie Bars and the Chocolate Chip Cookie Bar carieties that are all available in major supermarket baked goods sections right across Canada and in the northeastern and southeastern U.S., including Texas.

The School Safe products are all healthy, nutritionally balanced, are low in sugar, low in fat and iron and each snack contains two grams of fiber, according to Johnson.

“And despite the fact that we have a fantastic product, I believe its success is due more to the brand,” Johnson ref lects. “We have gone from being a seller of nutand peanut-free baked goods to a company that has developed a brand that moves our product off the shelf—it looks and is fresh and new.”

Lending a big helping hand to Treasure Mills was Cascades Inc., a Kingsey Falls, Que.-based globally-operating producer, converter and marketer of packaging and tissue products manufactured from recycled fibers.

“Cascades has been working with Treasure Mills since day one, but they have really outdone themselves with the recycled paperboard product they provided for our current packaging needs,” states Johnson. “It’s why they are my paperboard supplier.”

With four production lines available, Johnson says Treasure Mills runs a minimum of three lines during its 20-hour day, five- to six-day workweeks, with each line always running something different: cookies on one line; muffin batter products on another; and two lines dedicated to School Safe products, as Johnson estimates that 90 per cent of the bakery’s business is driven by that brand.

“While we will do private labeling for anyone who asks, we will not offer our School Safe products in private labeling,” avers Johnson. “That would just be shooting ourselves in the foot.”

Along with multiple production lines, Treasure Mills utilizes a few different forms of packaging: clamshell for cookies; pails for batter or dough filling; and the Cascades paperboard boxes for School Safe.

One important piece of equipment effectively utilized by Treasure Mills, is a Reiser Vemag cookie depositer that divides the cookies dough into preformed molds, and is also used in the application of filling batter and pail lines.

Johnson says: “The Vemag is a versatile machine that can handle any type

A Consolidated Technologies cartoner opens the Cascades paperboard folding cartons and places the individuallywrapped School Safe snacks inside.

MARCH 2011 • CANADIAN PACKAGING

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Cartons of School Safe nut- and peanut-free product pass through a Fortress Technology Phantom metal detection system to ensure optimal products safety.

PACKAGING FOR FRESHNESS of doughs and batters with consistent accuracy and with minimal waste.

“I like it enough to say that we are in the process of purchasing a second Vemag for our lines.

After the School Safe product is baked and passed through a 20-minute blast freezer, it enters the packaging line.

Key to the line is a Campbell Wrapper Corporation Heritage horizontal f lowwrapper— purchased in September of 2010—that has a top speed of 300 upm (units per minute).

To package the product individually, Treasure Mills uses film manufactured by Vista-Pak Dakota Systems, a Toronto fabricator of clear film packaging.

“It’s all in the service with Vista-Pak. I never run out of film, and I get excellent quality packaging for my School Safe products,” mentions Johnson.

Featuring a Rockwell Automation Allen-Bradley

PanelView Plus 700 control package, the all servodriven Heritage wrapper is easy for Treasure Mills’ employees to use.

With a self-centering film roll, the Heritage can easily handle web widths of 20-, 24-, 28 and 32-inches with a wide range of films.

“It’s wonderful,” exclaims Johnson. “It’s a fullyautomatic, no product- and no-bag operation that runs on a PLC (programmable logic controller) system that minimizes waste, making it fast and economical.”

Currently running the Heritage flow wrapper at 240-upm, Johnson admits he is not using the machine up to its full potential for now, but says things will change shortly once a new spiral freezer unit is set up that will allow Treasure Mills to ramp up the speed.

“And even though 300-upm is a good speed, ultimately I’m looking to amplify our output to over 1,000 upm when I can get in more equipment,” says Johnson.

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An Interpack Carton Sealer applies adhesive tape to seal the corrugated shipping cartons.

Once each baked product is individually flowwrapped, it moves to a Consolidated Technologies cartoner that moves the product in groups of eight into the Cascades window paperboard package at speeds of 30- to 40-cartons per minute.

Utilizing a Nordson Corporation ProBlue 7 hot-melt adhesive application system, the cartoner seals the boxes shut.

The cartons then pass through a Fortress Technology Inc. Phantom metal detection unit, and then off to a case-packer station, where 12 to 14 boxes are manually loaded into a corfull rugated carrier supplied by Atlantic 18-month Packaging Products Ltd. which warranty** then is run past an Interpack Carton Sealers case taper, placed onto a skid, and moved back into a freezer until ready for customer delivery.

Spurred on by the not-quite overnight success of School Safe baked products, Johnson says he is about to expand in to real-time access other food areas, mentioning celebrato availability tion-type items like cakes. ratio* “To be honest, if our customers hadn’t thought we offered a great bunch of products, and requested that we move into this new area, I might have had second thoughts,” mentions Johnson.

“But I think that along with the way we have branded ourselves and our additive consumption as products, we’ll do alright. low as “Kids love our products, and adults 2.5ml/hour** too,” exclaims Johnson. “Our School Safe products are fresh and as natural as they can be, while still meeting the nutritionally balanced requirements and still delivering an excellent taste and texture for the whole family.”

Our commitment:

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Atlantic Packaging Products supplies Treasure MIlls with all of its corrugated packaging cartons.

866.263.4644

low maintenance costs

*Currently measuring 99.6% availability rate during field testing.

Availability ratio = Uptime / (Uptime + Downtime) ** Please see conditions with your sales representative.

For More Information: Cascades Inc. Reiser Canada Ltd. Campbell Wrapper Corporation Vista-Pak Dakota Systems Rockwell Automation Consolidated Technologies Nordson Canada Fortress Technology Inc. Atlantic Packaging Products Ltd. Interpack Carton Sealers DW+Partners Inc.

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CANADIAN PACKAGING • MARCH 2011

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STRETCHWRAPPING

THE FINISHING STRETCH

Stretchwrapping equipment design evolving with new end-use requirements

BY GEORGE GUIDONI, EDITOR

K

eeping a pallet loaded with packaged products safe and sound from shipment to customer delivery may not sound like one of the most glamorous packaging functions out there, but no self-respecting end-of-line packaging operation is really worthy of the name these days without at least one reliable, robust stretchwrapping machine in place to apply layers of stretchwrap film onto palletized loads to keep them stable and secure throughout their journey down the supply chain.

But while standard turntable and rotary-arm stretchwrapping technology has been largely bypassed by groundbreaking technological advances witnessed in some other packaging machinery segments, recent developments in the stretchwrapping systems and materials market suggest that this vitally important equipment category may be entering a far more exciting chapter in its evolution—driven by relentless technological innovation, ongoing costs-reduction efforts, and concerns about the environmental impact of tonnes of discarded stretchwrap film ending up at landfills around the globe.

Doing more with less appears to be the emerging new mantra for some of North America’s leading stretchwrapping equipment manufacturers and distributors, with technology-savvy companies like Phoenix Innotech Inc. of Laval, Que., setting the pace in new equipment design and performance capabilities.

“You cannot look at stretchwrap equipment improvements without addressing the improvements in stretch film,” says Phoenix Innotech general manager Graham Nicholson.

“With the vast improvements in stretch film technology, typical stretch film thicknesses have plummeted, and this ‘downgauge era’ has resulted in a real paradigm shift as to what is most required from stretchwrapping equipment today—as thingauge films have eliminated the need for maximizing pre-stretch capabilities by up to 350 per cent.

“Now it is about providing a machine that can consistently run these light-gauge films and eliminating inherent deficiencies in the wrapping process,” says Nicholson, explaining that Phoenix has recently addressed the issue by upgrading its film carriage design to execute reliable wraps even with film defects like nicks, gel spots or holes without film breaks.

“There is one huge deficiency in the conventional wrapping process that is causing a strong wave of change,” says Nicholson, pointing out there’s been remarkably little real advancement in the mechanical design of most stretchwrapping systems in the 40 years since they were first commercialized.

“Turntable and rotary-arm technology has not really changed since the early 1970s,” relates Nicholson, deriding the “inherent deficiency” and “costly drawbacks” of having the clamp and the cutting system both located in a fixed location on the conveyor.

28 • WWW.CANADIANPACKAGING.COM

“This means that while the carriage moves to the top of the load to start a wrap cycle it must dispense wasted film as it moves to get there,” Nicholson points out. “These two or more extra revolutions only increase costs, waste and wrapping time, while bringing little additional, if any, load integrity to the load being wrapped.”

In fact, Nicholson contends, the costs of these extra film revolutions end up running into tens of thousands of dollars— money that could be easily recovered with his company’s rotary-ring machines whose clamp-and-cut mechanisms move within the carriage to eliminate the extra film revolutions and facilitate faster, more customized wrapping cycles. (Picture Above) “A recent customer who saved over $30,000 per year in stretch film costs likened it to using an old eight-pound satellite phone instead of a hands-free cellphone,” Nicholson recalls.

“Although patent issues prevented the widespread use of ring technology in North America to date, the overwhelming dominance of rotary-ring technology had already taken hold about 15 years ago in Europe, where today’s rotary-ring wrappers have effectively replaced the old conventional rotary-arm and turntable automatic machines,” Nicholson relates.

“I don’t think it will be long before companies in North America begin switching en masse from the old turntables and rotary-arm machines to rotaryring equipment to take advantage of those cost benefits,” he adds, “and our company is actually leading the wave of this sweeping change by offering two models of rotary-ring systems to allow every level of end-user take advantage of this game-changing technology.”

Ryan Van Horne, marketing coordinator with the Mississauga, Ont.based packaging equipment supplier Samuel Strapping Systems, agrees that Europeans have been far more adventurous than North Americans in pushing the envelope of stretchwrapping technologies by cleverly integrating robotics and machine vision into machine design to come up with mobile, subcompact, self-guiding stretchwrapping solutions such as the made-in-Italy Sfera robot wrappers (see picture), which Samuel has recently brought into the Canadian market.

“While the technology is not new, the availability of these units to the Canadian market is,” says Van Horne, citing many self-evident operational f lexibility advantages of battery-powered, self-

propelled machines that can wrap up to 150 pallets per single charge.

“The Sfera machine allows companies to assemble their loads on the f loor and bring the wrapper to the load, rather than the other way around,” Van Horne explains.

“It also enables plants to wrap large loads considered too big for turntable or rotary-arm machines,” he elaborates, thanks to a unique design of a mechanism for raising and lowering the carriage to allow operation in low-headroom areas without the hassle of having to drop the traditional mast.

“The Sfera system’s patented hydraulic arm, which raises and lowers during the wrapping cycle, makes the unit far easier to move from location to location without the height restrictions of a fixed tower,” says Van Horne, “and it can also be recharged in areas with limited height available.

“The design also means that the center of gravity is kept as low as possible—increasing the working life of the transport components, says Van Horne, praising the system’s user-friendly design that makes it “opens like a book” to replace a roll of film.

In addition, Sfera uses its powered rollers to stretch the film before the application to increase the yield from each roll of film—resulting in film savings of 40 to 50 per cent, compared to manual stretchwrapping by hand.

While employee safety and well-being have always been part of the overall raison d’être for installing automatic strechwrappers to begin with, such considerations have become even more critical with the influx of new-generation automated equipment on highspeed packaging lines, according to Orion Packaging Systems, Inc. marketing director Peter Vilardi.

“With the increasingly high cost of medical treatment and the potentially astronomical cost of a lawsuit brought against an employer, there is now much more importance attached to operator safety around machinery in the workplace—including packaging machinery,” Vilardi states.

While the company has always offered a wide array of optional safety features on its automatic stretchwrapping systems, Vilardi points out, last year it started to include Category 2 safety rating features on all of its FA and MA stretchwrappers as standard equipment.

With this upgrade, both machine series now include: full eight-foot-high safety fencing with electrically interlocked access doors; light curtains with muting on both the infeed and the exit conveyors; electrical air dump purges in E-stop, and separate start and control power reset buttons, among other features.

Says Vilardi: “Although Orion automatic systems can be ordered with the less stringent Category

CANADIAN PACKAGING • MARCH 2011

STRETCHWRAPPING 1 safety rating, the Category 2 safety features have already proved to be very popular with customers who have come to understand that the relatively small surcharge on the price of the machine can help prevent potentially very expensive consequences down the road.”

Another key trend driving stretchwrapping design innovation is growing demand by endusers to perform stretchwrapping with customized banding to stabilize the more tricky or unstable product loads, he adds.

“Although wrapping loads with banded stretch film is nothing new, customer requests for customized banding film carriages to create very specific wrap patterns is a quickly emerging trend,” says Vilardi, citing a recent end-use customer in California using a specified stretch tape product on loads of fruit shipped over long distances.

“In transit, the stretch tape was allowing the load to bounce up and down in the truck, thus damaging the delicate produce,” Vilardi recalls.

“To resolve that problem, Orion presented a solution in the form of an automatic turntable stretchwrapping system equipped with a special servo-driven roping film carriage, which was capable of traveling up and down the mast at a

much higher rate of speed than a standard model.

“Holding two 10-inch rolls of film to produce the one-inchwide bands of pre-stretched film, this carriage made it possible to create an X-shaped pattern of film rope on the each side of the load—creating a downward force,” Vilardi relates.

“This held the ventilated cases more firmly to the pallet and virtually eliminated the damage claims previously experienced by the fruit grower.”

Loads that need to be stored in outdoor environments for extended time naturally present their own unique sets of challenges, according to Anne Rouleau, marketing coordinator at the Industrial Equipment Group unit of the Rivière-du-Loup, Que.-based Premier Tech Systems (PTS).

As one of the leading manufacturers and integrators of automated material handling systems for the hoticultural industries, PTS specializes in developing customized stretchwrapping solutions for its customers, Rouleau explains, which enables it to come up with unique systems such as the LH-400 Series Stretch Hooder—designed specifically for safeguarding product loads outdoors.

“Many of our clients had quality issues with their

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product being stored outside for long periods of time, with water and moisture would eventually reaching the bags secured on the pallet with a stretchwrap, even with a plastic top sheet installed,” Rouleau relates. “The water would affect the product and also add extra weight to the pallet—pushing the cost of delivery even higher.”

According to PTS, this problem is virtually eliminated with the LH-40 Stretch Hooder machines (see picture), which is a fully-automatic system designed to stretch and position a hood of high-barrier film over the entire pallet load—exerting vertical and horizontal tension on the load and gently pressing it down onto the pallet.

“There are many advantages over traditional stretchwrappers,” she contends, “because Stretch Hooders considerably improve the packaging quality of unstable or heavy loads thanks to their consistent and greater holding force.

“With throughput capacity of up to 120 loads per hour, these are highly effective and versatile machines that can secure between 500 and 700 pallets on a single roll of film—vastly educing the downtime for changing rolls of film on ordinary stretchwrappers, which often require a roll change several times a day.”

For More Information: Phoenix Innotech Inc. Samuel Strapping Systems Orion Packaging Systems, Inc. Premier Tech Systems

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LABELING

SHRINK THE INK Labelmaker saves big-time with reduced ink inventory

BY ANDREW JOSEPH, FEATURES EDITOR PHOTOS BY ANDREW JOSEPH

K

Manager of supply chain and information systems Norm McGlaughlin poses alongside an attention-grabbing display of high-quality flexible packaging and pressuresensitive labels manufactured by Labelad at 񡑆񡑄񡑈񡑒񡑉񡑀񡑗񡑀񡑖񡑦񡑧񡑢񡑦񡑥񡑠񡑑񡑂񡑒񡑑񡑉񡑨񡑅񡑄񡑂񡑑񡑉񡑠񡑆񡑄񡑈񡑒񡑉񡑀񡑀񡑅񡑅񡑁񡑄񡑆񡑁񡑄񡑓񡑀񡑀񡑅񡑆񡑔񡑈񡑉񡑀񡑙񡑘񡑀񡑀񡑙񡑡񡑤񡑣񡑀񡑅 the company’s Markham facility.

eeping your costs in line is a key fundamental for any successful business enterprise aiming to stick around awhile, but finding your next cost-saving opportunities these days is not as simple as it used to be back in 1976, when Sandra and Lionel Waldman founded an upstart supplier of printing labels for the carpet industry under the Labelad banner.

Having grown exponentially over the years to

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mature into one of Canada’s leading suppliers and converters of pressure-sensitve labels and f lexible packaging—nowadays employing 130 people at a 110,000-square-foot state-of-the-art production facility just north of Toronto in Markham, Ont.— the privately-owned company has long prided itself as one of the industry’s most committed practitioners of ‘lean manufacturing’ methodologies such as Six Sigma and other leading continuous improvement and quality practices, according to Labelad’s manager of supply chain and information systems Norm McGlaughlin.

“One of the things that this company has done consistently, since day one actually, is continually reinvest in its technologies and its people,” McGlaughlin told Canadian Packaging on a recent visit to the lively Labelad plant staffed by a highly-motivated team of dedicated, cross-trained employees who are fully-committed to implementing the company’s continuous improvement strategies on a daily basis.

“This is what has really allowed our company to become an industry leader in quality, innovation and delivery reliability.”

Running the Markham facility at full capacity on a busy two-shift, five-daysa-week schedule throughout the year, Labelad operates an impressive selection of printing presses—including a dozen flexographic UV presses and a recentlyadded digital press—to produce a diverse range of high-quality pressuresensitive labels and upscale flexible packaging for a vast client base of customers across North America’s personal-care, food-and-beverage, pharmaceutical, healthcare and nutraceutical industries, including a growing volume of RFID (radio frequency identification) tags and labels being rapidly adopted across a wide spectrum of industry sectors.

“While we often do print runs of one million labels plus for customers, we are aware that the individual cost of each label is actually quite small,” states McGlaughlin, “which is why we are constantly looking for ways to drive out more costs from our business.

“For us, achieving success is based on constant improvement of our key business processes.”

According to McGlaughlin, the Labelad plant has recently achieved impressive savings in its ink costs by taking advantage of its long-standing, team-like relationship with the Brampton, Ont.-based Sun Chemical Limited—Canadian subsidiary of the globally-operating industrial inks, pigments and specialty chemicals conglomerate Sun Chemical Group Cooperatief U.A., headquartered in The Netherlands—which has

CANADIAN PACKAGING • MARCH 2011 FOR MORE INFORMATION CIRCLE

108

LABELING

Utilizing small canisters of ink paste, the new compact ink dispenser (inset) supplied via the Sun Chemical Dispenser Program will enable the Labelad plant to eliminate a vast inventory of massive 40-gallon ink drums stored at the facility.

actually maintained and staffed an onsite ink laboratory at the Markham plant over the last 12 years.

“We have had nothing but the best of relationships with Sun Chemical, who have always been able to supply us with all the high-quality inks we needed whenever we needed them,” notes McGlaughlin, “but until recently, we weren’t able to streamline their services into our production process.

“Whenever the plant needed to replenish a supply of a specific ink formulation,” he recalls, it would be mixed and stored in bulky, 40-gallon drums that would be kept on-site at the plant.

“And when you factor in the vast number of all the different inks we require to serve all of our customers, it would often result in a heck of a lot of inventory that we would have to maintain.”

So when Sun Chemical’s North American director of product management for narrow-web and label inks Percy Agboat visited the plant last September to discuss the company’s newly-launched Sun Chemical Dispenser Program, McGlaughlin jumped at the chance to hear all about the inventory and cost-savings promised by the new service.

“In these trying times, when the entire industry is faced with rising raw material costs, Sun Chemical felt it was necessary to offer its customers a valueadded proposition,” recalls Agboat, explaining the company’s exclusive three-year program, whereby Sun Chemical provides its customers with free use of an advanced, on-demand ink-dispensing system in exchange for their continued exclusive use of inks supplied by Sun Chemical.

McGlaughlin says that signing up for the new service was a quintessential no-brainer, considering the significant benefits of lowered inventory costs enabled by the compact new ink dispensing unit—measuring only four-by-four feet—that replaced an expansive drum-based ink processing area occupying a good chunk of the plant f loor measuring 30-feet-long and six-feet-wide, freeing up much-

MARCH 2011 • CANADIAN PACKAGING

needed extra f loor space for more productive uses.

“I have already been able to get rid of all of these 40-gallon drums, which have essentially been displaced with 12-inch-tall canisters of ink paste,” says McGlaughlin, explaining that it takes only five such canisters of paste concentrate to produce the 10 gallons of ink required to handle an average print run.

“I now only need to bring in the amount of ink that I actually need for the job,” states McGlaughlin.

“If I need five canisters, I bring in exactly five.

“This program really helps out with our inventory management, which has greatly improved our cash f low,” he states.

“Any time we had to open up a drum in the past,” he recalls, “Labelad would quickly get invoiced for it, even if it was just to sit there for a month or two before it’s all used up,” says McGlaughlin. “But with the canisters I only use what I need. Even if I may

have a few sitting in inventory the odd time, they really do no take up much space at all.

“Moreover, I no longer have to pay for the actual mixing of the inks; the ink dispensing system is doing that for me,” he adds. “I also love the cleanliness factor—there’s no handling of ink, as everything in the canister is automatically dispensed into small, easyto-handle one-, two- or five-liter jugs.”

Sums up McGlaughlin: “While it is a fact that a company like ours often has to spend money to make more money by investing in the latest equipment and technology, it also often takes the help of a good supplier and partner, such us Sun Chemical, to help us get there faster and more cost-effectively.”

For More Information: Labelad Sun Chemical Limited

497 498

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Free PrODuCT INFOrMATION FrEE PrODUCT INFOrMATION

EVENTS April 6-8 Orlando, Fla.: ICE USA, international converting exhibition (ICE) by Mack Brooks Exhibitions Inc. At the Orange County Convention Center. Contact Mack Brooks at (781) 791-5091; or go to: www.ice-x-usa.com

April 10-11 Vancouver: Grocery Showcase West, exhibition and conference by the Canadian Federation of Independent Grocers (CFIG).

At the Vancouver Convention Centre.

Contact CFIG at (416) 492-2311; via email info@cfig.ca; or go to: www.cfig.ca

April 13-16 Chicago: AMI International, meat, poultry & seafood convention and exhibition by the American Meat Institute (AMI). At the McCormick Place. To register go to: www.amiexpo.com

April 27 Mississauga, Ont.: Cutting through the Greenwash III, seminar by the Paper & Paperboard Packaging Environmental Council (PPEC). At Mississauga Convention Centre. Contact Shirley Price at (905) 458-1247; or via email sprice@ppecpaper.com

May 10-11 Toronto: Supply Chain Canada, conference and trade show by the Supply Chain & Logistics Association Canada (SCL) and the Canadian Industrial Transportation Association (CITA). At the International Centre. Contact Newcom Business Media Inc. at (905) 695-0123, ext. 203; or go to: www.supplychaincanada.com

May 11-13 Toronto: SIAL Canada 2011, international food industry exhibition by Expo Canada France. Jointly with the SET Canada 2011 national food equipment show. Both at the Metro Convention Centre. To register, go to: www.sialcanada.com

For further information on either advertisements or editorial For further information on either advertisements or editorial in this issue, please circle the appropriate numbers below. in this issue, please circle the appropriate numbers below.

Once you’ve filled out your contact information, Once you’ve filled out your contact information, fax form this form at: 416.764.1755 fax this backback to ustoat:us416.764.1755

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103 104 123 124 143 144 163 164 183 184 203 204 223 224 243 244 263 264 283 284 303 304 323 324 343 344 363 364 383 384 403 404 423 424 443 444 463 464 483 484

104 105 124 125 144 145 164 165 184 185 204 205 224 225 244 245 264 265 284 285 304 305 324 325 344 345 364 365 384 385 404 405 424 425 444 445 464 465 484 485

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June 21-23 Toronto: PACKEX Toronto, national packaging technologies exhibition

by Canon Communication LLC. Concurrently with the Plast-ex national plastics technologies exhibition, ATX (Automation Technology Expo) Canada, Design & Manufacturing Canada, PTX/ PBS (Process Technology/Power Bulk Solids) Canada and Green Manufacturing Expo Canada. All at the Toronto Congress Centre. Contact Jim Beretta at (289) 971-0534; or go to: www.packextoronto.com

MARCH 2011 • CANADIAN PACKAGING

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IMPOrTANT: Please complete the following questions

IMPOrTANT: Please complete the following questions What is the primary business at your location? of the business following at doyour you plan on purchasing within the next 12 months?

What is Which the primary location?

Advesives  Checkweigher  Print & Apply Label Applicator Which ofthe following do you plan on purchasing within the next 12 months? Machine Vision  Adhesive Applicator  Checkweigher  Colour Label Printer  Metal Detector &RFID  Advesives  Machine Vision  Print ApplyEquipment Label Applicator  Bar Code Equipment  Colour  Label Conveyors Detector Modified Atmosphere Robotics  Adhesive Applicator Printer  Metal  RFIDEquipment  Capper  Filler Packaging Machinery  Scales & Weighing Equipment  Bar Code Equipment  Conveyors  Modified Atmosphere  Robotics  Palletizer  Shipping Containers  Cartoners  Capper  Filler Ink Jet Equipment Packaging Machinery  Scales & Weighing Equipment  Case Packer  Equipment Intermediate Bulk Containers  Palletizer  Pallets  Shrink Film  Cartoners  Ink Jet Containers  Shipping Case Sealer  Labeler  PLC’s, Sensors, Controls  Shrink  Shrink  Case Packer  Intermediate Bulk Containers  Pallets Film Wrapper number of employees?  PLC’s, Sensors, Controls  CaseApproximate Sealer  Labeler  Shrink Wrapper Is thisnumber company a:  Package User  Custom Packager  Package Maker  Supplier Approximate of employees?

Is this company a:  Package User  Custom Packager  Package Maker  Supplier

May 12-18 Düsseldorf, Germany: interpack 2011, international processing and packaging technologies exhibition by Messe Düsseldorf.

In Canada, contact Messe Düsseldorf Canada at (416) 598-1524; or via email: messeduesseldorf@germanchamber.ca

347 348 367 368 387 388 407 408 427 428 447 448 467 468 487 488

211 212 212 213 213 214 214 215 215 216 216 217 217 218 218 219 219 220220 231 235 235 236 236 237 237 238 238 239 239 240 240 232 232 233 233 234 234 251 252 252 253 253 254 254 255 255 256 256 257 257 258 258 259 259 260260 271 272 272 273 273 274 274 275 275 276 276 277 277 278 278 279 279 280280 291 292 292 293 293 294 294 295 295 296 296 297 297 298 298 299 299 300300 311 312 312 313 313 314 314 315 315 316 316 317 317 318 318 319 319 320 320 331 332 332 333 333 334 334 335 335 336 336 337 337 338 338 339 339 340340

 Strapping Equipment  Stretch Wrapper  Strapping Equipment  Stretchwrap  Stretch Wrapper Film  Shipping Containers  Stretchwrap Film  TapeContainers  Shipping  Vacuum Packaging  Tape  Vacuum Packaging FebruArY 2011 MArCh 2011

ADVERTISERS’ INDEX

For more information on Classified Advertising please contact: 416-764-1497

• Craftex Dust Collectors CT031 & B2151A • Automatic Blister Pack Machine DPP-130B • Marburg Neck & Full Body Bander M-725-FB • Videojet Excel Model 2000 Ink Jet Coder • Marburg Stainless Steel Heat Tunnel CR-6000 • Abacus Wraparound Labeler BA100/01GR • New & Used Net Weigh/Fillers (customizable) • Skin Packaging Machine, Model TB390 • New & Used 3’-16’ Long Stainless Steel Conveyors • Liquid Vertical Form Fill Sealer DXDG-100 • New&Used 40”-60” S/S Feed & Accumulate Tbls • Jet Heat Tunnel, Model BS-4535LA

R.S. No. 101 134 102 103 127 104 105 106 107 108 109 110 111 112 113 114 115 133 116 117 118-123 124 125 126 128 129 130 131 132

ADVERTISERS’ INDEX ABB Robotics Inc. Associated Packaging Equipment Atlantic Packaging Products Ltd. CAPS Packaging/Phoenix Packaging Canampac, Strathcona Paper Co. Canpaco Capmatic Ltd. Eagle Packaging Machinery LLC. Eriez Magnetics Farm Credit Canada Fortress Technology Inc. Harlund Industries Ltd. Krones Machinery Co. Inc. Labelad Markem-Imaje Norampac Inc. North American Laser Systems PACKEX Toronto, UBM Canon Paper Packaging Canada Robert Reiser & Co. Inc. SEW Eurodrive Co.of Canada Salbro Bottle Inc. Samuel Strapping Systems Schneider Electric Sun Chemical Ltd. Unisource Canada Inc. Videojet Technologies Canada WeighPack Systems Inc. WestJet Airlines

PAGE 7 22 4 27 2 18 6 25 7 30 8 9 9 8 26 11 10 32 13 7 35 8 29 21 14 23 3 36 31

PACKAGING COMFORTS FOR SEASONAL BLUES

H

aving finally reached the end of another annual f lu-and-cold season, I have had more opportunities than I really wanted to evaluate the packaging of some life-saving items that got me through it all in one piece.

A few years ago I got hooked on the President’s Choice Memories of South Africa Rooibos Citrus Spice Loose Leaf Herbal Tea, which came in an irresistible package adorned with a beautiful green savannah scene labeled onto a brushed aluminum tin.

Only after bringing it home and opening it did I truly appreciate the natural beauty of the looseleaf tea—an aromatic blend of red rooibos, dried orange peels and various assorted dried f lowers.

Unfortunately, I was sorely disappointed on my recent return to the same store when I could no longer find that same package. Instead, all I could find was a new President’s Choice Rooibos Red Tea offering, but the plain photo on the white paperbox is just plain to the point of being off-putting—looking a pile of red mulch with no resemblance to the beautiful tea mix I remembered from the first time around.

While simplicity can be an attractive trait when used wisely, the raw ingredient depicted on this package just doesn’t look inspiring at all: a picture of a steaming white mug of glowing red tea would have been far more appealing.

There isn’t much inspiration inside the box either, as each individual two-gram tea-bag is sealed in a piece of white paper with fairly redundant diagrammatic instructions on how to make both a cup and a pot of tea.

While there’s nothing terribly wrong with it all, the whole experience does come across as being very sterile and clinical—tea as medicine, rather than a treat or indulgence.

Which may well be appropriate when I’m sick, but surely there nothing wrong with trying to aim just a little higher, no?

Prompted to look for an alternative, I was happy to come across the Mighty Leaf Tea Organic African Nectar from the California-based Mighty Leaf Tea Company, whose packaging boasts an inviting photograph of a roughly-hewn wooden spoon filled with a mix of rooibos tea and dried

34 • WWW.CANADIANPACKAGING.COM

f lowers, with a soft-focus background image of a sliced orange suggesting that it might have the same delightful mix of ingredients as the original President’s Choice Memories of South Africa tea.

This suggestion was further reinforced by the rather rarefied product description on the box, comprised of fancy turns of phrase such as “handcrafted silken pouches,” no less, “artisan blends” and “f lavors too big for ordinary tea-bags.”

After such a hard sell, it was a real treat not to be disappointed by the product itself, which smells absolutely heavenly as it steeps, and tastes just as good as it smells.

If there’s any note of disapproval in this corner, it has to do with the fact that each of the 15 silk pouches— prominently described as being ‘biodegradable”— is wrapped in an outer layer of cellophane, which seems to negate the whole noble effort of making each discarded tea-bag biodegradable to begin with.

It’s been a while since I’ve had a cold bad enough to prompt me to run out and buy a stick of Halls Lozenges, but when the need struck, I wanted to get the strongest off-the-shelf remedy possible.

This was not easy, alas, due to the somewhat disorienting packaging.

With all the many varieties of Halls Lozenges screaming for attention—including such mouthfuls as Triple Soothing Action and Icy Syrup Centres with Advanced Vapour Action—how is a person to know which one is the right choice at a given time?

While the f lashy faux metal foil packaging design is undoubtedly catchy, it serves more to distract the shopper from being able to discern the really important medicinal information about the product, which I suppose could have been achieved with some sort of a numeric scale ranking the increasing strength of a given formulation, essentially leaving one with the unenviable task of comparing apples to oranges.

While the brand does deserve credit for demystifying some of this ambiguity on a very helpful website (www.gethalls.com/ choose_your_halls.aspx) that actually addresses the common symptoms—an irritating cough, a scratchy throat, etc.—a better effort could have been made to convey some of this basic information either on the package itself or at the POP (point-of-purchase) product displays.

In contrast, the Cold-Fx brand of all-natural cold remedies from Afexa Life Sciences Inc. has no problem with the notion that the less thinking that an under-the-weather consumer needs to do in a sick state, the better—clearly outlining a fairly complex dosing regimen right on the back of the package, specifying the decreasing number of capsules to be taken every passing day of treatment.

It would be quite easy to get confused between the number of the day, the number of capsules, and the number of times to take them if the only consumer guidance was restricted to reading the fine print, but the brand-owner has cleverly grouped all that information by conveniently labeling each dose in the blister-pack as Day 1, Day 2 or Day 3—leaving no excuses for not taking just the right amount of medicine each and every time.

For all the new cold- and f lu-busting tools enabled by modern medicine and food science, it is reassuring to know that some time-honored and tested home-made comfort remedies—like the good old chicken soup—are still as relevant today as they have ever been.

Having weaned myself off using soup stock packaged in metal cans—getting somewhat spooked by the prospect of Bisphenol A leaching from can linings—I came across some great chicken stocks packaged in Tetra Pak boxes and other similar types of paperboard cartons.

Unfortunately, the weight of these cartons quickly adds up when you’re hauling you groceries home on foot, while making chicken soup from the lightweight powdered stock just doesn’t deliver the real authentic taste I crave in my soup bowl.

So I was naturally delighted to have come across the new packaging format for the Knorr Homestyle Stock brand of concentrated stock from Unilever Canada—served up in tidy little four-packs of liquid stock concentrate packaged in lightweight, 33-gram plastic bowls that closely resemble the dipping sauce containers you find at many fastfood outlets these days.

My only complaint is that each bowl contains enough concentrate to make three full cups of stock, which is often more than I require, but if that means making bigger batches of soup, and ending up healthier for it, so be it!

Julie Saunders is a freelance writer living in Toronto.

CANADIAN PACKAGING • MARCH 2011

Photos by Stewart Thomas

CHECKOUT JULIE SAUNDERS

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