Canadian Packaging March 2022

CPMA Produce Packaging ROUNDTABLE 2022 Page 20

Packaging for Freshness Page 31 SERVING CANADA’S PACKAGING COMMUNITY SINCE 1947

CANADIANPACKAGING.COM MARCH 2022 / $10.00

VINE AND DINE

Ontario greenhouse operator a picture of model organic growth rooted in proactive capital investment and stellar packaging execution Story on Page 25

THE X FACTOR Offsite X-Ray inspection service saving food from landfill Page 15

DAN BRANSON, SENIOR DIRECTOR OF BUSINESS AND PRODUCT DEVELOPMENT, MUCCI FARMS.

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Accumulation Horizontal motion conveying Incline, belt and bucket conveyors Filling and multihead weighing Bagmaking and casepacking Checkweighing and seal checking Foreign object and defect inspection Controls and information systems

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We are successful when you are successful. That’s why we apply creativity, engineering excellence, and determined perseverance to every project to help our customers get the performance their business demands—whether measured by flavor, efficiencies, sustainability, improvement, or innovation.

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20 LOOKING BACK. PRESSING FORWARD. ALWAYS INNOVATING.

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March 2022 Vol. 75, No. 2 canadianpackaging.com

COVER STORY

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25 GREENHOUSE EFFECT Canada’s leading greenhouse farming operator investing in leading-edge automation network to overcome serious labor and supply chain challenges.

FEATURES

15 Safe to Reclaim

A new offsite product inspection service allows food manufacturers to save suspected contaminated products from landfill and reclaim the product value.

20 The Plastics Conundrum 15

37

CPMA president Ron Lemaire joins other Canadian fresh produce industry stakeholders in discussion of what the sector must do to remove problematic plastic packaging from its value chain.

31 Meat of the Matter Fast-growing halal meats producer combines authentic recipes and practices with high-speed thermoform packaging machinery to meet growing demand for its unique product offerings.

DEPARTMENTS

COLUMNS

NEWSPACK 6-7 Packaging news round-up.

FROM THE EDITOR 4 George Guidoni Getting back to business a test of resilience.

FIRST GLANCE 8-9 New packaging solutions and technologies.

ECO-PACK NOW 12 All about packaging sustainability.

IMPACT 13 A monthly insight from PAC Packaging Consortium NOTES & QUOTES 53-55 Noteworthy industry briefs.

11 CANNABIS PACKAGING CHECKOUT 56 Rhea Gordon Joe Public speaks out on packaging hits and misses.

ON THE COVER Mucci Farms senior director of business and product development Dan Branson displays innovative packaging formats used for the company’s greenhouse-grown fresh vegetables.

ISSN 1481 9287. Canadian Packaging is published 10 times per year by Annex Business Media. Canada Post Publications Mail Agreement No. 40065710. Return undeliverable Canadian addresses to: Circulation Department, 111 Gordon Baker Rd., Suite 400, Toronto, ON M2H 3R1. No part of the editorial content in this publication may be reprinted without the publisher’s written permission. © 2022 Annex Publishing & Printing Inc. All rights reserved. Opinions expressed in this magazine are not necessarily those of the editor or publisher. No liability is assumed for errors or omissions. All advertising is subject to the publisher’s approval. Such approval does not imply any endorsement of the products or services advertised. Publisher reserves the right to refuse advertising that does not meet the standards of this publication.

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CANADIANPACKAGING.COM

37 By Hook and Cooke Famed Canadian seafood producer making optimal use of advanced vacuumpacking technologies to meet consumer demand for healthier animal protein.

43 Life in the Fast Lanes A dual-lane metal detection system with integrated checkweighing lives up to leading dairy producer’s high product quality and safety standards.

47 Food on the Table A preview of Anuga FoodTec 2002 global food industry showcase.

49 Inspiring Comeback

SIAL Canada back live and in-person in Montreal next month.

March 2022 · CANADIANPACKAGING

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FROM THE EDITOR

Getting back to business of doing business will be big test of our resilience

I

$13.9 BILLION

The dollar value of fresh fruits and vegetables sold in Canada in 2019

f there ever was a genuine collective hope that the world would return to some sort of normality once we finally got out of the COVID-19 lockdowns bringing western economies to their knees, Russia’s brutal invasion of its Slavic neighbor Ukraine last month was a mortal blow to those aspirations.

As a crisis without any silver linings to provide even a hint of optimism, this reckless naked aggression by a madman thrust into position of absolute power is a grim and permanent game-changer.

At times like this, it’s impossible not to feel blessed for the being fortunate enough to live in a country like Canada, despite all the divisive forces and events that conspired to haunt the country over the last two years at a time when the need for unity of common purpose and resolve have never been greater.

But life must go on, and as inconsequential as many daily challenges and grievances may seem against the fatalistic backdrop of vicious open warfare a the heart of Central Europe, many Canadian industries will find it hard to come to full pre-pandemic speed quickly and smoothly enough to avoid the pains and pitfalls of rising inflation and disruptive supply chain bottlenecks worldwide.

As a sector heavily reliant on global trade and commerce to sustain itself, the resilience of the country’s fresh produce industry will undoubtedly be severely tested in coming months, says president of the Canadian Fresh Produce Marketing Association (CPMA) Ron Lemaire.

Over the last two years of COVID-19 pandemic, the $13-billion business has been severely impacted on numerous fronts, according to Lemaire, including aforementioned supply chain disruptions, product availability, border crossing issues, access to foreign labour, erratic weather impacts, employee absenteeism, and, as always, seismic changes in consumer buying habits.

Citing a CPMA survey carried out in October of 2021, Lemaire says that “a staggering majority of fresh produce supply chain participating in the survey (82 per cent) were adversely impacted by the persistent labor shortage, further aggravated by steep rises in wages and COVID-linked absenteeism.

According to Lemaire, this labor shortage—problematic at the best of times—has had a major adverse impact on the companies’ productivity, sales, profitability, access to products/ inventory, and new business development.

“Overall, prior to the Omicron wave, our supply chain saw a labor decline upwards of 26 per cent,” Lemaire laments.

With severe shortages of traditional “flex staf ” to do the heavy lifting in packhouses and distribution centers, many companies were forced to cut down on the production of value-added items requiring further processing—slicing, dicing, mixing, bagging, etc.—and sophisticated packaging capabilities and know-how.

Unfortunately, there is no magic switch for these companies to turn back on to reverse the slide, according to Lemaire.

Moreover, the relentless pressure by the public and regulatory bodies to force fresh produce suppliers to make drastic cuts in the use of plastic packaging is further pushing the industry’s backs against the wall, Lemaire warns, undermining the industry’s competitiveness it has worked so hard to build up in the last 20 years or so.

While the industry has a moral duty to help stem the tide of global warming and climate change, Lemaire says its biggest critics are often barking up the wrong tree.

“Packaging plays a fundamental role in the fresh fruits and vegetable supply chain,” Lemaire sates, “as it allows for efficiencies in packing, shipping and merchandising.

“Companies looking at their packaging development need to understand the variety of paths and destinations their products will travel, and to consider the buyer requirements and the public trust associated to the packaging, price, and product quality and freshness,” Lemaire proclaims.

“When functioning within a commodity-based trading environment, pennies mean everything, and change across an entire sector is essential when addressing the challenges of competitiveness, sustainability and public trust.” Ready or not, those challenges will test the industry’s resilience to the max soon, with no quarter given or taken.

MARCH 2022 | VOLUME 75, NO. 2 Reader Service Print and digital subscription inquires or changes, please contact Anita Madden, Audience Development Manager Tel: (416) 510-5183 Fax: (416) 510-6875 Email: amadden@annexbusinessmedia.com Mail: 111 Gordon Baker Rd., Suite 400, Toronto, ON M2H 3R1 Senior Publisher Stephen Dean | (416) 510-5198 SDean@canadianpackaging.com Editor George Guidoni | (416) 510-5227 GGuidoni@canadianpackaging.com Account Coordinator Barb Comer | (888) 599-2228 ext 210 bcomer@annexbusinessmedia.com Media Designer Brooke Shaw | (519) 428-3471 bshaw@annexbusinessmedia.com COO Scott Jamieson SJamieson@annexbusinessmedia.com Annex Business Media 111 Gordon Baker Rd., Suite 400, Toronto, ON M2H 3R1; Tel: 416-442-5600.

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NEWSPACK

Kellogg cereal brand roars in the New Year with celebratory boxes

It may be just a happy coincidence, but the arrival of the Lunar Year New Year last month marking the Year of the Tiger provided venerable cereal producer Kellogg Canada with a perfect occasion to celebrate the 70th birthday of the beloved Kellogg’s Frosted Flakes brand mascot Tony the Tiger with the launch of limited-edition 425-gram cereal boxes featuring traditional celebratory designs in vibrant red and gold colors.

Created by packaging design experts at

Mississauga, Ont.-based SGK Inc., the new packaging features New Year greetings in traditional Chinese— along with English and French— with Tony appearing on the back panel holding a customary bright red gift envelope, known as hóngbāo, to symbolize good wishes and luck for the year ahead.

In the same spirit of celebration, Tony the Tiger’s envelope includes a QR (quick response) code for consumers to download a celebratory Frosted Flakes coupon.

“The creation of this special-edition box of Frosted Flakes cereal exemplifies our commitment to celebrating the cultural traditions of our diverse employees and consumers across

Canada,” says Christine Jakovcic, vice-president of marketing and nutrition at Kellogg Canada Inc. in Mississauga.

“In fact, we engaged our ED&I (Equality, Diversion and Inclusion) employee resource group to help design this limited-edition pack commemorating the Lunar New Year and Tony’s birthday.

“On behalf of Kellogg Canada, I extend warm wishes to all those celebrating the Year of the Tiger and wish everyone great happiness and prosperity in the year ahead.”

In Chinese culture, the tiger is a symbol of strength, bravery, luck and a guardian of the home.

Alongside these symbols and characteristics, the Year of the Tiger’s lucky colors, blue and orange, are prominently featured on the limited-edition pack, with the blue representing healing, trust and a long life, paired with Tony’s signature orange that represents wealth and fortune.

Greenhouse operator starts delivering fresh strawberries in the dead of winter

At this time of the year, the bulk of fresh strawberries sold in Canadian grocery stores are typically imported from California and Florida.

Starting this month, however, Canadian consumers have an option to make a local choice with the greenhouse-grown strawberries cultivated year-round

by Ever Tru Farms in Kingsville, Ont. Harvested in a controlled environment under optimal growing conditions—with no pesticides or GMO ingredients—the Forever Delicious brand strawberries are a product of a sustainable hydroponic growing process that is claimed to yield a better and more consistent locally-grown product.

Headed by 30-year-old Paul Mastronardi, son of Red Sun Farms co-owner and managing partner Jamie Mastonardi, the Ever Tru Farms’ dynamic leadership team—also consisting of Guido van het Hof, president of Great Northern Hydroponics, and Jim DiMenna, president of Red Sun Farms—has decades of combined experience in the greenhouse and hydroponic growing industries.

“We are one team, with one focus: to deliver consistently delicious strawberries, every time,” says Paul Mastonardi. “We are confident in our strategy, but more importantly, our process.”

According to Mastonardi, the Ever Tru team spent six years refining the growing process and creating the perfect formula, ensuring they were ready to hit the ground running with a superior product.

“From propagation to distribution, and every stage in between, having the entire operation under one team allows for complete control of the growing process, ensuring that only the best strawberries are being produced and brought to market,” Mastonardi states.

“We are moving into the strawberry category as a united front,” adds van het Hof. “Through reconstructing and adapting the approach that brought us so much success with other produce, we have developed a growing strategy that achieves unparalleled taste and consistency.”

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CANADIANPACKAGING · March 2022

New Coca-Cola drink reaching for the stars

While casual space travel is still very much just a dream for vast majority of the world’s population, recent space outings by celebrity corporate titans and other famous luminaries appear to have inspired soft-drink giant Coca-Cola to its own flight of fancy with last month’s limited-time lunch of the new Coca-Cola Starlight drink across Canada.

Available for purchase in individual 20-ounce bottles and 10-packs of 7.5-ounce miniature cans— both in Original Taste and Zero Sugar options—the new drink has a slightly redish hue inspired by the light of the stars, according to the company.

“Inspired by space, Starlight was created with the vision that, in a world of infinite possibilities,

somewhere in our universe, another kind of Coca-Cola, another way of connecting with each other might exist,” according to Coca-Cola Canada.

“It aims to bring space to life through a simple sip, capturing some of the mystery and essence of what we love about what lies beyond our atmosphere.”

Produced and packaged at Coca-Cola Bottling Ltd. plants in Brampton, Ont., and Calgary, Coca-Cola Starlight features stunning labeling and graphic artwork developed by the U.K.based creative agency For People, using bursts of stardust imagery to bring to mind stargazing around a campfire, according to Coke, while also capturing the feeling of a cold journey to space.

Micro greens producer tries greener packaging

Making good things better comes naturally to the folks at Guelph, Ont.-based GoodLeaf Farms, which has just switched its original APET (amorphous polyethylene terephthalate) plastic clamshell packaging to the more sustainable BioPET clamshells produced by

the Vancouver-based Good Natured Products.

Similar in look and feel to the APET plastic of its original packaging, the recyclable BioPET clamshells contain 33-percent PCR (post-consumer recycled) plastic and 20-per-cent plant-based (sugar can) material, without any harmful BPAs or phthalates.

“Sustainability is an important part of our business at GoodLeaf,” says GoodLeaf Farms account manager Jacquie Needham.

“We strive to manage our indoor vertical farms to have a minimal impact on the environment.

“Moving to more sustainable packaging is another step in that journey,” says Needham, adding the new packaging has already been adopted for several of the company’s branded mixes of microgreens and baby greens, including GoodLeaf

Spicy Mustard Medley, Pea Shoots, Micro Asian Blend, Micro Arugula, Micro Radish, Micro Broccoli, Ontario Arugula, Ontario Baby Spinach and Ontario Spring Mix. As Needham explains, GoodLeaf’s indoor vertical farms have a favorable carbon footprint compared to traditional field farming— using 95 per cent less water than traditional field farming and cleaning and recirculating whatever water it does use.

Moreover, there are no pesticides, herbicides or fungicides used in GoodLeaf’s controlled-environment farms—meaning there is no hazardous runoff—while the peat used as a growing medium is also recycled for reuse in various landscaping applications.

Using innovative technology and leveraging multi-level vertical farming, GoodLeaf has created a controlled and efficient indoor farm model that can grow fresh produce anywhere in the world, 365 days a year, according to the company.

The system combines innovations in LED lighting with leading-edge hydroponic techniques to produce sustainable, safe, pesticide-free, nutrient-dense leafy greens.

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FIRST GLANCE

COLLABORATIVE APPROACH The new six-axis HC10DTP and HC20DTP collaborative robots from Yaskawa Motoman feature hand-guided programming capabilities to allow users to direct teach points without a pendant, and an ISO standard tool flange and electrical connections to facilitate a plug-andplay approach for easy deployment.

Well-suited for a wide variety of collaborative applications including assembly, dispensing, packaging, machine tending, material handling and welding, the HC10DTP and HC20DTP cobots offer four modes of collaborative operation and can easily shift between collaborative speed in PFL mode or full speed in industrial mode—optimizing cycle times based on risk assessment and process requirements. Made of cast aluminum for durability, both robots are IP67-rated and equipped for use in damp or splash-prone environments.

Each model features an easy-to-clean surface, allowing utilization in sanitary environments where wipe or wash is required, with the certified food-grade grease enabling their use in settings where there is a possibility of incidental food contact. The HC10DTP robot has 10-kg payload capacity, 1,379-mm maximum reach, 1,200-mm effective reach and ±0.05 mm repeatability, while the HC20DTP model offers 20 kg-payload capacity, 1,900-mm maximum reach, 1,700-mm effective reach and ±0.05 mm repeatability. With an appropriate-sized riser, the HC20DTP robot is capable of loading or unloading a 40x48-inch pallet, up to 80-inches-tall, without an elevator.

Yaskawa Motoman

ENERGY TO SPARE The new EM530 and EM540 threephase energy analyzers from CARLO

GAVAZZI are compact devices designed for precise and reliable measuring of most relevant instantaneous electrical variables, energy consumption, and harmonic distortion across a broad range of automation applications. Featuring high-speed 100-ms serial data refresh rates— making them ideal for load balancing energy storage or EV charging applications—the new connectors offer exceptionally fast commissioning thanks to an intuitive wizard set-up menu, along with instant notification of wiring errors and suggestions for correcting them.

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ON THE RIGHT TRACK METTLER TOLEDO has extended its track-and-trace capabilities with the release of new T51 and T61 Integrated Mark & Verify systems and software designed for instant code verification in PCE (direct patient care) applications—helping pharmaceutical

manufacturers to fulfill the increasing product safety and compliance requirements with by making it easier to integrate code marking and verification capabilities into their production lines. The new Mark & Verify systems enable the printing and verification of linear barcodes, 2D codes and alphanumeric text, such as those used for accurate identification of individual products (serialization) and those aggregated into containers such as cases or pallets (aggregation). In addition to these reference checks, integrated smart cameras allow for both presence and quality checks— verifying the presence of required labels and information, as well as the quality of labeling—eliminating damaged or ink-smeared labels from the process. According to the company, these capabilities can also assist manufacturers in other industries that face growing requirements for traceability of the products they manufacture: including food-and-beverage, where product quality is critical to consumer health and safety; and clothing, cosmetics and petrochemicals, where significant counterfeiting activity threatens legitimate business success.

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IN INSPECTION SYSTEMS Interceptor Metal Detectors improve stainless steel detection capabilities up to 100%, reducing waste and costly false rejects in challenging applications.

Optimized for inspecting more difficult “wet” products such as meat, dairy and other conductive products, the Interceptor simultaneously analyzes multiple frequencies over a broad spectrum to clearly distinguish the signal generated by the product from any metal contaminants.

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CANADIANPACKAGING.COM

TISSUE ISSUES

capsules, powders and liquid products, enables to accommodate fast and easy torque limits of individual joints—an Designed for changeovers in less than 15 minutes, especially useful feature when working this versatile metal detection system small to can handle round, oval, square and with an optional auto-adjust end-ofwith sensitive components. Moreover, mid-sized rectangular bottles made of plastic or arm tool also available to further the new firmware offers real-time data mid-sized glass from 38-mm to 200-mm in minimize changeover times. With a monitoring capabilities—enabling the companies that compact footprint requiring similar height and from 16-mm to 140-mm in user to receive the real-time status of manufacture a diameter. The versatile system can be floorspace as hand-packing operthe robot for better monitoring and variety of SKUs ations, the new case-packer can be equipped with a metal detector head coordination with other components. within the from a variety of Top Tier vendors like easily integrated into packaging lines Mecademic Inc. away-fromThermo-Scientific, METTLER with other end-of-line equipment. home towel TOLEDO and Loma, including Edson (Div. of ProMach) and tissue multi-simultaneous frequency heads industry, the new 4000TL-Robotic for users handling a wide range of ON FIRM top-load case-packer from Edson product types. Featuring an open FOOTING incorporates a FANUC M-710iC/50 FP frame, removable top and bottom Mecademic Inc. robot to offer optimal flexibility with conveyor chain wear strips, no tablet has released the different end-of-arm tool options for entrapment zones, no exposed wires new firmware efficient handling specific applicaand a sloped top electrical cabinet, version 8.4 for its METAL METTLE tions. Capable of handling a wide this cGMP-compliant system offers Meca500 Designed for high-speed inspection of range of products in a variety of pack quick and easy line clearance and industrial robotic pharmaceutical and nutraceutical patterns—primarily HSC cases up to inspection to help eliminate the arm that enables bottles, the new integrated CMD metal chance of cross-contamination. The 12 picks per minute—the case-packer the miniature detection system from NJM features offers a cost-effective solution for compact CMD metal detection system robot to execute both point-to-point best-in-class bottle handling with contract packers and specialty can be configured as a stand-alone and linear commands during dispensoptional reject and reject verification product makers of rolled tissue, solution or on raised-bed conveyors ing, capping, testing, and any other systems. By integrating an NJM away-from-home facial tissue, hand shared with upstream or downstream application that previously required raised-bed conveyor with a third-party equipment. For package rejection, the towels, folded napkins, diapers, moving Joint 6 beyond the previous metal detector head, the design incontinence products, feminine care CMD can simply stop the line while default limits in Cartesian space. eliminated the need for bottle and other related paper products. The sounding an alarm or it can be Provided free of charge to all current transfers, while delivering superior 4000TL-Robotic system comes with a equipped with an optional reject table Meca500 robot users, the new 10-inch Allen-Bradley color touchor reject conveyor to automatically firmware makes it possible for users to performance to help manufacturers ensure product safety and avoid costly eject ‘bad’ packages from the line. screen HMI terminal for simple redefine the software limits of operator-friendly interface that NJM (Div. of ProMach) individual joints, as well as to lower the product recalls. Ideal for tablets, 22_0354_CN_Pckg_MAR_CN Mod: February 16, 2022 10:12 AM Print: 02/17/22 page 1 v2.5

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CANNABIS PACKAGING

Global cannabis packaging market set for rapid growth ith North America continuing to lead the way in the legalization of cannabis products for both medical and recreational uses, the global market for cannabis packaging is expected to grow at stunning rates of 24.4 per cent annually between 2021 and 2026, according to a new market report from international market research firm Mordor Intelligence.

“The cannabis packaging market is anticipated to witness notable growth in the next few years,” the report states, “owing to the rising demand for medical and recreational cannabis products for consumption.”

The anticipated rise in demand would see the global cannabis packaging market soar from an estimated $229 billion in 2020 to nearly $380 billion four years from now.

“The increasing legalization of cannabis in various countries is likely to drive the future market,” says Mordor, citing rapid legalization of cannabis consumption in the U.S., where 36 out of 50 states now allow patients to use medical cannabis with a proper prescription, and legal consumption of all cannabis products in Canada, where recreational cannabis is quickly evolving onto a multibillion-dollar industry.

As such, the fast-growing market will provide major growth opportunities for many suppliers of packaging materials and components for both medical and recreational uses, the report states.

“The packaging of cannabis is the most crucial process, owing to various regulations imposed by different countries’ governments across the world,” the study points out.

“For instance, medical cannabis is available in various forms, such as flowers or concentrates, extracted in oils, extracts or edibles,” the report notes.

“This medical cannabis packaging is growing, thus boosting various companies to offer holistic solutions to its manufacturers,” says Mordor, while also citing the rising consumption of recreational cannabis amongst the younger population.

“Due to high brand saturation amongst cannabis players, the packaging plays a high role amongst smaller and emerging players to strengthen the brand image,” according to the report.

Unlike many industries where the global COVID-19 pandemic had a highly adverse impact on business, the pandemic-related lockdowns had the opposite effect on cannabis consumption, with many consumers stocking up on cannabis products “in fear

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CANADIANPACKAGING.COM

of scarcity,” the report notes, driving soaring demand for cannabis products.

This rising demand has in turn forced many cannabis products to increase their investment in automation technologies to boost production volumes and increase process efficiencies.

As the report explains: “The focus on sustainability, regulations and branding has heavily impacted the packaging of cannabis and has facilitated the shift from traditional methods, which relied on manual labor for processing and packaging, to more sophisticated methodologies that involve automated machines.

“The incorporation of automation is slowly gaining traction in the cannabis packaging industry as the industry players become aware of the benefits of automating packaging processes,” says Mordor.

“This is envisaged to become more popular with the standardization of the legal landscape of cannabis,” says the report, which provides a comprehensive analysis of the cannabis packaging market classified based on type, packaging materials, and application.The type segment of the cannabis packaging market includes rigid packaging and flexible packaging.

According to the study, plastic packaging has established itself as the preferred packaging option for different cannabis consumption forms like tinctures, flowers, oils, patches, and pills.

“For multiple reasons, plastic is the most common material type utilized for cannabis packaging, involving the strict cannabis packaging regulatory environment and product preservation,” the study explains.

“Firstly, cannabis is a perishable product, and plastic packaging considerably extends

The unfolding legalization of cannabis products in Canada and many parts of the U.S. is driving the demand for cannabis packaging to grow at spectacular rates, with the global market for cannabis packaging estimated to reach nearly $38 billion by 2026.

the shelf-life of perishable products.

“Second, it is significantly challenging to design child-resistant locking mechanisms utilizing sustainable materials,” the report sates.

“Every legal cannabis market needs some form of child-resistant packaging, whether it’s the primary product-touching layer of packaging or the second layer of packaging, such as an exit bag.

“Cannabis-infused extracts, tinctures utilize plastic in the form of containers, droppers and caps.

“When it comes to containers, plastics’ low weight has been a driving factor for plastic containers.

“The containers used for packaging are very small and are sold in 15- to 30-ml sizes, due to which the manufacturers are not able to add regulatory information on the labels.”

To get around that restriction, many producers use carton-based secondary packaging to contain the primary package, often including a pamphlet or insert containing all the relevant product information and disclosure required by government regulators.

“Bottles and closures made of highdensity polyethylene (HDPE), low-density polyethylene (LDPE), polypropylene (PP), and polyethylene terephthalate (PET) have become widely accepted packaging options within the cannabis industry, offering vast selection of products from which to choose,” the report states.

“Additionally, some progressive plastic packaging manufacturers are actively working to provide alternatives to plastics made from fossil fuels, instead using resins produced from renewable resources,” says Mordor,” citing sugar cane-based HDPE Bioresin material as one of a growing number of planet-friendly packaging options.

“Furthermore, the flexible pouches can meet the stringent regulations for packaging cannabis,” says the report.

Because some major plastic packaging suppliers like Amcor have so far abstained from the market due to the uneven landscape of the cannabis market, many Chinese companies have been able to capture the flexible packaging segment of the market due to their low-cost offerings, says the report, which lists KushCo Holdings Inc., JL Clarks Inc., Kaya Packaging, Impak Corporation, Funksac LLC, Dixie Elixirs & Edibles, and Pollen Gear LLC as some of the leading global suppliers of cannabis packaging.

March 2022 · CANADIANPACKAGING

11

ECO-PACK NOW

Paperboard packaging aims to eliminate plastic ring carriers

O

f all the plastic litter polluting our oceans and waterways, the plastic ring carriers used to pack six-packs of beer and other multipack beverage cans have an especially nasty reputation for harming fish and other marine life that ends up trapped or entangled in these circular yokes.

Aiming to alleviate this problem right at the source, leading Mexican brewer Grupo Modelo is investing about US$4 million to phase out its use of plastic rings at its brewery in Quintana Roo, a Mexican state on the Yucatan Peninsula, with new sustainable fiber-based CanCollar Eco packaging developed WestRock Corporation.

Produced in partnership with WestRock by leading Mexican packaging manufacturer Grupo Gondi, the new CanCollar Eco paperboard clips will enable Modelo to eliminate over 100 tonnes of plastic waste per year, while reducing it total package waste by 335 tonnes of packaging annually.

“At Grupo Modelo, we are continuing to evaluate various alternatives for plastic rings in the packaging of beer cans,” says Soqui Calderon, regional director of sustainability for Grupo Mod-

elo in Mexico City. “This is how we discovered CanCollar Eco. “Made from recyclable paperboard, this innovative packaging uses the least amount of material required to hold and to keep our beer cans secure through the supply chain,” Calderon says, adding Modelo is the first company in the Americas to use WestRock’s new packaging.

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As Modelo reports, the new CanCollar Eco are already being used to replace plastic rings on all the six-packs of 355-ml cans of the company’s popular Corona Extra, Montejo and Modelo Especial beer brands sold in Quintana Roo. With the pending arrival of the first highspeed automatic CanCollar Fortuna machine from WestRock later this spring, Model plans to accelerate the packaging switch to CanCollar across all of Mexico, extending the new packaging to the six-packs of Barrilito, Negra Modelo and Victoria brands, a well as the four-packs of 473-ml cans of Victoria, Modelo Especial and Corona.

“At WestRock, we are driving greater sustainability by working with our customers to develop and implement new, eco-friendly packaging solutions,” says Patrick Kivits, president of consumer packaging at WestRock. “The introduction of CanCollar Eco to the Mexican market, in partnership with Grupo Gondi, is an exciting example of this work.”

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CANADIANPACKAGING · March 2022

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FOOD SAFETY

PLAN Automation vice-president and chief operating officer Mat Bedard standing in front of one of several high-performance Eagle X-Ray product inspection systems installed at the company’s newly-opened product reclaim facility in Bolton, Ont.

SAFE TO RECLAIM PLAN Automation opens up new one-of-a-kind reclaim facility for contaminated product inspection to help food manufacturers ease the fears of costly product waste

By George Guidoni, Editor Photos by Naomi Hiltz

CANADIANPACKAGING.COM

T

hanks to the wonders of modern technology, finding the proverbial needle in a haystack is no longer the lost cause it used to be in fast-running food and beverage manufacturing facilities with zero tolerance for product contamination.

For those that can afford it, today’s X-Ray product inspection systems offer a formidable line of defense against a broad range of common contaminants like metal, glass, plastic, calcified bone, stone and other debris generated at various steps of the manufacturing process.

But for many businesses with limited budgets and insufficient floorspace to accommodate permanent installation of fully-integrated inline X-Ray inspection capabilities, X-Ray technology is often

considered to be an unaffordable luxury, at least compared to conventional metal detectors.

Unfortunately, even the best metal detectors will not be able to provide full protection against non-metallic contaminants that find their way inside packaged food products, resulting in costly product recalls and, inevitably, the wasteful disposal of all suspect product to landfill.

While few food manufacturers like to discuss it publicly, the amount of perfectly good food products ending up in landfills on the account of compromised product safety in Canada is staggering, costing the industry tens of millions of dollars in lost sales each year.

To address this inconvenient reality, leading Canadian packaging automation specialists PLAN Automation has launched a new service to provide food March 2022 · CANADIANPACKAGING

15

FOOD SAFETY

companies with off-site third-party X-Ray inspection of products deemed to be at risk of contamination but, for various reasons, can’t be reworked or re-inspected again more thoroughly at the point of origin.

Housed at PLAN Automation’s new 15,000-square-foot facility in Bolton, Ont., the new service offering employs multiple high-performance X-Ray inspection systems—all manufactured by the Tampa, Fla.-based Eagle Product Inspection (EPI)—to inspect loads of finished packaged goods suspected of possible product contamination.

While PLAN Automation has been the exclusive Canadian distributor for EPI product inspection systems for many years, the new off-site inspection service fills a long-standing void in the market for affordable and unobtrusive product inspection services that do not slow down production speed or compromise line efficiencies.

“We use state-of-the-art X-Ray technology to run products through to assure that there’s no contamination inside of the product,” PLAN Automation vice-president Mat Bedard told Canadian Packaging on a recent visit to the Bolton facility, which employs teams of general laborers to unload the shipments of product from customers requiring urgent confirmation of their products’ safety; run those products through an X-Ray system best suited to that product; 16

CANADIANPACKAGING · March 2022

A bird’s-eye view of busy production area of the new 15,000-square-foot Bolton product reclaim facility where food industry customers worried about possible food contamination send their finished product for reliable third-party X-Ray inspection and validation.

and repalletize the inspected/approved products for customer pick-up or delivery.

As Bedard explains, the Bolton facility has the systems in place to carry out the three most common types of inspection— full case, primary package, or unpackaged products such as frozen meat for bone inspection—to cover virtually every possible contamination scenario.

“A few weeks ago a very large bakery company reported losing a stud and a nut inside one of their products during their sanitation and maintenance procedures,” Bedard recalls, “leaving them with over $500,000 worth of product that was potentially contaminated.

“So they contacted us to re-inspect every single case to find that stud and nut and reclaim the remainder of that particular production run.

“We inspected over 12,000 shipper cases and found the only one that was

contaminated,” Bedard says, “saving our client $500,000 in product value.”

While full shipping case inspection is the most cost-efficient way to execute a product reclaim, according to Bedard, some product require much closer handson scrutiny.

“In some other situations we may be looking for very, very small contaminants, such as stainless-steel shavings or lowdensity contaminants like gaskets or O-rings,” Bedard says, which would require X-Ray inspection of all individual primary packages taken out of the case.

“In some situations, where clients needs us to provide the best possible detection, we may need to remove the primary package from the shipper case,” says Bedard, noting that the Eagle X-Ray systems can easily detect stainless-steel and other metal contaminants as small as 0.3-mm in size.

“In addition to financial savings, our service eliminates tremendous amount of waste, which helps our customers succeed with their sustainability programs.”

CANADIANPACKAGING.COM

“Machine wear and tear is normal in processing and packaging automation,” Bedard says, “and from time to time you can get steel shavings inside the product.”

In one such recent case, Plan Automation inspected 12,000 individual product packages to pinpoint and remove five contaminated packages from the whole batch, detecting metallic particles ranging from 0.3-mm to 0.8-mm.

With the value of the inspected product estimated at $25,000, Bedard says the $8,000 the client spent on the Off-Site products reclamation service is viewed as well worth it—saving the client $17,000 in product value, and avoiding the significant costs of sending the product to landfill.”

With the value of the inspected product estimated at $25,000, Bedard says the $8,000 the client spent on the Off-Site Product Reclamation service not only for saving the client $17,000 in product value, but also avoiding the significant costs of sending the product to landfill.

“This is typical for most of our product reclaim projects,” Bedard says.

“Depending on the size of the job, typical savings can range from anywhere A case full of product is put through an Eagle X-Ray inspection system to find and remove small metal objects between $5,000 to $10,000 to well above that may have found their way into the finished packages contained inside the corrugated shipping box. a million dollars.

“In addition to financial savings,”Bedard expands, “our service eliminates a tremendous amount of waste, which helps our customers succeed with their sustainability programs.”

PLAN Automation’s manager of technical services Scott Holmes says the new reclaim program has served over 200 customers in the past year, saving them over $10 million in total product value and diverting about five million pounds of food from landfill.

Says Holmes: “Our reclaim process enables our customers to reduce waste and overall costs by keeping a lot of materials out of landfill, which ultimately translates into lower prices on the storeshelves and a more eco-friendly, sustainable method of operation.”

As Holmes relates, several weeks ago PLAN Automation carried out a multimillion-dollar product reclaim for a large beverage producer who had lost a filling nozzle during a production run.

“We have also executed reclaims for IQF (individually quick-frozen) vegetables, searching for fine wires and other metallic contaminants picked up in the The new 15,000-square-foot facility in Bolton housing PLAN Automation’s new product reclamation service. processing facility,” Holmes recalls, “and CANADIANPACKAGING.COM

March 2022 · CANADIANPACKAGING

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FOOD SAFETY

I recently was involved in a reclaim that was an act of sabotage, whereby some small stones were inserted inside some bakery products.

“We’re currently working on a reclaim with a poultry manufacturer inspecting their incoming [raw] product,” Holmes adds, noting the Bolton facility makes extensive use of Eagle’s new high-end PXT Performance X-Ray system capable of detecting bone fragments as small as 1.0mm embedded in the meat.

“The goal is to reduce the quantity of poultry bone that’s brought into the plant initially,” he explains, “thereby reducing the amount of work that’s involved in processing and raising the overall quality of the end product.”

In some cases, PLAN Automation has been able to identify additional contamination issues that the customer was not even aware of, says Holmes, citing a recent trial run for a potato manufacturer that discovered the presence of small stones being embedded into the raw product.

While PLAN Automation is fully committed to providing its customers with the traditional on-site X-Ray inspection services, complete with a system rental and an accompanying service technician to ensure optimal operation, having the option of off-site inspection has been warmly embraced by the company’s client base.

“Having been offering our on-site reclaim services for over 10 years, our experience told us that this is not always suitable for all our clients,” Holmes explains, “because it consumes their resources and their working space.

“This new off-site service offers them a turnkey solution that allows them to continue their operations unimpeded,” he says, “while we focus on reclaiming and recovering their product for them, completely hands-off.

Our customers can simply ship us their product and we will handle labor and manage the whole reclaim process on their behalf.”

18

CANADIANPACKAGING · March 2022

(Above) A close-up of HMI (human-machine interface) panels of the Eagle X-Ray systems displaying the packaged products being inspected, whereby the contaminant is pinpointed in its exact place on the screen to enable easy removal of the contaminated package.

(Right) A fully inspected product load repalletized and stretchwrapped in preparation for customer pick-up or delivery.

Says Holmes: “The process begins by consultation with clients to determine their specific contamination concerns.

“Based on this information, we’re able to provide a proposal matching the best X-Ray technology for detecting their suspected contaminant in their product,” he continues.

“Once we performed our testing on their product they can make the determination as to whether it’s more suitable for them to run the product at their site or shipped to us for turnkey [off-site] service.”

Notably, PLAN Automation treats all its customers with equal levels of professionalism and respect regardless of their size or marketplace pecking order .

“Our flexibility allows us to work with any size of organization—from the smallest mom-and-pop shops to multinational organizations operating in broad a variety of industries,” he proclaims.

“Between our new 15,000-square-foot facility and our large inventory of rental X-Ray machines, we find ourselves uniquely positioned to offer this one-of-a-kind service to our existing and potential clients.”

Says Holmes: “Every year there are literally millions of tons of packaged food products that are disposed of in landfills over contamination concerns.

“This costs the food industry millions of dollars both in product loss and wasted production time,” he points out.

“By using our reclaimed services, we are able to play a valuable role in our clients’ quality assurance programs by inspecting and validating their production as contaminant-free,” Homes concludes, “allowing them to recover and sell their products, instead of disposing of them.”

SUPPLIERS PLAN Automation

Please see a video of PLAN Automation’s Off-Site Product Reclamation program in action at the company’s product reclaim facility in Bolton, Ont., on Canadian Packaging TV at www.canadianpackaging.com CANADIANPACKAGING.COM

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PRODUCE PACKAGING

THE PLASTICS CONUNDRUM Canadian fresh produce industry insiders weigh in on plastics reduction and substitution in our Produce Packaging 2022 forum

By George Guidoni, Editor

20 CANADIANPACKAGING · March 2022

W

hen Homer Simpson once hilariously toasted alcohol as “The cause of and solution to all of life’s problem,” the beloved cartoon character could well have said the same thing about plastic.

As a game-changing material that completely revolutionized consumer and commercial packaging with enhanced product protection and preservation, plastic packaging may well have been too successful for its own good—today contending with fierce public backlash and regulatory pushback for its allegedly

oversized carbon footprint and other grave environmental failings.

And while plastic packaging producers heave made notable strides in recent years to make their plastic packaging products more recyclable, compostable, thinner and lighter, such progress has largely been dismissed as failed response to addressing plastic marine and landfill pollution with the required urgency and effectiveness.

With growing numbers of consumers in the Western World generally viewing plastic packaging unfavorably or with outright disdain, food producers across many different sectors are increasingly challenged to start taking drastic steps to reduce or eliminate their use of plastic packaging— especially the single-use flexible packaging that typically ends up in landfills or worse.

The thorny issue is an especially sensiCANADIANPACKAGING.COM

tive subject for Ron Lemaire, president of the Canadian Produce Marketing Association (CPMA) and one of five panelists taking part in the Canadian Packaging magazine’s recent Produce Packaging 2022 virtual forum focusing on the future of plastic packaging the fresh produce industry’s value chain.

“The CPMA continues to recognize the need to address unnecessary and problematic plastics,” says Lemaire, whose Ottawa-based industry group is the leading voice for Canada’s $13-billion fresh produce sector, with its 850-plus members accounting for over 90 per cent of all fruits and vegetables sold in Canada.

“While the packaging of fresh produce is an easily observable use of plastic, the volume of plastic used by the fresh produce industry overall represents just 5.1 per cent of plastic packaging and two per cent of all plastic entering the Canadian economy each year,” Lemaire states, pointing out that not all plastics used by the industry are created equal.

“People should recognize that PET (polyethylene terephthalate) is the most commonly used plastic packaging material in the fresh produce industry,” Lemaire says.

“The PET is also the most widely recycled polymer,” he adds, “and PET packaging can be manufactured from 100-percent recycled material.”

Moreover, there have been many detailed LCA (Life-Cycle Assessment) studies published in recent years showing that many types of plastic packaging have a smaller overall carbon footprint than competing materials when accounting for production, transportation, storage and all other stages of the packages’ service life and disposal.

“The carbon discussion is perhaps the most interesting aspect,” says Lemaire.

“More needs to be done to look at the carbon footprint of all packaging before we make decisions that would lead to unintended consequences for our industry, environment, and potentially ‘greenwash’

“Compounding supply chain disruptions will impact fresh produce sector, mainly affecting those who can least afford it.”

- Ron Lemaire our best intentions.”

According to Lemaire, rash regulatory moves designed to curb the use of plastic packaging would greatly undermine an industry that not only has struggled mightily at various stages through the COVID-19 lockdowns, but is now being hampered by rising inflation in the food sector and its across its supplier base.

As Lemaire cautions, “Substantial increases in costs and delays along the supply chain have the potential to threaten our food security and the long-term economic viability of the North American fresh produce sector, while the high perishability of fresh fruits and vegetables further complicates supply chain challenges for our sector.

“Compounding supply chain disruptions will impact the price of fresh produce,” he states. “The industry cannot fully bear these costs, and they will ultimately be passed onto consumers—mainly affecting those who can least afford it.

Dan Branson, director of new product and business development at Kingsville, Ont.-based greenhouse operator Mucci

Farms, says his company has been trying its best to hold its prices in line despite the rising inflation, but there is a limit to what in can do about the final sale prices for its products at retail level.

“The food inflation is a very troubling development,” Branson states. “We have absorbed a lot of rising costs throughout our supply chain in last two years, while trying to maintain our employment levels and to introduce more sustainable packaging.

“Prior to the pandemic, transporting a truckload of fresh produce from California to our facilities used to cost $5,000,” Branson notes, “while today it’s costing us from $12,000 to $14,000 per truckload.

“We try to absorb these costs the best we can without passing them on to consumers, he says, “but it makes it very hard for us to operate a profitable business.”

Says Branson: “The costs of rising inflation is not just a consumer concern: it is something that’s hurting all of us in the fresh produce business.”

Despite those financial pains, Mucci Farms has been pushing forward with

“The costs of rising inflation is not just a consumer concern: it is something that’s hurting all of us in the fresh produce business.”

- Dan Branson CANADIANPACKAGING.COM

March 2022 · CANADIANPACKAGING

21

PRODUCE PACKAGING

“ The biggest hurdle is the fear among manufacurers of trying to do the same thing without success ... the assumption that it will fail like it did previously.”

- Shaun Kargacin proactive company-wide efforts to reduce its use pf plastics—notably by replacing a good portion of its traditional plastic clamshell packaging with top-sealing technology that uses recyclable thin PET film to seal the containers.

According to Branson, the switch has enabled plastics reduction for the converted packaging from 20 to 40 per cent, depending on the product.

Despite that, Branson says that plastic packaging remains a necessary resource for produce vendors to maximize product shelf-life and avoid product waste.

“We really need to change the narrative that all plastics are bad,” Branson states.

“Plastic packaging solves a lot of problems in terms of food safety and shelf-life concerns,” he states, “and it should not be abandoned.

“Moreover, the produce industry accounts for a very small percentage of all the packaging collected for landfill disposal in Canada,” Branson asserts.

Nevertheless, Branson says the industry can still reduce its plastic packaging footprint by accelerating its switch from EPS (expanded polystyrene) foam trays to the more recyclable options like paperboard and molded-fiber containers; include more PCR (post-consumer recycled) content for its existing plastic containers;

and move aways from multilayer laminates to monolayer film structures.

Above all, Branson says the Canadian industry needs a more cohesive strategy for plastic reduction across all of its stakeholder groups—from packaging suppliers to waste disposal operators.

“We need a better infrastructure in Canada to support the recycling of a majority of waste generated in the sector,” he states, “while building public confidence and trust in our material selection.”

As Branson relates, the company makes extensive use of the Golden Design Rules material selection guide, developed by The Consumer Goods Forum industry group, to shape its plastic reduction strategies.

In addition, the company is keeping a close eye on the developments in Europe, where France has recently banned the use of single-use plastic wrapping for about 30 different varieties of fresh fruits and vegetable since the start of the year, with Spain promising to introduce similar measures next year.

“At the end of the day, it’s really up to the retail industry and different levels of government to take responsibility for what needs to be done to move the industry on a more sustainable path,” Branson says.

“There are many parts of the world, not

“We need to fund local companies to invest in this technology to ensure that the added costs remain low enough for the produce value chain to absorb.”- Jerry Dzikowski 22 CANADIANPACKAGING · March 2022

just Canada, that do not have an infrastructure or strategy in place to address the plastic waste problem in an optimal way,” he says.

This void is a source of endless frustration for many Canadian plastic packaging suppliers like Canpaco Inc., headquartered in Vaughan, Ont. As a major supplier of plastic shrinkwrap, stretchwrap and bagging materials, Canpaco has made large investments over the years to expand its product offering with more earth-friendly plastic materials— both by boosting their PCR content and with the launch of biodegradable plastic materials compatible with industrial composting processes.

However, the company often finds itself swimming against the tide because its more sustainable alternatives have not been sufficiently embraced and supported by the industry or its retail customers, according to Canpaco’s territory manager for business development Shaun Kargacin.

While Kargacin acknowledges that many earlier attempts by food manufacturers to use more sustainable packaging solutions ended in failure and were costly to implement, the industry has greatly improved the key performance attributes of its earth-friendly materials.

“I think the biggest hurdle is the fear among manufacturers of trying to do the same thing without success,” he sighs.

“There is the assumption that it will fail like it did previously.”

Not easily discouraged, Canpaco continues to bolster its sustainable packaging portfolio, recently launching the new Crystal Poly brand of PE food-wrapping film as a replacement for the traditional PVC food wrappers linked to the release of highly toxic dioxins into the environment.

“For years, retailers, packers and growers have been using PVC, and it works well for doing what they originally intended its use for,” Kargacin explains.

“However, it has proved to be hazardous to the environment, and the negative efCANADIANPACKAGING.COM

fects on human health, due to the plasticizers that have been linked to its usage,” he says.

“Major retailers are taking a stance towards removing this product from their shelves,” he notes, “and that’s where we come in.

“Our 100-percent recyclable film is designed with the environment, and people’s general safety, being the top priorities,” Kargacin asserts.

“There are no phthalates or plasticizers are used in its production, so it is safe for direct food contact.

“The film remains ductile in extreme low temperatures, so works great in blast freezers, it’s microwavable, and there’s no migratory properties for any type of potential food contamination,” Kargacin continues.

“Being made from low-density polyethylene, it’s also naturally tougher and more puncture-resistant,” says Kargacin, “which is another one of a long list of benefits.

“Depending on the product and the ways it is packed, we see many opportunities for it in PVC replacement for products like cucumbers, peppers, corn and mushrooms.”

For Jerry Dzikowski, director of category management for fresh grocery at the Ontario-based grocery chain Giant Tiger, the availability of such eco-friendlier packaging solutions needs to be complemented with an adequate infrastructure to support their recyclability or compostability.

Says Dzikowski: “Sustainability is key pillar in our organization, and we will continue to work with our partners to ensure we move towards our goals in the coming years, which is ultimately less packaging and more sustainable alternatives.

“Regardless of company or sector, we need to align and unify in our decision to change,” he sates.

“The industry is large enough where we can make a global impact to the environment,” he asserts, “if we ensure there is change is at the core of each organization to enable us to drive our costs down

“The consumers of tomorrow will certainly be expecting their packaging to contain very little plastic.”

- Zack Jones together.

“There is an urgent need for new technology and government mandates to drive sustainable change,” Dzikowski says, “but we also need funding mandates on companies to implement such initiatives.

“We need to fund local companies to invest in this technology to ensure that the added costs remain low enough for the produce value chain to absorb.”

Zack Jones, general manager for produce at leading western Canadian grocery chain SaveOn Foods, agrees that closer operation between all value chain partners in the produce sector is key to achieving greater circularity for plastic packaging.

“It is certainly a top-of-mind subject that we talk about quite a bit at SaveOn Foods,” Jones says.

“It is clear that most Canadian consumers want to see us reduce the consumption of plastics in general,” Jones states, “and we are continuing to have discussions with our packaging suppliers to see if there’s a better way to sell strawberries, blueberries and other perishables without plastic bags and clamshells, which is the first big thing that consumer sees right in the produce aisles.”

While Jones says that the company

would like to sell more of its produce in paperboard and/corrugated packaging, he acknowledges that the industry would be in big trouble if all the plastic packaging used in the fresh produce value chain today was to vanish overnight.

“It is just too indispensable at the moment for some products and applications,” he agrees, “but reducing at least some parts of the plastic waste-stream could stimulate the technological innovation needed to address the issue on a large scale.

“The consumers of tomorrow, the next generation, will certainly be expecting their packaging to contain very little plastic or nor plastic at all,” he says,” “and the produce value chain has to address that reality today.

“I think that the retail industry certainly has a position of influence to play an important role,” he says states, “but it’s going to have to be collaborative across all parts of supply chain, as well as the government.

“The consumers are going to demand it,” he concludes, “and it is the industry’s responsibility to give them what they demand, while maintaining the product quality, freshness, shelf-life and convenience that Canadian consumers have grown to accept as a given.”

Register now!

Inscrivez-vous aujourd’hui ! #CPMA2022 convention.cpma.ca CANADIANPACKAGING.COM CPK_CPMA_March22_CSA.indd 1

March 2022 · CANADIANPACKAGING

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2022-02-18 12:45 PM

COVER STORY

Mucc Farms senior director of business and product development Dan Branson keeps on top-sealed packages of the PROVA brand of premium on-thevine tomatoes being readied for shipment at one of the company’s packhouses in Kingsville.

THE GREENHOUSE EFFECT Leading Canadian greenhouse operator doubles up on automation and sustainability to ensure healthy and prosperous future

By George Guidoni, Photos by Ajit Saxena

CANADIANPACKAGING.COM

B

ringing the health and nutrition benefits of fresh vegetables to Canadian consumers around the clock is all part of a good day’s work for more than 2,000 people employed at multiple greenhouse operations across Canada and the U.S. owned by Mucci Farms.

Making its home in southwestern Ontario’s traditional farming heartland on the north shore of Lake Erie in the Leamington/Kingsville region, the Kingsville-headquartered family business is in many ways a textbook example of Canadian newcomers using their Old World knowledge and expert culinary skills to live the great Canadian dream to the fullest.

Started up over 60 years ago by two Italian-born brothers who came to Canada with little more than a burning passion for

growing fresh, flavorful fruits and vegetables, the 2nd generation family-owned company has naturally done many things right over the decades, including packaging, to grow into a fully vertically-integrated fresh produce powerhouse that ranks as the leading greenhouse grower in Canada, and one of the top three in North America.

Today representing over 2,000 acres of tomato, pepper, cucumber, eggplant, lettuce and strawberry greenhouses across North America, the company has supplemented their own production with a comprehensive global network of partner growers. This has allowed Mucci Farms to maintain its broad and expansive product portfolio comprising well over 50 branded retail SKUs (stock-keeping units), which is complemented by a thriving private-label business.

Having joined Mucci Farms several months ago as the senior director of busiMarch 2022 · CANADIANPACKAGING

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COVER STORY

(Above) Tomatoes and cucumbers, both offered in numerous varieties, are two of Mucci Farms’ three top cash crops now packaged with top-sealing PET film supplied by PC Packaging & Design Inc. (Left) Greenhouse cucumbers being gently positioned in the right place on the line by robotic suction grippers to minimize manual handling of produce throughout the process.

(Bottom) A roll of pre-printed top-sealing PET film running through the Proseal tray-sealing machine.

26 CANADIANPACKAGING · March 2022

ness and product development, long-time produce industry professional Dan Branson says he was already a big fan of the company based on his earlier experience as produce purchasing executive with one of Canada’s leading grocers.

“I worked hand-in-hand with Mucci Farms for many years developing a number of programs that we brought into the retail environment,” Branson says, “so I had a pretty good understanding of their business.

“I always loved their vision and the way they drive their business forward,” Branson told the Canadian Packaging magazine in a recent interview.

“The other big thing for me is that they excelled at focusing on being the best in what they do: from growing to packing to servicing their customers’ needs.

“From my experience, both inside the company and from my days on the retail side of the business, their product quality and consistency has always been best-inclass,” Branson extols.

While bell peppers, tomatoes and cucumbers remain the company’s biggest three cash crops, Mucci Farms is always looking for new opportunities to expand its product portfolio, Branson relates, citing recent expansion of the largest indoor strawberry farm in North America, with 72 acres of year-round production.

As Branson explains, greenhouses help companies like Mucci Farms to create the ideal growing environment for fruits and vegetables.

Unlike with traditional growing methods, greenhouse operators are able to provide their crops with the perfect temperature, sunlight and nutrients they require to produce flavorful high-quality product, while also minimizing their environmental footprint by using low-energy supplemental LED and high-pressure sodium lighting to supplement reduced hours of daylight in the winter months.

“Our farms grow fresh produce with CANADIANPACKAGING.COM

kraft paperboard.

As Branson points out, being able to offer such packaging versatility and choice of options is an important component of the (clockwise from company’s broader brand packaging strattop) The fully-automatic egy.

“Branding produce is probably the most Proseal tray-sealchallenging area of retail branding,” says ing machine is Branson, noting that about 70 per cent of operated and the company’s output is shipped under controlled via a their national brand. significantly higher yields than traditional for that product. swing-arm “When you think about something like a “There’s the bulk packaging format, touchscreen HMI farming, and together with our carefully grape tomato, the consumer often does not selected international growing partners, we there’s clamshell packaging, there’s top-seal (human machine know the brand name of the grape tomato are able to provide premium produce year- packaging, including numerous sustainable interface) terminal they’re looking for: they just want a grape options… we always try to implement the positioned at the round,” Branson explains. tomato,” he says.

Being a vertically-integrated producer best packaging practices through all our operator’s eye Nevertheless, Branson says Mucci requires Mucci Farms to operate its net- operations,” says Branson, adding that level.

Farms is deeply committed to establishing work of dedicated crop-specific green- high-quality packaging is a critical core its brands as trusted premium-quality houses and on-site packhouses with clock- competence for a business that is intensely Mucci Farms’ new product offerings retailing across both work precision and efficiency, Branson focused on promoting its own brands in the Linerless Label retail sector. points out. packaging is said to Canada and the U.S. “When a company has its own brand, Comprising a broad variety of different be absolutely “We ship approximately over 15 million there’s a high level of pride and identificacases a year from across our network,” types and varieties of peppers, tomatoes, 100-percent tion when you see it at retail level,” he states, cucumbers and other produce, the com- recyclable.

Branson confides. “so we love branding our product and “We ship several hundred truckloads a pany’s expansive brand portfolio is comworking through the marketing landscape week regardless of whether it’s slow season prised of over three dozen brands, many of Filled corrugated to create household names out of our or peak season,” says Branson, adding the them branded under cleverly thought-out boxes supplied by company also operates its own fleet of wordplay such as Smuccies Sweet Straw- WestRock Corpora- brands.

“There is a real value-added, brand-speciftrucks to ensure on-time delivery for all of berries, drawing on the Mucci family name; tion reach the ic proposition that goes into the process,” Cherto, a play on Cherry-Tomato; end-of-line its customers. says Branson, while also acknowledging the As Branson explains, each greenhouse CuteCumbers snack-sized cucumbers; packaging are for facility operates its own specialized on-site Rustico sweet long peppers; Hot Shots adding a protective importance of the company’s private-label packhouse to package harvested crop into mixed hot peppers, and so on. layer of film to keep customers to the company’s success.

“Our primary interest lies in meeting the For some of its most popular items, the product safe in the appropriate packaging formats for needs of our customers, be they retail buycustomers in the retail, foodservice, and Mucci Farms provides a broad choice of transit. ers or wholesale buyers, and making sure packaging options including fiber trays, private-label market segments. they have the highest-quality and best-tast“Each one of them oprates as a full-ser- flexible pouch bags, PET clamshells, toping produce available.” vice packhouse capable of packaging pro- seal lidding film, as well as new sustainable Says Branson: “Our Number One point duce in whatever format customers want us options such as a new series of Linerless of product differentiation is the passion of to, covering all the packaging requirements Label packages made from 100-percent CANADIANPACKAGING.COM

March 2022 · CANADIANPACKAGING

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COVER STORY

our growers.

“We have the best growers in the business, who pay key attention to what we do and share our standards for excellence,” Branson points out.

“All the things we do at every level of the operation—from growing and harvesting to packaging and shipping—are all about meeting the customer’s need for superior quality, great shelf-life and best-tasting produce, while addressing consumer demand and external pressures of retailers,” Branson asserts.

“The people in our facilities are a critical part of this process,” Branson continues, “because they look at every piece of produce that comes through our doors or into our facilities to make sure that it meets customer specifications and our rigorous quality standards prior to shipping.”

“It’s an intense and extensive process,” he notes, “but it starts with a passionate team striving to keep Mucci Farms at the forefront of Controlled Environment Agriculture industry.

“We are also committed to a robust research and development program that helps us locate and secure unique highflavur varieties across our assortment to bring to market,” Branson adds, “keeping in mind that taste and quality are the primary characteristics we search for.

“So we’re constantly innovating with different varieties to provide best-in-class products throughout our distribution network and value chain, with the focus on customers always being our top priority.”

With many key customers in the retail sector starting to demand more sustainable packaging options from their vendors, Mucci Farms has been very proactive in finding new ways to reduce its packaging footprint—notably by trying to limit its use of plastic packaging materials and to offer sustainable options to its partners.

Most recently, the company has made significant investments in researching innovative packaging solutions to reduce the use of plastic.

The popular Proseal machine allows for an inline application of lidding film to be heat-sealed to produce trays, which has allowed the company to offer an alternative to traditional clamshell packaging.

Additionally, their latest innovation re28 CANADIANPACKAGING · March 2022

placed the plastic lidding film with paper lid, creating a 100-percent recyclable package with the tray made of PET (polyethylene terephthalate) for several products.

“We have basically reduced the use of plastic by 20 to 30 per cent for some of the products that we switched to top-sealing,” says Branson, citing grape and cherry tomatoes, as well as other snack-sized produce, as products that have already gone through this conversion to top-sealing.

“We are always looking for opportunities to add more post-consumer or post-industrial content to our packaging to support the building momentum for the circular loop economic models,” Branson adds.

“Hence we’re always working with our packaging suppliers to create new and innovative solutions to alter existing packaging and/or create new offerings for our retail customers,” says Branson, pointing out that growing product in greenhouses is generally more sustainable than traditional farming because it only uses a fraction of the land and water required for outdoor farming of the same crops.

Moreover, controlled environment farming enables Mucci Farms to dramatically reduce their need for pesticides, for some crops eliminating the need altogether, by relying on its IPM (Integrated Pest Management) program.

This process effectively uses “good bugs,” like lady bugs, to fight “bad bugs.” In addition, the company employs thousands upon thousands of bees to fly around the greenhouses to pollinate plants.

Like many other companies in the fresh produce sector, Mucci Farms was severely tested by the global COVID-19 pandemic, struggling with labor shortages and significant losses of business due to prolonged lockdowns in the hospitality and foodservice industries.

But being a highly automated operation has enabled the company to make it through the worst days of the pandemic crisis in fairly good shape, according to Branson.

“The silver lining for us was that the pressure unleashed by COVID-19 outbreak helped to expose some weak points in our operation that we needed to address,” Branson says.

“When you have the product moving

The Mucci Farms greenhouse network comprises about 2,000 acres of indoor farming in Canada and the U.S. for indoor growing and harvesting a broad variety of fresh fruits and vegetables on yearround basis.

through around the clock it is really hard to highlight some of those problems, but dealing with COVID has provided many opportunities to address a number of inefficiencies and bottlenecks that went unnoticed beforehand,” Branson states.

“Identifying those shortcomings gave us a unique opportunity to address them effectively.”

Among other wider unforeseen challenges, BRanson singles out the increased unpredictability, frequency and severity of extreme weather events hampering crop production in many parts of the continent over the last few years—making greenhouses an especially important element in ensuring food security for fresh produce for millions of North American consumers.

“Unpredictable weather events have had a big impact on field production,” Branson says, “whereas greenhouse production shields us from adverse conditions so that we can supply product to the market consistently.

“There are a lot more consumers looking for good quality fruits and vegetables these days with a renewed focus on health,” he notes, “and its’s a good sign for our industry that we produce products that meet their needs for making better choices related to their health and diets.”

To meet those consumer needs consistently and affordably, Mucci Farms continually pours a lot of investment dollars into automating many of its operations, says Branson, citing recent installation of a fleet of AGVs (automatic guided vehicles) that bring incoming raw product from the shipping doors right to the processing and packaging lines, with their operations often handled by a series of pick-and-place robots with minimal human intervention.

“We’re always at the front end of trying the newest technologies to improve our capabilities to service our customers’ needs, and address industry-wide labour challenges,” says Branson, praising the company’s ownership group and management team for implementing a highly proactive capital investment strategy.

“They have a tremendous vision that puts people front and center,” he says, “and this is reinforced by a corporate culture based on reinvesting in the future of the business.

“When you are investing in a new packaging machine costing anywhere from $300,000 to over a million dollars, you want to invest strategically with a keen eye for the future to give yourself the best chance to realize a return on that investment,” Branson concludes.

“They are always thinking of where the business should be five years from now, 10 years from now, how the industry is changing, and what is driving those changes.”

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PACKAGING FOR FRESHNESS

Solmas Food plant manager Yort Gedikoglu (left) joins company president and director of sales Mehmet Solmaz inside the facility’s on-site retail store.

THE MEAT OF THE MATTER High-performance thermoform packaging machinery enabling hard-working ethnic foods processor to keep up with its growing production volumes

By Andrew Snook Photos by Naomi Hiltz

CANADIANPACKAGING.COM

S

olmaz Food knows what it takes to make quality meat products.

The company’s origin stems from humble beginnings when its founder, Tahsin Solmaz, decided to become a butcher working in downtown Ankara,Turkey, in 1965. After 15 years in the trade, Tahsin Solmaz decided to open his own butcher shop in Istanbul.

After finishing high school, Mehmet Solmaz followed in his father’s footsteps and learned the trade while working alongside his dad, operating two high-traffic butcher shops in downtown Istanbul.

During this time, Mehmet’s passion for producing prepared meat products flourished.

In 2001, the Solmaz family decided to

immigrate to Canada, where Tahsin opened a new butcher shop on Danforth Avenue in Toronto.

Shortly after, Mehmet created a small wholesale meat business to supply local restaurants, astutely identifying a promising opportunity to fill a void in the market for quality halal meat products.

Before long, he and his father began preparing a variety of tasty halal products including chicken, beef doner, shawarma and kebabs—ultimately starting up their own processing facility in Mississauga, Ont., in 2007.

Five years later, Tahsin’s young son, Faik, and his son-in-law, Yurt Gedikoglu, joined the family business—producing traditional Turkish sausage, sujuk and pastirma, as well as doner for restaurants requiring halal-approved ingredients.

The company quickly made its name March 2022 · CANADIANPACKAGING

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PACKAGING FOR FRESHNESS

known for its bestselling traditional sausage product called sujuk, offered in barbecue, mild and hot flavours.

“I can say proudly that we are the biggest sujuk traditional Turkish-style producer in Canada,” says Mehmet Solmaz, who took over as president of Solmaz Food in 2015.

“We are expanding that line with our new products and new brands of sausage in different packs,” Solmaz told Canadian Packaging in a recent interview. “That’s our Number One product by volume.”

The company’s product offerings expanded rapidly over the next few years, evolving from just five different varieties of deli products in at the start to more than 32 CANADIANPACKAGING · March 2022

50 unique products that it sells nowadays.

“Having my brother, my brother-in-law and his brother all play certain roles in the business creates synergies that give us different ideas,” Mehmet explains. “We try and take those ideas at a doable level and bring it into a manufacturing level.”

By 2016, the company required a new facility to continue expanding its operations.

“That year we were in the position to expand our business,” Solmaz recalls.

“The location in Mississauga wasn’t enough, so we moved to our new location at the end of 2016,” he explains.

The move from the modest 4,000-square-foot Mississauga operation to a 20,000-square-foot plant in the westend Toronto suburb of Etobicoke enabled the company to boost its staff to 20 fulltime employees, including family members, working a single daily shift.

“Since we started operating here [in Etobicoke], we’ve expanded the business into different new markets and product groups,” Solmaz relates.

“We have also developed and improved our manufacturing capabilities in many different ways.”

As Solmaz points out, Solmaz Food is currently one of the leading companies for halal-approved meat processed products

A sampling of thermformed and vacuum skin-packs of halal salami slices processed on the fully-automatic high-speed Reiser Variovac Optimus thermoform packaging machine.

in Canada.

“It’s because we bring out a lot of new innovative products that no one had brought out until this time in North America,” he says.

“For example, everyone has pepperoni, but we brought a lot of different products that go onto pizza.

“We tried to convert restaurant-style meats into halal formats—diced sausage, chicken, ham, bacon ...

“When we look at those types of products, we also take this idea into different packing models and different portion cuts to go into the retail segment.”

Notably, the Solmaz family is constantly trying out new products and recipes with the understanding that not everything it makes can be a bestseller.

“Not everything you process can be sellable, but there’s a lot of R&D programs and products we’re running in the plant all the time,” Mehmet says, adding the company currently offers approximately 70 different SKUs (stock-keeping units) for the foodservice and retail sectors.

Due to spiking demand for their products and product varieties, Solmaz Food soon found demand was exceeding the limits they were able to reach potential customers outside Ontario.

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became a federally-licensed meat processing plant.

“Starting from the beginning of 2021, we started to improve and develop the structural base of our plant,” Solmaz recalls.

“We also had to improve our packaging and total look of the products, so that’s when we invested in another rollstock machine and other equipment, including a new smokehouse, a new portion cutter, a new inline metal detector inside the stuffing area, another metal detector on the packaging line, and a date coder.”

According to Solmaz, one of the company’s key investments to enhance its operations was the purchase of a new Reiser Variovac Optimus thermoform packaging system for its packaging lines.

Solmaz says he already familiar with the Reiser brand, having had purchased a Vemag Robot500 machine years ago for producing its innovative sausages.

“About five years ago, he wanted to produce a new skinless sausage product called kafta,” says Jeff Kennedy, sales representative for Reiser (Canada) Ltd in Burlington, Ont. “We sold him a machine that would divide that and make those shapes for him.

“It was a Vemag Robot500, with a special attachment that we put on it for him,”Kennedy recalls. “The relationship started then.

“We started talking to him about thermoforming about three years ago,” Kennedy continues. “He had bought a previous machine from Italy, where unfortunately the parts weren’t available and the service he needed wasn’t available.

“It just wasn’t able to do what it was supposed to do, which was to make MAP (modified atmosphere packaging) packages.”

The purchase of the Reiser Variovac Optimus thermoformer has been a great experience for Mehmet and Solmaz Food to date.

“It’s perfect: I wish I made this decision five years ago when I purchased my second 34 CANADIANPACKAGING · March 2022

(From left) Slices of halal salami being placed into the film-lined cavities of the Variovac Optimus thermoform packaging machine; the high-performance Busch vacuum pump incorporated into the Variovac Optimus machine design; finished packages being passed through the Fortress metal detection system to ensure optimal product quality and safety of the met inside the packages.

rollstock machine, but at that time it wasn’t available in the market,” he says.

“The things I like about this equipment are that it’s very simple and very easy to use— it’s not a complicated machine.

“It’s easy to clean and easy to maintain,” says Solmaz, adding he like the fact that the doesn’t carry a lot of complicated attachments or complex components that make difficult to set up.

“It’s perfect for employees to use, and as an owner it brings a peace of mind knowing your employees aren’t dealing with complicated equipment that requires added responsibilities,” he says.

Solmaz says that one of the top features on the Reiser Variovac Optimus thermoformer is the high-performance Busch pump incorporated into its design.

“We use Busch pumps for all other machines,” he states. “We have been getting service from them over 10 years, and we know we can rely on the service and parts availability all the time.

“Busch carries great units and systems that you can depend on 100 per cent.”

Another one of the key features of the Reiser Variovac Optimus thermoformer is

its proprietary Rapid Air Forming capabilities.

“We use compressed air to form the pocket,” Kennedy explains. “ This allows us not only to run at high speeds, but also to have the ability to run thinner forming films.”

The machine’s simple solid stainless-steel frame design offers years of reliable service, Kennedy points out, while the washdown design ensures compliance with the highest hygiene standards.

Among other notable features, the Variovac Optimus thermoformer is built with an intuitive operating system with a seven-inch touchscreen display, along with the ability to program and save up to 40 individualized machine recipes, as well as multiple language options.

“The performance of the machine is double what we had before: it is very fast,” says Solmaz. “For certain products, we have doubled the production output.”

Switching to the Variovac Optimus thermoformer has also produced significant time savings, according to Solmaz.

“The old machine needs about 20 to 25 minutes to set up, whereas the Variovac CANADIANPACKAGING.COM

takes about 10 minutes to be ready to go, as long as you have the films ready in place.”

Solmaz says the company is planning to introduce pre-printed films to use on the new machine in coming months by adding special reading sensors—eliminating the time-consuming manual labeling tasks.

Going forward, the company is also planning on doing significant packaging redesigns, he adds.

“We have a lot of different products, so we’re using local printing houses for printing the labels that go on to the packages.

“We’ve reached a level where we have very big volumes to produce, so we decided to take our rollstock products to a pre-printed film version,” Solmaz says, adding the new thermoforming machine will give Solmaz Food the capacity it needs to continue to grow in the future.

“It will be really helpful to us in 2022,” he says. “It will fulfill all our growing and expansion we want to do this year.

“Within a few months, it will be our big player,” Solmaz relates.

“We’re currently doing between 30,000 to 35,000 kilograms of finished product a month on the processing line,” he says, “while at the moment, the machine is only taking 10,000 kilos of it.

“For 2022, we are planning to push production to 55,000 kilograms a month,” Solmaz confides, “with 50 per cent of it done on our new Variovac.

“Moreover, all new products will also be on theVariovac,” he adds. “It’s not finalized yet, but we have some new products in the works, and we’re already adding some new dies on this machine.”

In closing, Solmaz says he chooses to work with Reiser because of their technical expertise and strong customer service.

“That’s one of the reasons I chose Reiser,” he states. “Knowing we have to deal with many other issues in the market, it’s helpful to have skilled people who know those machines to address any technical problems.

“Reiser is only one phone call away.They CANADIANPACKAGING.COM

(From left) Operator-friendly control panes of the Stealth metal detection system supplied by the Toronto-based company Fortress Technology.

The Handtmann VF 612 meat stuffer in the processing area of the Solmaz Food plant provides exceptionally precise portioning capabilities for efficient production of sausages and other similar meat products.

show up the same day, or next day at the latest, at my plant and solve my issues.

“They’re fully stocked with parts and are always ready to give us full service with no excuses.”

As Solmaz relates, the COVID-19 pandemic forced the company to pivot quickly in how it served the various markets for its meat products.

“Before COVID, I would say 65 per cent of our business was in foodservice and 35 per cent was retail.

“When COVID hit, we lost foodservice.

For the first six months it just wasn’t there, and it affected us big-time,” Solmaz says.

“It didn’t pick up right away, but over the next two to three months we improved the retail business a lot, while putting a lot of new products out.

“All those products were old recipes we’ve been holding onto in the shop, but became a reality due to COVID. “The business then picked up in the middle of COVID lockdowns, with foodservice and retail balancing themselves out.”

Currently, foodservice comprises about 35 per cent of the business, Solmaz says, with retail accounting for the rest.

“But moving forward, because we have some plans and expectations on the way the market is going, we feel it will eventually be balanced fifty-fifty,” Mehmet says.

“The federal license is a bonus for us, which will bring back our foodservice customer, while also allowing us to sell into other provinces.”

Mehmet says the biggest challenge of operating in the pandemic was navigating all of the restrictions.

“We have the machinery capable to produce everything, but because of the COVID restrictions for processing and places we deliver, we have to follow the

protocols.

“That created delays in production at our facility,” Solmaz relates. “Where we once had 10 people work in the same area, we’d have to bring it down to five; where there were five people, we would bring it down to three.

“We managed it very well in terms of employee safety,” he says, “but there were a lot of delays in bringing products on time to customers.”

The ensuing supply chain disruptions were also a serious challenge, Solmaz adds.

“Supply chain issues started showing up after about three months,” he says, “but we managed all our purchasing at the beginning of 2020 very well by planning and ordering ahead of time, so we felt the effects at only about 15 to 20 per cent.

“We were lucky without knowing it when we did the last of our purchasing agreements in the beginning of 2020 … we were blessed,” he adds.

While Mehmet acknowledges the presence of other capable competitors in the market for halal meats, he says the market still offers plenty of room for growth for all newcomers.

“We are in a very niche market still in the early stage of developing itself, with many people who specifically want to buy halal products to accommodate their changing cultural consumption habits,” he says.

“With new products always available, it is very much a growing market.

“On the other hand, it is it is competitive because there are a few big players,” he concludes, “while the growing number of small to medium processors are continuing to add to competition, which is great for everyone in the business.”

SUPPLIERS Reiser (Canada) Ltd.

Please see a video of the Reiser Variovac Optimus thermoform packaging system in action at the Solmaz Food plant in Toronto on Canadian Packaging TV at www.canadianpackaging.com March 2022 · CANADIANPACKAGING

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True North Seafood director of processing management Letsie Blackmore holding up a pack of vacuum-sealed salmon burgers produce on Harpak-ULMA’s high-performance vacuum-packing equipment.

BY HOOK AND COOKE Leading seafood processor leverages high-performance packaging technologies to ride the healthy eating wave

By Andrew Snook Photos courtesy of Cooke Inc.

CANADIANPACKAGING.COM

T

he Cooke family of companies is a global leader in the seafood industry that started with humble roots nearly 40 years ago.

The company was established in 1985 as Cooke Aquaculture under the Kelly Cove Salmon brand by Gifford, Michael and Glenn Cooke. Back then, it was comprised of a single marine cage site containing 5,000 salmon in Kelly Cove, N.B..

But over the years the company expanded aggressively, acquiring small and large hatcheries and fish farms around the globe, as well as various seafood producers.

Fast-forward to present day and the Cooke family of companies comprises a vast network of global aquaculture businesses.

This includes its wholly owned subsidiaries Cooke Aquaculture Inc. and Kelly Cove Salmon Ltd., as well as seafood and wild fishery divisions such as Cooke Seafood USA, Inc., Wanchese Fish Company, Inc., Omega Protein Corporation, Cooke Uruguay S.A. and Seajoy Seafood Corporation, one of the largest premium shrimp farms in Latin America.

All in all, the company today employs a loyal workforce of approximately 10,000 people with operations in Canada, the U.S., Scotland, France, Spain, the NetherMarch 2022 · CANADIANPACKAGING

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PACKAGING FOR FRESHNESS

Perfectly portioned chunks of Atlantic salmon fillet (top) inserted into the cavities of the Harpak-ULMA thermoforming machine at the True North Seafood production facility in New Brunswick.

lands, Chile, Uruguay, Argentina, Honduras, Nicaragua and Japan.

The Cooke family of companies ships one billion pounds of sustainable products annually.

Wild species like wild salmon, whitefish and shellfish account for about 30 per cent of its annual catch. The remainder is supplied by farmed species such as Atlantic salmon, steelhead trout, white Pacific shrimp, sea bass and sea bream.

Popular with Canadian fish and seafood lovers from coast to coast, the company’s premium brand True North Seafood remains its signature product offering, with salmon being the top-selling product.

“Our Atlantic Salmon is sold under the True North Seafood brand and processed in New Brunswick into fresh, frozen and value-added formats such as whole fish, fillets, portions, skewers and seasoned portions—all depending on customer needs,” says s Jill Cronk, vice-president of marketing for True North Seafood.

“Consumers can purchase our Atlantic salmon at the fresh counter in many major retailers across Canada,” Cronk told Canadian Packaging recently. “We are the only North American salmon producer with fully integrated four-star BAP certification.

“We’re proud of the fact that we don’t take shortcuts,” Cronk states, “and we’re confident our customers can always taste the difference.”

Over the past decade, sweeping changes and new trends in the consumer markets have had a major impact on how the company does its business.

According to Cronk, one of the key trends in consumer consumption behaviors is an increased demand for value-added product offerings.

“There is a need for convenient, readyto-cook seafood that makes cooking at home easier and less intimidating for consumers.

“Our value-add products such as seasoned portions and salmon burgers have helped address this need,” Cronk says, citing rapid growth in e-commerce as another major market trend driving the industry’s packaging strategies.

“With more and more consumers shopping online, there was a need to increase 38 CANADIANPACKAGING · March 2022

the accessibility of our seafood products, while maintaining product integrity throughout transit using durable, quality packaging,” Cronk says.

“Our True North Seafood online store launched in 2020 in response to the shift in consumer shopping behaviors.”

As Cronk explains, having quality packaging plays a significant role when selling fresh Atlantic salmon, through any channel.

“High-performing packaging that maintains product integrity throughout transportation is important,” Cronk says.

“As part of our solution to create a sustainable future we are constantly moving towards placing more products in recyclable packaging materials,” says Cooke,

adding the company is currently testing new technology to enable installation of fully-automated in-house packaging lines.

As Cooke expanded its seafood operations and offerings over the years, the demand for packaging equipment for its new frozen line of fillets produced at the company’s 41,000-square-foot facility in New Brunswick increased dramatically.

“In 2021 we cut 32 million pounds of salmon on our fillet lines at that facility,” says Letsie Blackmore, True North’s director of processing management.

“We sell skin-on fillet, skinless fillets, portions and steaks: we do all those processes there.”

To keep up with growing volumes and demand, the company is currently in the CANADIANPACKAGING.COM

(From top) The Harpak-ULMA thermoform packaging machine is controlled via the swing-arm Allen-Bradley series PanelView Plus HMI (human-machine interface) terminal manufactured by Rockwell Automation.

Exiting thermoformed packages of Atlantic salmon fillets bing places onto the rack of a mobile rack cart prior to being taken into the blast freezer.

process of building a new 57,000-squarefoot facility dedicated to processing fillets, Blackmore relates.

“When we move into the new facility, it will enable us to double production to cut between 60 to 65 million pounds,” says Blackmore.

Such big production volumes naturally require superior packaging line performance and efficiencies as core competencies, and True North Seafood facilities have been able to achieve many of its packaging goals by working with packaging line experts at Harpak-ULMA Packaging LLC of Taunton, Ma. Dave Favret, product manager, TFS, at Harpak-ULMA Packaging, says the company has been a packaging partner for CANADIANPACKAGING.COM

Cooke’s operations for the past six years.

“We started off with selling them an entry-level medium-range TFS 300 thermoforming machine designed to run a number of different types of products— flexible vacuum-packs, MAP packaging, and the capability to do vacuum skin-packs with one machine,” he says.

In addition to the TFS 300, Harpak-ULMA Packaging also sold Cooke a Mondini tray-sealing machine for making vacuum skin-pack packs in trays.

“These were two machine purchases for doing different applications,” Favret says.

As Cooke continued to grow, it found itself in need of more vacuum skin-pack for their fresh fish products,turning to Harpak-ULMA to purchase a TFS 407

standard skin thermoformer, which was e dedicated to vacuum skin-pack of fresh salmon.

In 2020, Cooke Aquaculture decided it needed another vacuum-pack machine for frozen fish, proceeding to purchase a TFS 600 hygienic-design thermoformer.

“They needed one pretty quickly and we happened to have one in our inventory,” Favret recalls. “It’s a large machine with multiple pack format for vacuum-pack, flexible film type applications.

“It’s a big tool,” Favret says. “This machine has a 600-mm advance so it can do large format.”

More recently, Cooke needed to boost its capacity at a different facility, but it felt it did not require a machine as large as the TFS 600 system.

“We started with renting them a TFS 300 thermoformer. Then they needed more capacity and rented another TFS 300,” Favret says.

“With the relationship we have, and since we had the machines available, we took a chance that they’d end up buying the machines—one new machine and one slightly used machine.

“They ended up buying them both for frozen fish packaging in different facilities.”

Favret says versatility is a key feature for his company’s TFS 300 thermoforming machines.

“It offers the flexibility to change to different formats; its is easy to change from one format package size to another; and they are always available in our inventory,” Favret says.

“We have different types of machines for the seafood market that addresses their needs,” Favret relates.

“Our machines are well-designed and well-built for longevity,” he adds, “and they are easy to operate.”

Favret says the operator can change from one format pack size to another without using any hand tools.

For her part, Blackmore says the addition of the Harpak-ULMA Packaging machines has been a huge boost to productivity at their processing facilities.

“The new blast freezer and our ULMA machines went hand-in-hand,” she says.

“It was a game-changer for us because we had started to get into a little bit of freezing, March 2022 · CANADIANPACKAGING

39

PACKAGING FOR FRESHNESS

Constructed of stainless steel, the model TFS 300 thermoform packaging machine features a hygienic design to make it compatible with all the required washdown and sanitation procedures to ensure optimal product safety.

and we didn’t have the equipment to do it properly.

“The addition of the TFS 600 and TFS 300 and blast freezer made that process so much more efficient,” she relates, “and it really improved the ability for extending the shelf-life of our products going into the blast freezer.”

“The installation of the filleting machines and trimming machines was another big improvement,” Blackmore says.

“In any production environment, yield is one of your most important KPIs (key performance indicators),” Blackmore states. “ These machines helped us maintain or improve our volumes, while ensuring TFS 407 standard skin thermoformer will achieve the best yields possible all day long.”

The TFS 300 thermoforming machine is constructed with stainless steel and features an IPC control system, operational diagnostics, displayed parameters and error messages, CE approval, and a hygienic IP-65 design.

Requiring minimal maintenance, the unit offers programmable configurations, programmable advance speed, and a toolless detachable infeed.

“A lot of the features that are standard 40 CANADIANPACKAGING · March 2022

on our equipment are not standard on many of our competitors’ machines,” Favret notes.

Optional devices for the TFS 300 include an upper and lower printed film centring; expanded loading area; vacuum and gas flush systems; an integrable vacuum pump, special adaptations for cleanrooms, special components for very corrosive products, integration with peripheral equipment like date-coders, dossing systems); and inline application of reclosable zipper attachments and other easy-open options.

The process for creating the frozen fillets begins with fish brought into the facility in 1,200-pound tubs filled with an iceslurry mixture.

“We’ll receive fish overnight and start the VA process by deciding whether to scale the fish or not, depending on customer orders,” Blackmore says. “If scaling is required, it first goes through our scaling machine.”

All fish weigh more than 10 pounds are transferred to a beheading machine, while smaller fish are beheaded manually.

“Depending on the volume, we have anywhere from four to six people on that table with knives manually cutting the

heads,” Blackmore says.

From there, the fish are sent through the high-speed filleting machines manufactured by renowned German manufacturer BAADER .

“The fish go through the machine, where an operator will sit the headless fish on a saddle, and then two different sets of blades remove the fillets from the frame of the salmon,” Blackmore explains.

“Once the fillets come out of the filleting machine, they will then go into a trimming machine, which was also purchased from BAADER.” That trimming machine is pre-programmed for each spec of fillets ordered by their customers, leaving the operator to simply selects the type of trim and size of fillets.

When the fillets come out of that machine, they move to conveyors on each side with two to four additional trimmers that trim anything the machine didn’t catch.

When the fillets leave that station, they are conveyed onto the pin boning machine, another piece of BAADER equipment.

“On that machine there are little roller assemblies that are continuously moving.

As the fish are coming off the belt, they are catching the pin bones to pull them out of the fillet,” Blackmore says.

“Due to our fish being so fresh when processed, pulling all of the bones by the machine isn’t possible because the fillet is still very firm. “Many companies hold the fish in the slurry mixture up to 48 hours before cutting to make this process easier,” she says, “but we want our fish to the customer as fresh as possible.”

When the fillet leaves the pin boning line it goes to a grading area and is graded for quality as either a premium fillet or a select fillet (something with a lighter color, offcut, a poor cut or a bruise).

“That fillet grader is pre-programmed so we can send the fillets to different gates and/or lines, after which they go to a skinless line or packed into a box,” Blackmore says. “If it is being packed as a skin on fillet it will be sent to that line to be packed inside a Styrofoam container or a corrugated box, weighed and labeled.

“All boxes are taped-closed and directed through a metal detector,” she adds.

For the packaging of the fillets, the company works with a lot of local suppliers ,including Master Packaging in Dieppe and Thermalite, N.B. “We produce a lot of our own Styrofoam and also work with Thermalite for any additional needs,” says Blackmore, adding that True North is implementing a major shjift to using more paper-based packaging for its value-added products—coming to the grocer near you soon.

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Together under one roof: Six of the most iconic names in packaging machinery.

Doboy. Elematic. Kliklok. Osgood. Sigpack. Woodman.

For more than 75 years, our companies have provided packaging machinery to the producers of everyday trusted brands. Today, as Syntegon Technology, we offer a one-stop shop for everything from standalone machines to complete manufacturing systems — from processing to packaging — with a world-class service team to back it up.

Inquiries +1 (770) 981-5200 connectwithus@syntegon.com www.syntegon.com/food 42 CANADIANPACKAGING · March 2022

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FOOD SAFETY

LIFE IN THE FAST LANES Leading cheese producer doubles up on product safety with an inegrated dual-lane metal detection solution

unning multiple production lines side by side is a normal modus operandi when you are the world’s biggest diary producer.

But for all the efficiencies of scale that large production capacity affords, it would amount to little if the quality and integrity of that output was compromised due to inadequate quality control capabilities, such as the critically important inline metal detection.

Happily for this particular cheese producer, manufacturer of some of the world’s most iconic cheese products, hooking up with metal detection experts at Fortress Technology turned out to be a natural pairing of the best kind.

In what is hailed as “a space-saving product inspection breakthrough,” Fortress Technology has custom-engineered a unique twin-aperture Stealth metal detector and dual-lane Raptor 200 checkweigher in a unique twin-lane conveyor configuration that unlocked substantial space and cost savings for the busy North American dairy plant.

Positioned to inspect pouches of shredded cheese pouches directly from a dual-head bagger, the twin lane conveyor configuration consolidates a single metal detector uniquely divided into two apertures and two independent weight verification Raptor checkweighers for optimized quality control.

Under the set-up, each technology and lane has its own air-blast reject mechanism to isolate metal contaminants and weight rejects—helping to reduce and minimize good product being wasted by over 50 per cent, according to Fortress.

Measuring just 10 feet in length, the Fortress solution also features an integrated radius conveyor into the metal detector infeed.

As Fortress Technology’s regional sales manager Eric Garr explains, “Compared to the alternative multi-lane contaminant detection and combination systems on the market, the high-spec Fortress multi-aperture system was engineered specifically to

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ensure that there was no trade-off in terms of performance and metal detection sensitivity.

“One of the key benefits of a twin-aperture system is cutting the amount of waste caused by rejects in half,” Gar explains.

The special dual-lane version of Fortress Technology’s multi-aperture metal detector comprises a single unit split into two smaller dedicated apertures for each lane, making them act as independent metal detectors.

For optimal metal detection sensitivity, using two compact apertures—measuring 102-mm in height by 254-mm in width— means that the individual packs always pass right through the center point of the metal detector.

“With output per hour being the critical productivity benchmark, this gamechanging multi-aperture design facilitates high speed and accurate metal detection, marking a major step for lean manufacturers seeking to reduce factory footprint and improve TCO (total cost of ownership) performance,” Garr asserts.

Fully integrated with the dairy plant’s upstream and downstream equipment, and matching the 120- to 140-ppm (products per minute) output speed of the dual-head VFFS (vertical form-fill-seal) bagging system, the compact geometry of the customized radius conveyor facilitates the positioning and orientation of product packs as they smoothly round the corner towards the metal detector.

Providing optimal spacing between product packs as they are presented to each metal detector aperture helps to avoid congestion, bottlenecks and flexible packaging pouches from overlapping, which could lead to sensitive weight verification checks being distorted.

As each lane is programmed to run independently, the bespoke design helps to

(Top) Fortress Technology installed this twin aperture Stealth metal detector and dual-lane Raptor 200 checkweigher to integrate with a dual-head VFFS bagging system for the world’s leading premium dairy producer.

(Above) A single metal detector is split into two individual apertures for each lane to ensure metal detection sensitivity isn’t compromised.

minimize interruption to the packing process during product switchovers or if one lane stops working or requires maintenance.

Additionally, the unique design gives the plant extra inspection and weight verification capacity, as two different product lines, pack sizes or SKUs (stock-keeping units) can be run simultaneously adjacent to each other.

Located between the two outfeed conveyors, the air-blast nozzles efficiently and independently remove contaminated product into lockable reject bins equipped with reject confirmation and ‘bin full’ sensors.

“For lighter weight packaged applications like shredded cheese, an air-blast reject is the most efficient method, and it has the fewest moving parts,” Garr relates.

“Contaminated products are instantly removed off the conveyor belt without disrupting production,” he says, adding that for the heavier products, Fortress would typically suggest using a pusher or retracting belt mechanism.

Using compatible collective parts, the inaugural integration of the new Raptor 200 checkweigher marks another big milestone for the renowned Toronto-based metal detection specialist that recently celebrated its 25th anniversary.

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The rising cost of real estate in North American production facilities is pushing demand for space-optimized machinery.

Founded in Toronto in 1996, Fortress Technology has quickly evolved into a globally-operating enterprise providing worldwide coverage for its equipment from manufacturing facilities in Canada, Brazil and the U.K. Last year, the company’s Raptor checkweighing system was honored with the Lean Manufacturing Award of the U.S.-based Food Processing magazine.

Incorporated into the system design for the big dairy customer, the Raptor checkweigher plays a critical role in delivering dynamic weight monitoring with minimal customizations to existing product feed and packing lines.

Moreover, the hygienic dual-lane design also targets operational inefficiencies, notably upstream product giveaway, non-conforming food packs and packaging waste.

As Garr notes, “The level of control this integrated Raptor digital checkweighing system gives versus batch checks on a fixed scale means big savings in reduced giveaway, especially on pre-

mium dairy products, is very quick.” trend feedback to boost operational efficiencies,” In operations, it takes just milliseconds for the says Garr. two packs to pass over two Raptor load cells to Constructed to the highest food-grade stanweigh, analyze, capture and report all the relevant dards, the modular 200-mm-wide conveyor assemdata simultaneously. bly, conveyor decks and belts are all designed to be For ease of integration, the air-blast nozzles re- easily removed from the machine for rapid deep ject out of weight specification products with sanitation and maintenance, whereby operators minimal operator intervention. simply unclip and disconnect the conveyor motor.

In just seconds, the conveyor belt is removed, To ensure absolute traceability and compliance with retailer Codes of Practice and QA protocols, and the belt tension and tracking is instantly reboth the metal detector and Raptor checkweigher stored when clipped back into place—all without capture easy to read live OEE (overall equipment using a single tool.

With rent per square foot in North American effectiveness) data.

“By gathering live production information from industrial manufacturing plants currently avereach lane independently, the dairy group is able to aging US$6.36, this latest multi-lane combination establish the operational parameters and extract metal detection and checkweighing innovation statistics most valuable to their business, such as showcases impressive space-saving possibilities, volume, weight, inspection speed, rejects or down- according to Garr.

“Footprint is a top criteria and consideration for time,” adds Garr.

Equipped with robust Contact Reporter many of our customers today,” Garr asserts.

“For this particular dual lane dairy application, software, the dairy plant has the facility to export and convert time-stamped production data from we were tasked with engineering a system that inthe dual-aperture metal detector and integrate into tegrated seamlessly with a fast-running dual-head readable formats aligned to their existing quality VFFS packaging machine.

“Through the intelligent configuration of the control reporting system.

Fortress also offers the option to connect the conveyor and reject mechanisms,” Garr concludes, checkweigher to its Contact 4.0 connectivity “we succeeded in delivering a compact combinasoftware to obtain auditor-friendly data reports— tion system without sacrificing the exceptional exported as either PDF or Excel files—covering a metal detection performance that Fortress always strives to deliver.” specific production line and/or time period.

“Rather than monitoring machine performance manually, this level of cohesive reporting on a SUPPLIERS multi-lane system provides valuable upstream Fortress Technology Ltd.

Avoid potential pitfalls, and take advantage of the power of automated guided vehicles.

TORONTO | MONTREAL | VANCOUVER 44 CANADIANPACKAGING · March 2022

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FOOD SAFETY

The Benefits of Automatic Metal Detector Testing

By Davor Djukic, National Sales Manager – Product Inspection, METTLER TOLEDO

T

raditionally gravity fed metal detector testing involves frequent and time-consuming stoppages, potential safety risks and can generate inconsistent results. Often, the test methods used do not confirm that the operational specification of the metal detector is being achieved.

The “Drop-Through”, “Fishing Line” and “Test Rod” methods are routine performance monitoring processes for vertical metal detection systems. Manual testing often risks operator safety.

These test processes are unable to accurately verify the operational specification of the metal detector because they do not confirm centerline testing.

Additionally, manual testing processes can carry cross-contamination risks and can compromise food product quality.

The Automatic Test System (ATS) from Mettler-Toledo modernizes vertical metal detector testing and is considered to be the recommended method for many retailers.

ATS is employed in vertical food inspection applications such as snacks, confectionery, infant formula, flour and nutraceutical powders, as well as granulates. It works by transporting test samples #2 Increase Productivity using pneumatic control, up discreet non-metallic ATS tests are faster than traditional testing methtubes inside the metal detector’s aperture to a de- ods. An end-to-end 3-metal test can be completed fined position within the sensing coils. The test by a single operator in under 40 seconds, instead samples are released, simulating the presence of a of three to four minutes and two operators using contaminant in free-fall. An algorithm correlates traditional, manual methods. centerline sensitivity with edge of aperture sensitivUsing RT Mode to reduce testing frequency ity, eliminating the random nature of vertical metal from every two hours to every 12 hours, a snack detector testing. food manufacturer with 24 weigher-bagger lines Reduced Test (RT) Mode is an additional fea- running at 100 bags/minute could save more than ture in which the metal detector monitors its online 4000 person-hours and produce 25 million more sensitivity performance and warns if the sensitivity packs/year. drops below the specified level. This reduces the Online calculators are available for you to identesting frequency by up to 80%, without increasing tify your return on investment from installing ATS risk and improves productivity as production is and RT Mode. now stopped less frequently.

Italian savoury snack producer PATA S.p.A has #3 Enhance Operator Safety 30 throat-style metal detectors on its production Operators will be safer with ATS and fewer will be line, of which 16 have ATS installed. ATS and RT needed to conduct testing. ATS testing is completMode have provided several benefits: ed by a single operator and virtually eliminates the need to work at height to conduct routine testing.

It removes the need for operators to reach across #1 Ensure Compliance ATS is the only method of testing that confirms installed equipment to insert a test sample. centerline (worst-case) sensitivity performance.

ATS can provide electronic records that are easily #4 Improve Product Quality and Food stored for future reference, for audit compliance or Safety proof of due diligence.

ATS is a non-invasive testing method, which reCANADIANPACKAGING.COM

moves the danger of cross-contamination. RT Mode detects smaller, irregular-shaped metal contaminants and continuously checks the metal detector performance, ensuring it is achieving or exceeding food manufacturer’s specifications.

#5 Additional Feature to Facilitate Social Distancing Requirements

An ‘Emulation’ feature allows operators to remotely control the metal detectors by mirroring their interfaces on remote networked devices. This is ideal for testing systems installed in inaccessible locations and supports Covid-19 social distancing requirements.

Mettler-Toledo offers Automatic Test System (ATS) and Reduced Test (RT) Mode on its Profile Throat metal detectors and Profile Gravity Fall metal detection systems. www.mt.com/metaldetection-pr For more information visit: www.mt.com/mdats-pr.

DAVOR DJUKIC is national sales manager for product inspection at METTLER TOLEDO Inc. in Mississauga, Ont.

March 2022 · CANADIANPACKAGING

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50% L SS P CK G NG IS STILL 50% TOO MUCH.

The KHS solution for more sustainability: New avenues in packaging technology.

We are continuously improving our packaging. By applying innovative technologies and switching over to mono-material packaging we have halved our packing materials over the last five years. And we are soon to take another big step forward in using new, thinner types of film. khs.com/packing-systems

PRE-SHOW REPORT

FOOD ON THE TABLE Global packaging food technologies showcase puts packaging sustainability into the spotlight

ith the global food-and-beverage industry continuing to focus on more renewable and recyclable materials to package its products, the demand for sustainable packaging solutions is driving packaging manufacturers and machine-builders to replace many old conventional packaging concepts with innovative contemporary alternatives at a relentless pace.

As a leading global trade fair covering all aspects of food production, the upcoming Anuga FoodTec 2022 global trade fair and conference in Cologne, Germany, will exhibit a multitude of sustainable packaging innovations and technological visions driving this irreversible trend.

From process technology to filling and packaging to food safety, packaging materials, digitalization and intralogistics, the four-day event—to be held at the Cologne Messe fairgrounds April 26-29, 2022—will provide a world-class showcase of how far the packaging industry has progressed in sustainability so far and what challenges it must still overcome.

This important and future-looking theme is also competently addressed in the event’s extensive and congress program and conferences, featuring leading industry experts and authorities on the subject.

While it’s clear that there is no universal solution for the reduction and recyclability for all packaging materials, composite films and plastic trays are increasingly being replaced by monolayer films or paperboard wherever possible—prompting machinery suppliers to respond with new modular machine concepts, incorporating intelligent robotics and automation, that can process both conventional as well as sustainable packaging.

According to Valentin Köhler, head of sustainable cardboard development at Gerhard Schubert GmbH in Crailsheim, Germany, “The turnaround towards sustainable packaging solutions is not only in sight, but in full swing.”

As Köhler explains, many manufacturers and brand-name companies are critic-

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ally examining their existing packaging— considering where they can do without plastic and subsequently switching over to renewable fiber-based materials.

While Köhler considers the implementation of plastic still necessary to seal packaging so that it can guarantee a longer sell-by date, such as tubular bag packaging, Schubert has developed a new flow-packer that can process both conventional composite films using the cold and heat-sealing process, as well as recyclable monolayer films and paper-based structures.

One of the key challenges involved in switching over to sustainable materials is keeping the machine’s overall equipment effectiveness (OEE) at the same high level, Köhler explains, because handling paperbased films is much more demanding than processing composite films.

“They tear and crease faster, they are stiffer, and they need specially aligned forming shoulders to ensure a safe packaging process without interruptions,” he explains. “Furthermore paper is abrasive, which means it grinds down mechanical parts of the machine over the course of time.

“That is why the format parts of the flow-packer are individually aligned to suit the packaging material using hardened and coated surfaces in order to attain optimal result.”

Efficient and economical filling and packing processes require a high degree of automation and, at the same time, meet the highest standards in the functional safety of the machines and systems. At the same time, consumers are demanding sustainable and intelligent packaging

The upcoming Anuga FoodTec 2022 exhibition in Cologne is expected to draw over 50,000 visitors to the four-day event, featuring over 1,600 exhibitors for nearly 50 countries eager to display their latest processing and packaging innovations for the global food and beverage industries.

solutions.

For manufacturers of food and beverage, it is about finding the right balance between safety, automation and economic efficiency.

The ongoing digital transformation offers big opportunities, particularly in the packaging and filling sectors, by optimizing supply chain management and throughput times, minimizing error rates, and ensuring uncompromised product safety.

For Stefan Scheibel, vice-president of the Multivac Group’s Corporate Training & Innovation Center, “Digitalization has huge potential in bringing about high-quality recycling processes for sustainable packaging.”

As Scheibel explains, Multivac is part of an ongoing industry initiative to develop the cross-industry R-Cycle standard to help the plastic industry’s value chain harmonize and coordinate the development of sustainable plastic packaging solutions to promote the Circular Econ-

March 2022 · CANADIANPACKAGING

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A sampling of some of the innovative new sustainable packaging formats processed using Multivac’s high-speed packaging machinery and materials. omy model for plastics.

Says Scheibel: “The R-Cycle can record packaging properties such as plastic types, adhesives, printing inks and additives in a digital product pass during the manufacturing process already using an automated technique.

“With all relevant parameters are automated via an IoT gateway entered in the database, the packaging is clearly labelled and serialized with globally valid identification numbers.

“Calling up the recycling-relevant data enables the subsequent sortpure separation and thus, also the reusability of the plastic for high-quality applications,” he states.

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Also rooted in the fundamental movement towards more sustainable food production, the emergence and rapid growth of plant-based alternative proteins will also be a topic of considerable discussion at Anuga FoodTec 2022, where Multivac plans to demonstrate a high-speed production line for the automatic converging, infeeding, packaging and labeling of vegan burgers on a cardboard tray in a flow-pack.

According to Multivac, the line employs a high-performance centrifuge to converge the vegan burgers into a single line on one transport conveyor, while the cardboard trays are denested onto another conveyor running in parallel.

WWW.alfatecmachine.com

A handling module loads the burgers into the cardboard trays, which then run into the packaging machine to packed under MAP (modified atmosphere packaging ) conditions, with an inline labeler then applying a label from above onto the packs.

“The use of very thin films and the absence of process-related film trim significantly contribute to the sustainability of this solution,” says Multivac.

According to fast-growing nutritional industry group ProVeg International, gone are the days when a wholesome meal necessarily included meat.

“Our diet is changing at great speed and the demand for innovative protein alternatives is increasing rapidly,” says ProVeg’s international heed of food services and events managing director Katleen Haefele.

“Resource-efficient and local protein sources, such as pea, field bean or lupine, are particularly in demand [and] algae are also a popular raw material at the moment,” In order to be able to feed more than 10 billion people by 2050, we have to rely heavily on plant-based supply, and therefore invest in new

info@alfatecmahine.com

agricultural technologies and cultivated meat products.”

But it is not enough to partially or completely replace animal protein with alternative proteins. The products must also convince in terms of appearance, mouth-feel and juiciness, which calls for expert know-how at all levels of production.

To achieve this, leading ingredients specialists must increase their focus on is primarily on improving the texture, aroma and taste of the new foods, while the mechanical engineers must optimize established plant technology and introduce new innovative processes to open up a wider range of vegan and vegetarian products for the manufacturers.

With renowned processing machinery manufacturers like Multivac, Maschinenfabrik Seydelmann KG and Vemag Maschinenbau GmbH taking part,participating, Anuga FoodTec 2022 will offer solutions for almost every process engineering task to enable greater variety in shaping and processing of vegan and vegetarian convenience products and comlete meal solutions.

sales@alfatecmachine.com CANADIANPACKAGING.COM 2022-02-28 11:32 AM

PRE-SHOW REPORT

An Inspiring Comeback The return of SIAL Canada food industry showcase signals the beginning of the post-pandemic economic recovery t has been a long wait, but like many other major food industry trade shows, SIAL Canada is ready to roar back to life with the 19th annual edition of the annual international food industry showcase in Montreal next month—live and in-person.

Scheduled to take place April 2022, 2022, at the Palais des congrès de Montréal, the sold-out SIAL Canada is the only national trade show that offers a complete range of food products under one roof to help food producers meet their customers’ expectations.

With more than 800 national and

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international exhibitors from 50 countries hosting over 20,000 buyers from Canada, the U.S. and other countries, there will be something for everyone working in the retail, catering or food processing sectors of the Canadian food market, with a plethora of new innovative products and regional specialties from around the world to be showcased at their best.

With the food sector facing many new economic and trade challenges as it emerges from the COVID-19 lockdowns and business disruptions, SIAL Canada will provide a perfect opportunity for food professionals to come up to speed in person, according to the event’s organizers Comexposium.

“The landscape of our industry has changed considerably,” says SIAL Canada executive director Xavier Poncin.

“Whether you’re looking at market concentration, the arrival of new players, changes in consumption habits with increasing focus on digitization and personalization, or even developments in international trade,

for manufacturers it’s no mean feat finding the right solutions,” Poncin states.

“With our buyer programs, series of conferences, product lines organized by type, central experts hub and special events, SIAL Canada is the ideal platform to help food professionals understand and meet the challenges of tomorrow.”

According to Comexposium, the 2022 edition of SIAL Canada will make Montreal North America’s culinary capital for three days as it becomes the nerve center of the agrifood industry—both for Canada and the world—offering plenty of new approaches and initiatives to help everyone meet future challenges.

Says Poncin: “By 2030, the agrifood industry will need to feed almost nine billion people while trying to

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CANADIANPACKAGING.COM 2022-03-08 2:44 PM

PRE-SHOW REPORT

limit the impact that a vulnerable environment will have on resources, which for hundreds of years we thought were inexhaustible,” Poncin states. “As a result, our production and consumption patterns will be put to the test and our manufacturers must now innovate by producing differently, and looking for new agrifood alternatives that are better thought-out and more respectful of • our environment—all while contending with significant labor shortages.”

As a trade show well renowned for its constant evolution and trend-setting, the he 2022 edition is full of changes and, for the first time, this year the equipment section of SET Canada will makes way for two new sectors that are growing and are aligned with industry demand with the launch of: • SIAL Forceratnt—a sector that’s exclusive to North America • and is dedicated to transforming and fusing the worlds of retail and foodservice, and vice versa; • SIAL Packaging—a space aimed at responding to developments within the packaging sector and in related logistics.

• The American Buyers Pro-

gram, offering U.S. buyers and importers a unique meeting platform and a special experience, in partnership with the AFI—a major association representing • American importers and retailers—along with MAPAQ, OMAFRA, EDC, Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada, and UGI. SIAL Innovation. The only international contest with a presence all over the world. Made up of food industry experts, and held in partnership with XTC World • Innovation, each year the jury rewards 10 finalists—and this year it will hand out three Grand Prizes. The Grand Prize winners will have the unique opportunity of traveling the world through all of the SIAL shows, which include Canada, China, Paris, Jakarta, Abu Dhabi and New Delhi.

SIAL Conferences. Every year, SIAL Canada allows participants to discover the challenges of tomorrow through its series of • conferences led by renowned industry personalities.The program of 30 or so conferences this year includes: the food of the future, new food trends and innovations,

globalization, the challenges of know-how. supply and demand management, • SoSIAL Commitment. In order geographical indications, culinto reduce food wastage and to ary tourism, and much more. take part in knowledge and skill sharing with future generations— Startup Village. This exclusive all with the aim of fostering a Canadian show feature will bringsustainable society—SIAL Caning together more than 20 burada’s SoSIAL program will congeoning food businesses, who will tinue to commit itself to social try to promote their products and causes by, among other things, services during a pitch competitaking part in recovering food on tion, to earn awards through their behalf of charities that redistribinnovations in technology, susute it to those in need. tainable development and nutriIn addition, for each entrance tion, among others.

International Cheese Compe- ticket that is purchased on-site, SIAL tition. Building on its success in Canada will provide $5 to Moisson 2019 in Toronto, which featured Montréal, a community organiza229 cheeses from nine countries, tion that serves as a food bank for the SIAL Canada welcomes every- Island of Montreal.

Launched in 20001, SIAL Canada one in for the second edition of the international cheese competi- is an integral part of the SIAL nettion. A jury made up of cheese-in- work, the leading global network of dustry professionals will evaluate shows dedicated to the food industry, the crème de la crème of operating seven shows (SIAL Paris, cheese-makers and award a gold SIAL Canada Montreal, SIAL Canmedal to the best cheeses in 28 ada Toronto, SIAL China, SIAL Middle East, SIAL InterFOOD Jakarta, different categories.

Inspire Drink. A hosted event and SIAL India) that bring together dedicated to drinks of all types of 14,000 exhibitors and 330,000 drinks and mixology, complete visitors from 200 countries. with the launch of an on-site To register for SIAL Canada, microbrewery village showcasing Quebec and Canadian craft-beer please go to: www.sialcanada.com

FLEXIBLE PACKAGING FOR TODAY’S CONSUMER

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March 2022 · CANADIANPACKAGING

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the canadian corrugated and containerboard industry develops creative packaging solutions that are cost effective, versatile, environmentally sound and food safe. our boxes are designed with high impact graphics that communicate your brand. we focus on what matters: what’s inside the box.

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52 CANADIANPACKAGING · March 2022

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NOTES & QUOTES

Global metal packaging product manufacturer Trivium Packaging was selected as Best-in-Class winner in the Package Innovation in the Technical Design category of this year’s PAC Global Awards competition of the Toronto-based packaging industry association PAC Global (formerly PAC Packaging Consortium). Developed by the company’s in-house design team in Youngstown, Ohio, the award-winning refillable aluminum bubble bottle features with an ergonomic grip that would contain the bubble’s eco-friendly formula and work efficiently with the easy-to-use refillable solution released through a pouring spout into the refillable aluminum bottle—allowing children to fill their bottles independently. Said to be the first refillable and sustainable bubble bottle to be manufactured and sold in the U.S., the aluminum bottle is made using an advanced impact extrusion manufacturing process.

“We’re thrilled to see Bubble Tree’s innovative packaging recognized, putting the spotlight on a new use for our premium aluminum packaging solutions,” says Trivium’s vicepresident of sustainability Jenny Wassenaar. “Throughout the process, the focus of the packaging has been to reduce the use of single-use plastic and ensure the availability of material resources for generations to come.”

St. Louis, Mo.-headquartered technology and engineering group Emerson has completed the expansion of manufacturing capacity at the company’s Canadian operation in Brantford, Ont., to provide faster lead-times and delivery of customized pneumatic cylinders to local automation and robotics companies.

According to Emerson, the 63,000-square-foot Brantford facility has expanded its production repertoire with the AVENTICS Series PRA profile cylinders, Series TRB tie rod cylinders and Series TaskMaster TM5 NFPA profile cylinders, enabling it to cut lead times down to five business days or less. “The expansion demonstrates Emerson’s investment in and March 2022 · CANADIANPACKAGING 53

commitment to our Canadian automation customers,” says Emerson’s national sales director Stephane Meunier, adding there are more than 350 automation and robotics companies currently operating in the province of Ontario.

“The automation industry in Canada continues to grow,” Meunier states, “and we want to ensure our customers’ success by getting them components critical to their product designs as quickly as possible.”

Hoffman Estates, Ill.-headquartered

automation solutions provider Omron Automation Americas has commenced operations of the company’s new Omron Advanced Motion Research and Development Center facility in Chatsworth, Ca. Housing a state-of-the-art production area alongside the in-house engineering team— comprised of 40 experts available to collaborate with customers regionally—the expansion enables the company to develop highly precise, high-speed motion technology that fits the needs of

customers throughout the semiconductor, medical, packaging, scientific research, and other industries. Headed by Omron’s senior director of engineering for advanced motion Curt Wilson, the team is mandated to develop industryleading motion control solutions that address the most computationally complex and demanding applications, including high-speed synchronous control of 3D additive manufacturing, laser modulation, synchronization with XY stages, and NC (numerical control) type trajectory processing.

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Cablevey Conveyors, Oskaloosa, Iowa-based manufacturer of tubular drag cable and disc conveyor systems for product transfer and material handling applications in the food-and-beverage, pharmaceutical, and chemical markets, has been acquired by Chicago-based private equity group May River Capital for an undisclosed amount. Ranking as a market leader for enclosed conveyance systems, with installations in more than 65 countries, the company’s technology is known for food-safe, efficient and low-energy consumption performance in some of the most demanding material handling applications. “Cablevey’s focus on solving conveyance application challenges using our proprietary cable drag technology has positioned the company as an anchor asset to build a larger conveyance platform,” says Cablevey’s chief executive officer Gary Hall. “The additional investments now possible with May River allow us to continue to increase market share with existing and Top Tier customers in our core food and beverage sectors—including tree nuts, coffee and pet food—as well as expand in other growth markets.”

overall equipment effectiveness (OEE), maintaining a skilled workforce and minimizing costly downtime. “Brand manufacturers are faced with meeting higher consumer demand for everyday goods than ever before, coupled with stresses of a strained supply chain and an ongoing labor shortage,” says director of customer service Paul Wolf.

“From our initial assessments to our scheduled maintenance visits, our support replaces the break-fix mentality with a proactive, strategic approach that anticipates production needs and connects customers with

the right expert resources.”

Deerfield, Ill.headquartered protective packaging products supplier Pregis LLC has obtained independent certification of recyclability for the company’s papercushioned EverTec mailers, launched as a sustainable alternative to corrugated boxes in e-commerce fulfillment applications, by passing

Western Michigan University’s OCC-E (Old Corrugated Container Equivalency) protocol certified by the Fibre Box Association. “Working with brand-owners and retailers every day, we know they are looking for improved sustainable alternatives to ship their products through the parcel network direct to consumers,” says Pregis chief innovation officer Tom Wetsch. “Receiving e-commerce purchases in an EverTec mailer will also signal to consumers that they are getting packaging aligned with their environmental position.”

Sesotec Canada Ltd. | 275 Hanlon Creek BlvD Unit 3, Guelph, On N1C 0A1 Tel. 519-763-9729 | servicecanada@sesotec.ca | www.sesotec.ca

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March 2022 · CANADIANPACKAGING 55 CPK_Sesotec_JanFeb22_CSA.indd 1

2022-01-24 8:36 AM

CHECKOUT

Well-rounded packages and labels to cover all angles / Rhea Gordon

S

(from left) Product label topping the naked aluminum tins of Dr. Bronner’s Organic Magic Balm formula; the resealable canister Manufactured in Vista, Ca., the unscented of Stonewall USDA-certified Organic Magic Balm Kitchen’s Farmfrom Dr. Bronner’s, self-proclaimed house Pancake & ‘Family Soapmakers since 1858,’ comes in a Waffle flour blend; package that looks like it may have been a jar of Spiced used by the company back in the 19th Whiskey MarmalCentury. Packed inside a plain, unpainted, ade from Wildly industrial-looking round aluminum tin, the Delicious Preserve balm inside is nevertheless made up of Co.; jars of Cold many contemporary on-trend ingredients Grind authentic that include cannabis sativa (hemp) seed oil, Indian spices from organic beeswax, jojoba, coconut, olive oil Ganesha Foods. and avocado oil—providing many possible talking points for the social media influencers to get excited over. Selling online for $15 apiece, the 57-gram (two-ounce) tin is topped off with a round self-adhesive paper label displaying most of the brand’s graphics and lettering in white-on-blue or blueon-white color scheme projecting an image of a pair of faded blue jeans tucked away in a dusty barn somewhere out in the rural country. Earthy, yes, but not terribly exciting or, for that matter, particularly reader-friendly. The brand messaging on the label is also a little befuddling. While I’m alright with “In all we do, let us be generous, fair & loving to Spaceship Earth and all its inhabitants,” the messaging gets muddled with “For we’re all-one or one! All-one!,” and downright creepy weird with “Listen children eternal father eternally one.” Like, say what? Out of curiosity, I did a little online digging to get at the heart of the mes-

sage, which appears to be tied to the company’s generous support for the development of “psychedelic assisted therapy for PTSD, depression, and end-of-life anxiety & addiction,” which also appears on the label of Dr. Bronner’s organic 18-In-1 Hemp Peppermint Pure-Castille Soap, with the label used as a soapbox for the company’s offbeat take on life.

ent shrinksleeve label material in a circular loop to make all the graphic elements clearly stand out against the darkish-golden hue of the whisky-flavored marmalade.The straight-sided glass jar is topped off across the lid with a paper ‘small batch fresh’ seal resembling the tax-stamp tags often found on liquor bottles. The back of the label provides a brief product description that reads like a food pairing suggestion: “CanIn contrast, there is nothing ambiguous or adian spiced whisky makes for a delectable, outdated about the new flawless packaging bright-tasting marmalade full of sweet citsolution for dry flour-based mixes utilized rus flavor. An elegant choice for breakfast

by Stonewall Kitchen of York, Me. Be- or tea-time, served with toast or scones.” As cause I rarely use a full box or bag of flour well as, if I may suggest, some crackers, for one meal occasion, storing the leftovers cheese, nuts and, dare say, some real is always an accidental spill waiting to whisky? happen at the most inopportune moment.

Many of the opened bags that come without Imported from India and packaged in a resealable zipper need a twist-tie or a clip Calgary by Ganesha Foods, USDA-certito ensure decent storage, while a paper- fied Cold Grind brand of dried herbs, board carton flap never provides a proper spices and seasonings is named after the spill-proof seal. None of this is an issue with special cold grinding process used to make Stonewall Kitchen’s 16-ounce canister of these aromatic blends. As the product label Farmhouse Pancake & Waffle Mix, proudly proclaims, “By lowering the temwhose green plastic resealable lid makes it perature while grinding, more volatile esan ideal package for all sorts of flour prod- sential oils are retained, amplifying aroma, ucts and other powdery mixes. Functional- taste, and colors.” Taking that into account, ity aside, the appetizing full-color photo- the $3.59 price-tag for a 50-gram jar of graph of a pancake stack topped off with curry masala, garam masala, turmeric, just the perfect amount of syrup, with a BBQ chicken and steak spice seem well-juscompanion stack of waffles plated in the tified by the sheer quality and flavor intenbackground, virtually make this canister sity of the product.The clear cylindrical jars sell itself. Containing enough flour to make leave plenty of space to see the product approximately three batches, the canister contents, which are further enhanced with also features easy-to-follow recipes for both some clever color-matching of the text of pancakes and waffles on the back, helping the product name at the center of the wrapeven the least experienced home bakers to around product label. Very tastefully done put together a perfect breakfast feast. on every level.

Produced by Toronto-based Wildly Delicious Preserve Co. Ltd., the Spiced Whisky Marmalade comes in an 185-ml glass jar, decorated with chunky white graphics and text printed onto the transpar-

RHEA GORDON is a freelance writer living in Toronto.

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PHOTOS BY RHEA GORDON

ince the start of COVID-19 lockdowns two years ago, ordering products online has become a routine task for many Canadian consumers. While it is tremendously helpful to have this option, it is far from perfect for scrutinous shoppers used to examining their products up-close and personal before making the purchase. When the products purchased online arrive to our household, many of them look quite different in real life than they do on website photos, which often fail to capture some of the important packaging details or to show off all the angles of the package. This makes it hard to get a true sense of the size of the product, or to absorb all the important product messaging you can’t see until the product actually arrives, making the ‘buyer beware’ caveat an integral part of the online shopping experience.

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IS YOUR FOOD PACKAGING FAILING YOU? From spoiled strawberries to broken bottles, Veritiv’s end-to-end packaging solutions protect your products and grow your business.

Contact a food specialist today: veritivcorp.com/food © 2022 Veritiv Corporation. All rights reserved. Veritiv and the Veritiv logo are registered trademarks of Veritiv Corporation or its affiliates.