Packaging World October 2020

Visit our virtual showroom at PACK EXPO Connects pe.show/158

OCT2020 packworld.com

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PACK EXPO Connects Brings the Event to You 46

Secondary Packaging & RRP Shine at Fisher Nuts 80

Supply Chain Stakeholders Get Fresh Eyes on Ocean Plastics 116

Job-Creating CPG Balances Packaging Automation & Workforce 134

Laundry Pod Pioneer Shifts to E-Comm with Slick Shipper

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VOL27

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NO10

FEATURES 38 Texas Brewer Upgrades Bottling and Adds Cans

80 Collaboration is Key to Solving Ocean Plastics

Installation of a canning line became a top priority as Altstadt Brewery opened new markets in Houston and Dallas. Also getting some serious upgrades was an existing bottling line.

Stakeholders throughout the supply chain are joining to tackle ocean plastics.

For environmental impact organization SoulBuffalo, this means immersive experiences that ignite ideas and speed implementation.

46 Smooth New RRP Case Packing at Fisher Nuts PACK EXPO Connects is an entirely new virtual event taking place November 9 to 13, 2020. This month’s cover embraces the virtual nature of that event with a scene created and rendered entirely using 3D modeling software. This “behind the scenes” version of the cover shows the wireframe models used to make up that completed virtual environment.

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Secondary packaging on this new line includes the latest in case erecting, loading, and closing.

The machines also accept three very different case styles all formed from one flat blank.

56 EMERGING BRANDS Small Batch Skin- and Haircare Line Offers Glass Packaging on a Budget After making the switch from a career in occupational therapy, a former hand specialist offers a variety of personal care products with cruelty-free, natural ingredients in recyclable packaging.

60 Two-phase Upgrade at Ferrara Candy After four scale/bagger systems produced welcome results on primary packaging efficiency, some impressively versatile and compact case packers were added to the mix.

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68 Sophisticated Coding and Marking of Mangoes Ensures Traceability This Mexican leader in the export of fresh mangoes has automated the traceability process in its secondary packaging, and made it profitable, by integrating the latest generation printing equipment with automatic data collection.

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CONNECTS

EVENT PREVIEW 102 COVER STORY PACK EXPO Connects Takes the Trade Show to You Live. Virtual. Reimagined. Connect with the packaging industry at the year’s most engaging event, to be held everywhere Internet is available on Nov. 9 to 13, 2020.

108 Honoring Hall of Fame Careers Now on a biennial cadence, the Packaging & Processing Hall of Fame is inducting four new members into its ranks in 2020. Here, we introduce a distinguished class.

114 Be the First to Learn About New Packaging Trends The Innovation Stage at PACK EXPO Connects brings you the latest advances taking place across the industry. Check out these 30-minute sessions to discover coming trends and technologies that need to be on your team’s radar.

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9/25/20 12:05 PM

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FEATURES 116 Custom Cartoner Helps Employ the Blind

160 Caramel Wafers are Wrapped and Case Packed at 650/Min

As a non-profit with a mission to create jobs, automation can be a tricky proposition. But with a custom machine optimized to be easily used by legally blind operators, Horizon Industries struck a positive balance between labor and automation.

New packaging line for caramel wafer biscuits from Scotland’s Tunnock’s die-fold wraps, multipacks, and case packs caramel wafer biscuits with high flexibility and fast changeover.

126 AUTOMATION Automation Platform Helps Liquibox Build Better Bags An advanced automation and controls platform combined with a fast communications protocol has helped this bag-in-box bag maker optimize manufacturing over the years.

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134 SUSTAINABLE PACKAGING Laundry Pod Pioneer Advances Sustainability with Move to E-Commerce The first company to launch liquid laundry detergent pods in 2005, Dropps moves from retail to D2C to strengthen its responsiveness to consumers and advance its sustainable packaging efforts.

150 New Line Features Two Blow/fill Systems To maximize the ability to change over from one neck diameter to another and to fill either aseptic, CSD, or still products, Bickford’s doubled down on blow/fill technology.

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continued

168 Big Packaging Line in a Small Footprint? No Problem if it Handles Every Format With the large but flexible Innopack TLM packaging system, a KHS and Schubert collaboration, this many-SKU winery introduced just one machine to pack a dozen formats and varieties.

178 Multipacking Applicator Maximizes Can Output for On-Trend Mixed Drink Producer A multipacking applicator helped leading Canadian beverage producer Black Fly to fully automate its packing line and double its canning output, achieving a noteworthy ROI.

182 ‘Quality Conscious’ Canning This Portland, Maine, brewery decided to “dip our toes in the can market” by installing a small filler/seamer. It quickly became clear that a 300 can/minute line was going to be required.

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6 PW OCT2020

DEPARTMENTS 10

packworld.com VIDEO

COLUMNS

9 30 32 34 36 188 200

New Insert Extends Avocado Shelf Life

Lead Off The Legal Side The Big Picture ISTA Omnichannel Answers Sustainable Packaging Shelf Impact!

Looking Forward

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VIDEO

NEWS/EVENTS

24

Innovative Case Packing Line at Fisher Nuts

10 News 22 Quotables/By the Numbers 194 Industry Watch

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INTERVIEW

24 First Person

PRODUCTS

VIDEO

132 Automation Technology 196 Technology

Primary and Secondary Packaging at Ferrara Candy

ADVERTISING

198 Advertiser Index

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EDITORIAL ADVISORY BOARD Aladin Alkhawam Director, Packaging Operations, Par Pharmaceutical Jan Brücklmeier Technical Application Group Packaging Technology Expert, Nestlé David France Packaging Research Fellow, Conagra Foods Patrick Keenan R&D Packaging Engineer, General Mills/Annie’s Organic Snacks Mike Marcinkowski Global R&D Officer, GPA Global & Hub Folding Box Co. Paul Schaum Chief Operations Officer, Pretzels Inc. David Smith, PhD Principal, David S. Smith & Associates Brian Stepowany Packaging R&D, Senior Manager, B&G Foods, Inc. Jasmine Sutherland President, Texas Food Solutions; Vice President, Perfect Fit Meals

Connect with a Leaders in Packaging supplier and support packaging education!

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Packaging World® (ISSN # 1073-7367) is a registered trademark of PMMI, The Association for Packaging and Processing Technologies. Packaging World® is published monthly by PMMI with its publishing office, PMMI Media Group, located at 401 N. Michigan Avenue, Suite 300, Chicago, IL 60611; 312.222.1010; Fax: 312.222.1310. Periodicals postage paid at Chicago, IL, and additional mailing offices. Copyright 2020 by PMMI. All rights reserved. Materials in this publication must not be reproduced in any form without written permission of the publisher. Applications for a free subscription may be made online at www.packworld.com/subscribe. Paid subscription rates per year are $200 in the U.S., $285 Canada and Mexico by surface mail; $475 Europe, $715 Far East and Australia by air mail. Single copy price in U.S. is $20. To subscribe or manage your subscription to Packaging World, visit Packworld.com/subscribe. Free digital edition available to qualified individuals outside the United States. POSTMASTER; Send address changes to Packaging World®, 401 N. Michigan Avenue, Suite 300, Chicago, IL 60611. PRINTED IN USA by Quad. The opinions expressed in articles are those of the authors and not necessarily those of PMMI. Comments, questions and letters to the editor are welcome and can be sent to: editors@packworld.com. Mailing List: We make a portion of our mailing list available to reputable firms. If you would prefer that we don’t include your name, please write us at the Chicago, IL address.

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EDITORIAL Matt Reynolds Editor Patrick Reynolds Vice President, Editor Emeritus @Packcentric Iris Zavala Managing Editor Anne Marie Mohan Senior Editor @PackagingTrends Aaron Hand Editor-at-Large Jim Chrzan Vice President, Content and Brand Strategy Kim Overstreet Content Strategist, Alignment Eric F. Greenberg, Ben Miyares, Sterling Anthony Contributing Editors

ART David Bacho Creative Director

AUDIENCE & DIGITAL David Newcorn Senior Vice President, Digital and Data Elizabeth Kachoris Senior Director, Digital and Data Jen Krepelka Director, Websites & Digital Design Strategy

ADVERTISING Wendy Sawtell Vice President, Sales • wsawtell@pmmimediagroup.com Lara Krieger Production Manager • lkrieger@pmmimediagroup.com Kelly Greeby Senior Director, Client Success & Media Operations Alicia Pettigrew Senior Manager, Product & Revenue Strategy

PMMI MEDIA GROUP Joseph Angel President, Publisher Susan DaMario Director, Marketing Amber Miller Senior Marketing Manager Bea Greany Brand Operations Manager Sarah Loeffler Director, Media Innovation Janet Fabiano Financial Services Manager Lloyd Ferguson Founding Partner

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Staff at PMMI Media Group can be contacted at info@pmmimediagroup.com

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LEAD OFF

VISION-GUIDED

Hall of Famers Exemplify Stewardship One of a few bright spots in a generally daunting 2020 has been the Oct. 1 induction of four extremely qualified packaging professionals into the Packaging and Processing Hall of Fame (see page 108). As the results came in from the selection commission, Packaging World set out to profile each of this year’s inductees. Now, on the surface, there looked to be three separate career categories in the group: two distinguished academics, a longtime brand-side engineer turned association pro, and a career packaging communicator and media mogul. It seemed like we’d have four very different profiles.

But as the last of the four drafts crossed my desk, it became overwhelmingly apparent that the 2020 class shares a key attribute: They understand that equipping the next generation of packaging professionals is more important now than ever before.

Even though a profile is, by its very nature, a bit of a rearview mirror, each of the inductees is focused on the future. They’ve been accomplished stewards of an entire industry, one that has been so good to them that they feel they still owe it something. To this day, they want to see the industry succeed.

Consider Jane Chase, IoPP Executive Director, who told me that nothing gets her more energized than when a former student or junior engineer calls her up to bounce new package design ideas off of her. Similarly, Fritz Yambrach noted with delight that former students of his—who graduated from a program he developed specifically with long-term graduate engagement as a goal—are coming back from industry to give talks at SJSU or look for ways to participate in the program. S. Paul Singh talks about how much he learns from his students— even casting himself as a fellow student among his own pupils. In a circular fashion, the young people he graduates go off to industry and become valuable resources to Singh’s own ongoing learning. And Pat Reynolds indicated how important it was to him to create a sense of continuity in packaging communication and journalism, to be sure the Packaging World ship was helmed, and the future looked reasonably bright. As the current captain, I can assure you that Pat’s hand is still on the wheel in an Emeritus, advisory fashion. I draw from that well quite frequently, and he’s always happy to help.

The bigger picture is that the above sentiments are not those of folks who have put in the time and now wish to reap the rewards on the golf course, fishing boat, or tennis court as the case may be. These are actively engaged individuals with lifetimes of experience who are readily on offer to any young person or career changer who is wise enough to listen. And we need their consistent rudder more than ever.

As Pat Reynolds says in his profile, “New blood was definitely called for, with all the new digital and social media technologies,” and there’s no doubt that the pace of change is fast and speeding up. I’ve said in this space before that trying times accelerate innovation in packaging, and I’m happy to say I’m taking my own advice as it applies to packaging media. As I type this, the PMMI Media Group, of which I am a member, is crafting a never-before-seen, digital industry event called PACK EXPO Connects (see page 102 or visit packexpoconnects.com).

As we’re rolling out an online interactive event that appropriately reflects an industry that’s teetering at an inflection point—with a sustainable, data-driven brave new world on the other side—maybe it’s a good time to be tapping industry stalwarts like our distinguished 2020 Hall of Fame inductees for their guidance, advice, and deep body of knowledge. As their profiles indicate, each and every one of them is happy to be of service. PW

mreynolds@pmmimediagroup.com

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9/25/20 1:14 PM

10 PW OCT2020

NEWS

Enhanced Water to Pioneer Aluminum Cans, rPET Perfect Hydration (pH), an ultra-purified alkaline water with electrolytes, is launching its enhanced water in a 16-oz. recyclable aluminum can to meet the growing demand for sustainability. The new line extension, available for purchase beginning in December 2020, will feature aluminum that can be recycled indefinitely, as opposed to PET, which the company says loses clarity and function as it continues to be recycled. The can will continue with Perfect Hydration’s notable crisp, blue color-blocked design, this time on a printed can.

The can joins a container lineup that currently features four sizes of 100% recyclable PET-1 bottles. These PET bottles use a p-s label, but the company is are exploring different substrates as it makes a push towards converting single serve PET-1 bottles to rPET in Q1 of 2021.

“We are challenging ourselves to exceed industry standards on our path towards focused innovation and sustainability,” says Louisa Lawless, Chief Strategy Officer of brand owner Stratus Group. “Enhanced, still water in a can is quite new to our category, but because of demand from consumers and retailers alike, we are excited to lead the charge. Agility is critical with advancement in new technologies and sustainable, responsible resourcing.”

Perfect Hydration’s domestically sourced cans offer a new category entry point for consumers seeking alkaline water, which now is the fastest growing segment within water according to the company, outpacing sparkling water and private label water. The line extension will be available in 16-oz aluminum cans, and displayready 12-packs and 24-packs. The new 16-oz cans will retail from $1.29 to $1.49 each.

Comprehensive sustainability goals We’ve seen the big water brands think about moving to cans, too, or do so in regional test markets, but adoption is still in its infancy. Packaging World asked Lawless what pushed Perfect Hydration to make this change.

“We are constantly seeking new ways to meet consumer demands within the water category and we’ve seen a shift in interest toward aluminum packaging,” she says.

“Aluminum is infinitely recyclable and ultimately, we want to offer the consumer what they are demanding. We know people are used to recycling aluminum and they feel good about it. Launching a can will allow us to diversify our supply chain and test different packages amongst channels.”

As a part of a multiple-pronged approach to sustainability, Perfect Hydration is currently vetting claims associated with recycled plastics (rPET) and has committed to launching bottles made with 100% rPET in Q1 of 2021. Perfect Hydration is also committed to the continued use of renewable, domestic water sources. The proprietary nine-stage filtration and alkalizing process enables the brand to transform water from any supply into crisp, refreshing, pH Water. Unlike other brands that mine watersheds and mineral springs, pH doesn’t have to ship water to or from remote locations across the globe. In addition, Perfect Hydration’s bottles

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are made of BPA-free, 100% recyclable PET-1.

The rPET bottle will not initially replace the existing PET bottles, but represents a first step towards doing so. The company is planning to roll out additional sizes as the supply of rPET increases.

“The printed can does offer us a bit more of a billboard and won’t require an additional label, which means fewer components in the supply chain,” Lawless says. “Aluminum cans also chill faster than plastic, so they are great for convenience stores, foodservice, and any single-serve opportunity. Single cans are also stackable, which makes for more efficient storage in stock rooms and in foodservice and non-traditional sales channels.

They’ll also get colder, quicker, in consumers’ refrigerators at home.”

There are tradeoffs to aluminum cans, namely they are generally intended as singlesitting products without much of an option for resealability. But since the format complements existing PET bottles with closures, rather than replaces them, the company sees this as an opportunity to let consumers decide what’s best for them, and to diversify supply chains.

“With pH’s PET bottle and aluminum can assortment, we’re able to address a wide variety of hydration needs. A person who needs a resealable format can still purchase our bottle, while someone who is more sustainability-driven will choose the Perfect Hydration can,” Lawless says.

“Our can is basically the same size as a pint or a standard water glass, so it’s the perfect oneand-done size to deliver a hydrating experience.

This size is also guaranteed to easily fit in a cupholder, which makes it super convenient to take on the road.”

The company sees cans are best suited for single-serve situations and for take-home opportunities. That translates into merchandising single cans in cold vaults, or 12-packs for offpremise consumption.

“We expect the single cans to do really well in convenience stores, where consumers are typically on the go,” Lawless says. “At grocery and larger format stores, COVID-19 has caused consumers to buy in bulk as they decrease their shopping frequency (fewer, bigger shopping trips), so they are seeking more multipacks and larger sizes than in the past. We’re also planning to launch our 12-pack via e-comm.

“While the pH bottle offers a nice brand block, rows of our opaque cans with our signature blue gradient logo will look fabulous in the cold box,” she adds.

On the dry shelf, the 12-packs will provide even more brand visibility and a secondary point of distribution. The 12-packs are also easy to stack, which helps for end caps and displays. These paperboard 12-pack cartons will use a spot color + CMYK print in six colors.

In Q1 of 2020, pH successfully launched two larger sizes–1.5-L and 1-g bottles–at Ralph’s, Albertson’s southern divisions, and select CVS stores, to name a few. Perfect Hydration is sold in 1-L and 20-oz, bottles in convenience, mass, drug, and grocery stores nationwide, and online via Amazon and Instacart. —Matt Reynolds

9/23/20 7:52 AM

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9/23/20 7:53 AM

12 PW OCT2020

NEWS

E-Comm Mailer’s Striking Graphics Serve Social Media Set There’s no glossing over the fact that in the e-commerce world, a positive consumer experience—especially among the social media set—can play a significant role in creating buzz around a product, and that experience begins with packaging. Unboxing videos, Instagram posts, and online reviews are among some of the most powerful marketing tools brands have today.

That’s why subscription makeup brand LiveGlam turned up the gloss and the sass on the mailers for its “lippies” line of lip products, which includes lipsticks, liners, scrubs, balms, and more. Now, members of its Lippie Club receive their monthly trio of lippies products in a black-matte plastic bubble mailer emblazoned with an illustration of a pair of fantastically shiny red lips in the midst of a seductive bite.

The mailer replaces one used previously by the Los Angeles-based company and was designed to extend the brand experience beyond the interaction with the product itself, beginning with the moment the customer first sees the package. “We want them to feel a sense of anticipation and excitement about what’s inside,” says LiveGlam Brand Copywriter Samantha Nguyen. “We take great pride in the quality of our product line, and we want that to be reflected in every aspect of our branding, including the packaging.”

LiveGlam’s goal for the new package was to highlight the glossier, longer-lasting shine its lippies are known for. Says Nguyen, “We knew that with the right combination of design, engineering, and production, we could engage our customer on a deeper, more emotional level.

“We wanted something that our customers would feel excited enough about to share on social media. That was our bar. We wanted to build our community of Lippie Club brand evangelists.”

With the lip graphics designed by LiveGlam’s internal creative director, the company approached PAC Worldwide to give them the

Jumpstart Your Day at PACK EXPO Connects Interested in e-commerce packaging solutions like the one featured here? Jumpstart your day at PACK EXPO Connects with a segment devoted to e-commerce on Friday, Nov. 13th at 9:00 a.m. Central, to charge up ahead of a full day of product demos, innovative educational sessions, and more. Visit packexpoconnects.com

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on-pack kiss of life. Says Tim Andrisani, PAC Worldwide Associate Director of Sales of West Coast, “Our job was to figure out how to replicate the super high-gloss tone and texture of the design.” The most significant challenge, he adds, was process color matching.

PAC prints the mailer—a custom version of PAC’s Airjacket®—

using a five-color flexo printing process, along with two varnishes, one glossy and one matte, according to LiveGlam’s brand standards. Andrisani shares that color matching was addressed through several complex drawdowns to capture the right shade and tone of the red lips.

He adds that the 6.5 x 9.25-in. PAC Airjacket was chosen for the application because it offered the best protection and cost efficiencies with handling and shipping. The mailer is a coextruded construction of tough but lightweight high-density polyethylene/low-density polyethylene and is 100% recyclable at store drop-off locations.

Says Nguyen, “Customers can recycle by simply following the [on-pack] published guidelines of the How2Recycle program.” The mailers can be recycled at more than 34,000 locations, including at retailers such as Target, Kohl’s, Walmart, and Lowes.

LiveGlam started exploring concepts with PAC six months before production of the cheeky mailer in Q1-2020. “They were great partners throughout the process, patiently working through the complex design and production issues that are needed at this level of customization,” Nguyen shares.

Lippie Club members are likewise thrilled with the end result, she adds. “We’ve heard great feedback from customers, both directly and through their posts on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter.” —Anne Marie Mohan

9/23/20 7:54 AM

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9/23/20 7:58 AM

14 PW OCT2020

Recyclable, MonoMaterial Packaging Film on Growth Trajectory With its light weight and ease of transport, flexible packaging has long been lauded by producers for its environmental footprint.

However, until recently, the fly in the ointment was the fact that the multiple film layers used to provide various functional properties made it unable to be recycled. But a raft of new mono-material film options have been introduced that provide the same functionality while being recyclable in store drop-off locations.

According a recent market report from Smithers, The Future of MonoMaterial Plastic Packaging Film to 2025, the demand for mono-material flexible polymer packaging will reach approximately 24 million tons and a value of $58.9 billion in 2020. It adds that by 2025, the growing demand by brand owners and consumers for more sustainable solutions will see this market accelerate at a CAGR of 3.8% to reach $70.9 billion, with a total of approximately 29 million tons consumed.

Smithers’ analysis tracks the demand for the four principal mono-material packaging film constructions: polyethylene, polypropylene (including biaxially oriented PP, oriented PP, and cast PP), polyvinyl chloride, and regenerated cellulose fiber (RCF).

NEWS

Working with Dow Chemical and Accredo Packaging, in mid-2018 Seventh Generation was one of the first brands to launch a mono-material flexible pack.

According to the report, PE is the most widely used polymer for mono-material film packaging, accounting for over half of forecast global consumption in 2020.

It will see strong growth through to 2025, but will be outstripped by rising demand for PP grades. RCF use will rise only slowly over the forecast period, and demand for mono-material PVC will decline as alternative solutions are adopted by converters.

Smithers’ research shows that fresh foods, snack foods, and confectionery are the largest users of mono-material film in 2020. It adds that fresh foods will see the most rapid increase in demand across the next five years, while the growth in snack/confectionery segments will be more muted.

Other fast-growing applications for mono-material film packaging include chilled foods, frozen foods, and pharmaceutical and medical products.

Currently, Smithers says, mono-materials have technical limitations in certain packaging applications, making further R&D to overcome these limitations a top priority. —Anne Marie Mohan

Large-Format PET Bottled Water Closure Helps Sustain Sales During Pandemic Transforming large, rigid containers into convenient, at-home dispensers, this closure is a differentiating feature for islanders seeking to stock up on water during pandemics and hurricanes.

Headquartered in Trinidad and Tobago and serving nearby Santa Lucia, Blue Waters is the leading bottled water brand in the southeastern Caribbean. Handling all the processes from the initial stage of blowing bottles to marketing the product both locally and regionally, the water bottler continues to expand and diversify at a rapid rate.

Early in 2020, its 8-L bottle recently added the unique UpTap® dispensing closure, debuted in 2019 from Worldwide Dispensers, part of Liquibox,to become the only format of its kind in the Caribbean. The closure feature offers ease and convenience that was particularly evident amongst consumers stocking up on highquality water during the COVID-19 pandemic. This should also apply to weather events in the region, like hurricanes.

Blue Waters had already been using standard varieties of Worldwide Dispensers’ closure taps for its water bottles for more than a decade, but was looking for new ways to create greater value. UpTap, a next-generation dispensing tap, offered Blue Waters the opportunity to cut costs through a lightweight design.

“Over the last 20 years, Blue Waters has led the family-serve and HOD bottled water category in no small part thanks to Worldwide Dispensers’ innovative 8-liter dispensing tap. Blue

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Waters is excited to continue leading this category for another 20 years with the advent of the more sustainable UpTap from Liquibox,” says Dominic Hadeed, owner of Blue Waters.

UpTap fits on all standard 48/41-mm bottle necks and uses 48% less plastic than its predecessor, which in turn reduces transportation costs by up to 20% due to its smaller size. As an added bonus, its minimalistic, three-piece system improves recyclability and is safer for children to use. It dispenses easily from a horizontal position on the counter or in the fridge and enables one-handed pouring thanks to a self-closing button.

Public response to the new Blue Water dispensing tap has been positive and has enabled the brand to meet the needs of families who seek a convenient, reliable, and safe source of water during uncertain times. —Matt Reynolds

9/23/20 7:58 AM

Visit our virtual showroom at PACK EXPO Connects November 9-13, 2020

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NEWS

Maxwell House Launches “Zero Waste” Compostable Single-Serve Coffee Pods Canadian icon Maxwell House has always told us that it’s “Good to the last drop.” Now, thanks to a 100% compostable pod innovation launch, it says it’s “Good to the last drop. And long after.”

Signifying the brand’s commitment to sustainability, Maxwell House’s latest 100% compostable coffee pods, launched exclusively in Canada, provide an alternative to the popular single-serve pods. Made entirely from plant-based materials, all pod components and its inner bag are 100% compostable, plus the outer carton is 100% recyclable, leaving zero waste for the consumer. This helps Canadians reduce waste without sacrificing the convenience of single-serve pods.

“We recognize the significant concern packaging waste presents and we are working collectively at all levels of our operations to explore alternative solutions,” says Nicole Fischer, Head of Sustainability, Kraft Heinz Canada. “Through ongoing collaboration with packaging experts, organizations and coalitions, Kraft Heinz Canada is working towards a circular economy to ensure real measures are taken to reduce single-use plastics and divert food waste from our landfills, limiting harmful impacts to our environment.”

Jumpstart Your Day at PACK EXPO Connects Interested in compostable packaging developments like the one featured here?

Jumpstart your day at PACK EXPO Connects with a whole hour devoted to the sustainable packaging and processing landscape on Monday, Nov. 9th at 9:00 a.m. Central, to charge up ahead of a full day of product demos, innovative educational sessions, and more.

Visit packexpoconnects.com

designation verifies that the compostable coffee pod meets global scientific standards for industrial compostability and is formulated to break down in a period of about seven weeks. Gone are the days of tedious separation of recyclable pod elements, including the removal of the lid, ring, mesh filters, and coffee grounds.

Further, organization into the correct recycling and composting categories is no longer required.

Consumer education

With the launch of Maxwell House 100% compostable coffee pods, waste reduction is at the forefront, with sustainable packaging from beginning to end. It’s a simple one-step process: toss the pod into the compost bin and it will decompose into nutrient rich soil. Leaving zero waste for the consumer, the compostable coffee pods are made of 85% coffee grounds (real, actual coffee) with a paper lid, a coffee filter made from cornstarch and a plant-based compostable ring made from over 20% coffee bean husks.

Certified by the Biodegradable Products Institute, this

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Dr. Calvin Lakhan, industry expert and leading environmental researcher at Toronto’s York University says, “Both brands and consumers have a critical role to play in driving sustainability forward through innovative technology and developing solutions that balance the demands of modern society with the needs of the planet. By making the switch from traditional single-use plastic pods to compostable pods, we could help reduce plastics by the height of more than 4,000 CN Towers [totalling 7,260,000 ft.] annually.”

As a way to showcase the innovation, Maxwell House launched an immersive educational experience to highlight how the pods decompose. Located at stackt market in downtown Toronto, visitors can witness first-hand how the compostable pods break down over the next few weeks in a shipping container filled with 500 lb of shredded organic material, such as expired fruits and veggies, and the 100% compostable pods.

By the end of the process, all the pods used to create the experience will break down completely so all that is left is nutrient rich soil. Time lapse assets of the decomposition experience will also be shared with Canadians across social media to demonstrate the reality of the process.

Kraft Heinz will be releasing its 2020 Environmental, Social, Governance (ESG) report as part of its corporate citizenship and sustainability efforts in Fall 2020. The report highlights its commitment to sustainability, including the company’s aim to make 100% of packaging recyclable, reusable or compostable by 2025. —Matt Reynolds

9/23/20 8:01 AM

Visit our virtual showroom at PACK EXPO Connects November 9-13, 2020

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NEWS

Label-less Bottle a Cinch to Recycle Miami-based spirits conglomerate Toast Distillers, Inc., known for its ultra-premium vodka, is raising a glass of a different sort—new Toast H2O alkaline purified water in a label-less PET bottle that simplifies recycling. Dubbed “the healthy water,� Toast H2O is treated with reverse-osmosis, UV light, ozone, carbon filter, multimedia filter, and microfiltration, and is produced by Toast Distillers’ subsidiary, The Miami Distilling Company.

According to Dieuveny “DJ� Jean Louis, founder and CEO of Toast Distillers, Inc., Toast H2O was added to the company’s spirits-only portfolio so that it could share its products with many more customers, “even the smallest in the house.� He adds, “Water is an essential liquid for life, and today more than ever, the motto of our company supports it: ‘TO LIVE, TO LOVE, TO US.’�

The decision to go label-less, using a screen-printing process for decoration instead, was made in an effort to maintain the elegance of the bottle, but more importantly, to facilitate recycling. “Most plastic bottles are made from polyethylene, the easiest plastic to recycle in the industry; most adhesive labels are made from polypropylene. Although the two materials are plastic, they have different recycling processes, which means that in order to recycle a bottle, the label must be removed,� says Louis. “Can you imagine how many bottles of water of this type are consumed in the world? Removing the label is usually done manually. Normally this plastic is sent to other countries with a slightly cheaper labor cost but with poor production controls, so guaranteeing the recycling process is complicated. “We are aware of the situation that exists worldwide with plastic, and we deeply believe that the solution to this problem is to teach customers and develop methods to facilitate recycling processes.�

The sleek, 16.9-oz, clear wine-bottle shaped package uses minimal decoration, with the logo positioned in black type vertically up the front panel of the bottle. It is topped with a matching black cap. The bottle is produced and printed by Savani Water of Medley, Fla. Says Savani Water Director Guillermo Castro, Savani is currently the only water bottle factory capable of printing its own PET bottles on a high-speed, automatic machine on-site. “Normally this type of printing is expensive,� he shares, “but Savani Water, after overcoming several obstacles, found a way to do it with high quality and at a competitive price. One of the main challenges is that the bottle must be quite hard, however today we can say that we are in the standard weight of the high-end brands in the market.�

Savani blow molds bottles in-house and can customize the shape, depending on customer requirements. The bottles are then decorated with an automatic screen-printing machine. Explains Castro, the bottle enters the printer on a horizontal conveyor. A line of pistons then transports the bottle to the center of the machine, where it is printed, and then the ink is sealed with ultraviolet light. “The process happens in seconds, and the bottle is ready to fill,� he notes.

The cost of the bottle at the material level is similar to that of a normal water bottle. “Basically the difference is in the work behind each bottle, since the lines must operate separately for blowing, printing, and filling,� Castro explains. “However, we continue to bet on the future of this industry, and do our bit to solve the current recycling problem. If we don’t take a different stance and raise awareness, the damage could be irreversible.�

Toast H2O alkaline purified water is available for purchase in cases of 24 at $0.98 per bottle, or $23.52 per case. Toast Distillers is working to have the product distributed through its existing relationships with liquor stores, distributors, restaurants, and more. Announcements regarding additional purchasing options and availability are forthcoming. —Anne Marie Mohan

9/23/20 8:11 AM

What if food packaging were carbon-neutral?

Go nature.

Go carton.

Food packaging plays a critical role in getting food safely to consumers around the world. But it can also cause problems for the planet. What if all food packaging came from plant-based materials and didn’t impact the climate? At Tetra Pak, we already have paper-based carton packages with reduced climate impact. But we won’t stop there. Our aim is to create cartons made solely from plant-based materials that are fully renewable, fully recyclable and carbon-neutral. It’s all part of our journey to deliver the world’s most sustainable food package.

Learn more at gonature.tetrapak.com

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NEWS

Peanut Butter Brands Add Flexible, Squeezable Formats Jif brand peanut butter from The J. M. Smucker Co., launched in June a 13-oz. creamy peanut butter in a flexible, squeezable Standcap Pouch. According to Jif, the squeezable pouch format that makes it easier for kids to serve themselves, for cooks to measure accurate amounts in recipes, or for parents to precisely spread that perfect “ants on a log” snack, all without needing a knife or other utensil.

“Jif lovers enjoy their Jif in a variety of ways—in smoothies and snacks, as a key ingredient in cooking and baking, or even eating it ‘straight up’ with a spoon,” says Rebecca Scheidler, Vice President, Marketing for the Jif Brand. “With our new squeezable pouch, we’re making it even easier and quicker for Jif lovers everywhere to get their Jif fix. No more ‘peanut butter knuckles’ when you’re trying to get the last ounce of goodness from the bottom of the peanut butter jar. No knife. No spoon. No problem!”

The new pack format represents yet another major brand to adopt the Standcap Pouch, a collaboration between Glenroy, Aptar, Viking Masek, and Coesia’s Volpak and R.A Jones. Read more or watch

video about the different applications using the packaging format, including as DAISY brand sour cream at pwgo.to/3937 and Guy Gone Keto specialty condiments at pwgo.to/5743.

According to R.A Jones, “Our sister company Volpak was responsible for the development of the technology, while we built the machines for our exclusive partner, Glenroy, to manufacture the pre-made pouch solution. The Standcap Pouch is patented and available only in North America through R.A Jones and Glenroy. We developed such partnerships to ensure economical solutions for retailers of any size and product volume demand.

Additionally, we have developed a complete supply chain so that organizations of any size can test their product in the pouch with minimal upfront cost to them.”

Flexible squeeze pack part of new line

Meanwhile, also in June, makers of Skippy peanut butter Hormel announced the launch of three new packaging formats, a lineup it says provides consumers even more ways to add high-protein, plant-based functional foods to their diets. Most notably among them is another flexible peanut butter pack. Hormel worked with ProAmpac to

Five Keys to Private-Brand Success in the ‘New Normal’ A white paper from private-brand consultant Daymon lists five ways private brands and retailers can prepare to address the fundamental shifts in consumer shopping and spending behaviors that have resulted from COVID-19. While Daymon gathered survey information for the white paper early in the pandemic, in April 200, these trends have continued throughout the crisis.

According to Daymon, those shifts that have occurred due to the COVID-19 that will affect future buying habits are social distancing, altered brand and shopping behavior, and reduced spending. Since March, social distancing has made the home the center of eating and entertaining, with 60% of consumers reporting that they planned to eat at home more and only 25% reporting that they expected to eat out as frequently as they had before.

Regarding altered behavior, Daymon notes that vast out-of-stocks have forced shoppers to change brands and preferred stores. When surveyed, 70% of shoppers reported purchasing new a new or different brand than they had pre-COVID, with nearly 30% reporting a positive experience after switching brands and intending to maintain these purchasing shifts post-pandemic. Online shopping has also increased, with 49% of consumers reporting in April they would shop online versus 42% before the crisis.

With roughly one-third of U.S. families having been affected financially, either with job loss or a decline in salary, consumers are looking for alternative solutions to national brands, notes Daymon. As a result, as of April, private-brand sales increased 34%, outpacing national brands.

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develop a flexible PET peanut butter pouch that allows for easy snacking, peanut butter on the go, and easy dispensing with less mess.

“We know consumers are looking for new ways to enjoy the peanut butter they love while still delivering on taste and product benefits,” says Jennesa Kinscher, Skippy brand manager. “We are thrilled to bring the first mainstream squeeze peanut butter and squeeze natural peanut butter spread to the category. It has already become a staple in our home for easy snacking, without the mess!”

The new 6-oz. squeezable format launched carrying two peanut butter varieties: Skippy Squeeze Creamy Peanut Butter, and Skippy Squeeze Natural Creamy Peanut Butter Spread. The pouch was specifically designed for portability and its ease to squeeze for the whole family.

The remaining new formats include a no-sugar-added line available in 16-oz peanut butter jars, and an added-protein variety, with three additional g of plant-based protein per serving available in 14-ounce squat jars. —Matt Reynolds

To address these shifts, Daymon recommends the following five key action areas to drive brand success in the world’s “new normal”: 1. Prioritize Innovation: The need for innovation across categories has been especially heightened as consumers express added interest in making their daily routines and homemade meals more exciting. Private brands should continue planned innovation and drive innovation in high-growth categories.

2. Enhance Solutions: The at-home-meets-foodservice consumption behavior will likely persist post-COVID-19. Private brands should create new foodservice-comparable meal solutions, forge partnerships with local businesses, and promote solutions with creative merchandising.

3. Educate on Benefits: There will be a desire to return to a sense of normalcy when shopping for groceries. Private brand communications should emphasize quality, destination-worthy products, and savings 4. Deliver Inspiration: Consumers are likely to continue a more home-based lifestyle as stay-at-home orders continue to lift and nonessential businesses reopen. Private brands can deliver inspiration to customers by delivering unique private brand recipes and events, as well as distributing unique content such as online or live-streaming cooking classes 5. Lead E-Commerce: Digital shopping services are here to stay. Dedicating online space to private brands, along with linking private brand solutions for consumer needs is imperative for being on the forefront of digital solutions and top of mind for consumers. —Anne Marie Mohan

Cama Group is a leading supplier of advanced technology secondary packaging systems, continuosly investing in innovative solutions. /user/Cama1Spa

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9/23/20 8:13 AM

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BY THE NUMBERS

3

The number of U.S. paper and paperboard product manufacturers that have begun a three-year phaseout of their sales of certain substances that contain the short-chain per- and polyfluoroalkyl substance (PFAS) 6:2 fluorotelomer alcohol (6:2 FTOH) for use as food-contact substances

21%

The amount of total plastic packaging that can be replaced by corrugated packaging, according to FEFCO – European Federation of Corrugated Board Manufacturers

35,000 sq ft The size of Amazon’s new high-tech grocery store, Amazon Fresh, in Woodland Hills, Calif., which offers the Amazon Dash Cart for cashier-free checkout and Amazon Alexa to help manage shopping lists and find items in the store

80%

Americans who say they are concerned about single-use plastics, compared to 87% last year, according to a survey conducted by the Consumer Brand Association that shows the shift in mindset since the start of the pandemic

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QUOTABLES

“As director of U.S customer supply chain for Hershey, I’ve seen some incredible things happen since COVID-19 began. In the shadow of uncertainty and rapid change, I believe there is a silver lining in the ways that families have come together during quarantine to savor the simple things in life. At our West Hershey plant, our teams have been working 24 hours a day, seven days a week to churn out more chocolate. Thanks to our excellent, always-on communication between our sales team, category managers and supply chain, we were able to make week-to-week decisions about where Hershey’s bars were most needed to ensure the best possible access for s’mores makers.”

–Ryan Britt, Director of U.S. Supply Chain, The Hershey Co., in an article from BakeryandSnacks.com, “More s’mores please: Sales of American classic soar during COVID pandemic”

“When you think about a world of a contained set of supply on the shelf, when we are not able to fully meet demand, it does open the door to other businesses or other brands that may be left on the shelf or available that has filled in a little bit. I think over time, we’re going to get back to a better place.”

–Mark Clouse, CEO, Campbell Soup, in the company’s third-quarter earnings call, as reported in an article, “Big CPGs struggle to gain market share during COVID-19 despite sales boost,” from Food Dive

“Growth in the food and beverage industry will propel the global form/fill/seal equipment market on to a higher growth trajectory. Longer work hours and reduced time to fix balanced and nutritious meals is leading people towards processed and packaged food, driving growth in the market.”

–Transparency Market Research, commenting in a press release, “Growing Preference for Flexible Packaging to Propel Growth in Vertical Machines Segment of Form-Fill-Seal Equipment Market: TMR”

“We expect many consumer habits formed during the pandemic, like cooking and at-home eating, to continue in a post-pandemic world. Meal kits offer a more convenient, sustainable and affordable dinner solution for home-cooked meals than a supermarket can, and we expect meal kits to continue filling this need for fresh ingredients delivered to your doorstep.”

–A spokesperson for Hello Fresh, as quoted in an article from SmartBrief.com, “Meal kit industry shines during pandemic”

9/23/20 1:50 PM

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FIRST PERSON

Plastic-Free Packaging for Homecare Line Kelly Murosky, Senior Packaging Engineer at Seventh Generation, the Burlington, Vt.-based firm that sells ecofriendly cleaning, paper, and personal care products, talks about the packaging for the new Zero Plastic Homecare line.

Packaging World:

And who is represented on the team?

I’m the sole packaging professional, and I’m joined by people in product formulation, sustainability, brand management, consumer insights, supply chain, and finance. It’s essentially one team member from each of the major departments to bring a broad range of expertise.

Your firm is pretty well known for pushing the boundaries when it comes to developing sustainable packaging. Was there anything different this time around?

What this represents is not a traditional Seventh Generation launch.

It’s what we call test-learn-iterate. The idea is to use the marketplace launch to learn what consumers think rather than do consumer research prior to launch. It allowed us to launch within about a year instead of the two or three years that might ordinarily be the case.

The team kicked off formally in July of last year and product went into production this July. The plan is to improve upon the proposition as we learn more through interacting with consumers and getting their feedback. It’s a matter of moving the consumer input phase from the innovation stream to post-launch.

How challenging is it to get to a package that is zero plastic?

Kelly Murosky: It’s not easy. In our case it helped to have the project grounded in a team that we call our Growth Incubator Team. Small and agile, it lets us bring a new idea to market quickly so that we can get real-world learnings on the idea and then iterate and optimize. This was the team’s first big launch.

FirstPerson_1020.indd 24

Did you decide on steel as the packaging material at an early stage?

Since speed to market was such a priority, we favored a number of off-the-shelf packaging technologies very early on. We knew we didn’t have time for a long R&D development timeline as we sought our plastic-free option. We determined that tin-plate steel canisters offered the best moisture barrier for our product and that they would help us achieve the required shelf life. We also explored paper-based

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FIRST PERSON

| AT11-14USA |

packaging, but the existing technologies we tested couldn’t achieve the required moisture barrier that we needed unless we included a plastic coating or liner. But remember, we want this to be truly plasticfree. Right down to the paper tamper-evident stickers we apply, which also help keep the closure from coming loose during e-commerce distribution.

I see six varieties all in one container size. Is it a stock container?

Off-the-shelf tin-plate steel containers are easy enough to find, but we did have custom dimensions in mind so that the one container we specified would meet the needs imposed by both tablets and powders.

The tablets, for example, are stacked in four columns nine-high for a 36-count presentation. And for the powders we have custom sifter inserts for dosing, one with larger openings for the toilet bowl cleaner while the kitchen, bathroom, and hand soap powders all use an insert with smaller openings for more controlled dosing.

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This is a two-piece, side-seam can with a seamed-on bottom, yes?

Yes. It stands 144 mm tall and has a 70-mm dia.

The cans are printed by way of offset lithography in four colors and supplied by TinWerks, a company I first heard of, by the way, in a Packaging World article. Included in the graphics on the back of the container is the How2Recycle logo. We see some really attractive efficiencies in shipping because we removed water from the formulations. It makes our packaging footprint more compact if you do a direct comparison with some of our current products. For example, our 36-count laundry tablets in the Zero Plastic SKU brings a 70% weight savings and a 75% volume reduction in shipping compared to our 50-oz liquid laundry that’s currently on the market today in a 100% post-consumer extrusion blow molded HDPE. Those are significant numbers.

Like most of your product offerings, this new container is filled by one of your contract manufacturing partners. What does the filling equipment look like?

The powders are filled with a volumetric filler directly into the container. For the tablets, we did not have existing tablet filling technology in place. So we had

9/23/20 5:55 AM

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Designed with a Purpose®

FIRST PERSON

to design a more manual filling process. We used our 3D printing capabilities in our own lab to come up with product filling jigs for the tablets. As this concept evolves we’ll continue to optimize the filling methods.

How does all of this fit in with Loop, the Tom Szaky-inspired program for reusable containers that has caught the attention of so many leading Consumer Packaged Goods companies?

We have a separate group of products in the Loop platform. But for phase two of this concept we’re exploring the possibilities of bringing refills into the picture. When the containers are as robust and durable as they are, why wouldn’t you look into that possibility? We’re just not there yet.

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So how would you say this fits into your overall approach to packaging in general?

In our plastics journey, our packaging team has been focused on an approach we view in terms of less plastic, better plastic, no plastic. Less plastic is downgauging, or concentrating product into smaller bottles. Better plastic is using 100% PCR resin. Or it can be dropping in biopolymers where necessary to supplement PCR, as we do with some of our larger bottles where we couldn’t meet technical requirements at 100% PCR. For our 100-oz Laundry, we use 80% PCR HDPE Your Day at and use a 17% drop-in, recyclable bioHDPE PACK EXPO Connects from Braskem, with the remaining 3% being white colorant. This new line of products in Kelly Murosky will describe tin-plate steel is our first step in the direction 7th Generation’s experiences of zero plastic. We know we need to keep with durable packaging and iterating and improving on what we’ve the Loop platform on Monday, launched, but we feel it’s the only direction to Nov. 9th, at 9:00 a.m. CST take when we see how aggressively consumers during PACK EXPO Connects’ are asking for these plastic-free alternatives.

Jumpstarts sessions. Visit This launch is just a first step in giving them a packexpoconnects.com choice, but we hope it’s one step in the right direction as we begin to move the home care products industry away from plastic.

Jumpstart

Why so many product varieties in such an ambitious test?

A key goal of the proposition is to give consumers a plastic-free option across pretty much the entire home care range. So we have laundry tablets, dishwasher tablets, a kitchen powder cleaner, a bathroom powder cleaner, a toilet bowl foaming powder cleaner, and a lathering hand soap powder.

Where can a consumer find these products? And is there a way to talk about the relative cost of this packaging?

The line is launching first through online retailer Grove Collaborative in a canister of 36 dishwasher or laundry tablets. The powders range from 10 to 14 oz depending on the product.

As for the canister’s cost to us, the short answer is it’s higher than plastic alternatives. But that’s partly because we’re dealing with lower launch volumes than a traditional product launch. As we continue to grow the proposition, that cost will come down close to parity. —Pat Reynolds

www.nerconconveyors.com 844-293-2814 FirstPerson_1020.indd 28

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30 PW OCT2020

THE LEGAL SIDE

By Eric F. Greenberg, Attorney-at-law

What do PFAS Actions Tell us About State Regulatory Officials?

Last month we looked at some recent FDA action against perfluoroalkyl and polyfluoroalkyl substances, aka PFAS, some of which are used in grease-resistant coatings in paper and paperboard.

Turns out, there’s a fair amount of state-level action as well.

For one thing, the organization who brought us the model toxics law back in the 1990s that prohibited intentional use of four heavy metals in packaging, is considering amending their model law to include PFAS and phthalates.

The group is called the Toxics in Packaging Clearinghouse, and recently they sent out their draft amendments to the Toxics in Packaging Model Legislation for comments. If they finalize the model, presumably numerous member states will make it law, similar to the pattern seen with the quick adoption of the heavy metals restrictions, which are now law in 19 states.

But as they branch out from the limitation of heavy metals in packaging—relatively non-controversial and adopted quickly—to PFAS in packaging, there is reason to be concerned that these state officials might not be led by strong science about chemical safety, or due concern with the practical effects of their actions.

What they’re considering is expansion of the law’s applicability from heavy metals to other substances in packaging if they think they pose a risk. They were inspired in part by actions that the states of Maine and Washington have already taken. The clearinghouse’s past actions against heavy metals in packaging have become a fixture in packaging product stewardship considerations worldwide.

The newer draft model law calls for the “Prohibition of sale or distribution of a package or packaging components containing PFAS.” After the law’s effectiveness date, “a manufacturer, supplier or distributor may not offer for sale or for promotional purposes a package or packaging component to which PFAS has been intentionally introduced during manufacturing or distribution in any amount. There shall be no detectable PFAS in any package or packaging component.”

There’s a further provision that says, with especial imprecision, that no material used to “replace a chemical regulated by this Act… may be used in a quantity or manner that creates a hazard as great or greater than the hazard created by the [regulated chemical].”

Beyond PFAS and phthalates, the criteria proposed for adding additional chemicals of high concern and therefore ripe for regulatory limits are quite broad, and include, for example, those that credible scientific evidence has led a state government or authoritative governmental entity to find it to be a carcinogen, a reproductive or developmental toxicant, or an endocrine disruptor, or “persistent bioaccumu-

lative” and toxic or “very persistent and very bioaccumulative.”

The clearinghouse expresses concern with the logic of having persistent chemical substances in packaging whose use life is relatively short, if those substances present safety issues via packaging contact with food or other products, or complicate “[D] isposal, recycling, composting, littering or incinerating the packaging material” which can “release the substances into the environment.”

The primary substantive concern with this proposed law is that it’s too broad, encompassing “all” perfluoros, which it calls “the class of fluorinated organic chemicals containing at least one fully fluorinated carbon atom.” There seems to be agreement that some but not all PFAS raise safety or bioaccumulation concerns, so it would be best if they were considered individually, but the draft law bans them all.

There are practical concerns as well, primarily the prospect of differing states banning or placing differing requirements on a product or substance that is permitted elsewhere.

That kind of non-uniformity is a concern if these are substances used widely in packaging. It appears they are used by some companies but others have already started looking for alternatives.

Remember that FDA’s actions against PFAS involved word from industry that the substances had already been essentially abandoned.

What’s more, if the law requires there to be no detectable levels of the substance, every company would have to test for it even if they don’t use it and never have, on top of the analytical ambiguities of a vague concept such as “no detectable PFAS.” Another practical concern is with “alternatives.” So far, the draft model law doesn’t have a requirement that an alternative substance exist before a state can phase out a PFAS chemical, though it does for heavy metals. The laws already passed in Washington and Maine talk about banning the use of PFAS chemicals if the state finds safer alternatives available. But what if those alternatives cost five times as much?

Can we agree that it’s not appropriate to ban or restrict substances or materials simply because they are similar or related to other substances? And before you answer, remember that the level of sophistication of public debates over substances and materials is characterized by many people thinking every “chemical” is a hellacious danger.

Word around the campfire from those I have spoken with is that many suppliers are already exploring alternatives to PFAS because they anticipate there will be more legal, or public perception, restraints on the way. In fact, by the time this state law is adopted, if it is, perhaps industry will have already moved on to alternative substances. PW

Eric Greenberg can be reached at greenberg@efg-law.com. Or visit his firm’s Web site at www.ericfgreenbergpc.com.

INFORMATIONAL ONLY, NOT LEGAL ADVICE.

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THE BIG PICTURE

By Sterling Anthony, CPP, Contributing Editor

Packaging Pros Need to Know Basics of Product Liability A packaged product is an integrated whole comprised of two components: product and package. Product liability suits can target the packaging even when no claims are leveled against the associated product. The rationale is that if the packaging is faulty the packaged product is faulty. Product liability suits alleging personal injury caused by packaging vary as to industry, product, and circumstances. Such cases, nonetheless, are built on just a few principles.

Strict liability. If the package caused Plaintiff’s injury, liability is imposed, period. It’s not necessary for the Defendant to have done something wrong, nor to have otherwise been at fault.

Negligence. The Defendant owed Plaintiff a duty-of-care, that was not met, which caused personal injury.

Failure-to-warn. A product posed one or more hazards, such that its safe use depended on adequate warnings, but the absence of such warnings caused personal injury.

Breach-of-warranty. Any of three types of warranties were not honored. An expressed warranty is a guarantee conveyed in words and text. An implied warranty of fitness guarantees a consumer’s right to assume that a product is suited for its advertised purpose. An implied warranty of merchantability guarantees a consumer’s right to assume that a product is not defective.

Through one or more of the aforementioned principles, it will be alleged that the packaging rendered the product unreasonably dangerous and/or defective.

Some products are dangerous by nature (e.g., poisons); however, unreasonably dangerous products are dangerous to a degree that exceeds the knowledge and expectations of a typical consumer.

Defective products are so due to either design, manufacturing, or marketing. A design defect is inherent in all items manufactured to that design; in other words, items made exactly to design are nonetheless defective. A manufacturing defect is item-specific, meaning that it was not made to specification. A marketing defect is synonymous to failure-to-warn.

Packaging professionals automatically are stakeholders whenever a product liability case cites packaging. That’s because those cases allege (whether explicitly or implicitly) packaging-related errors of omission or commission, intention, or lack-of-foresight, dereliction, or something less-than.

Packaging is interdisciplinary, subject to the competing (and sometimes conflicting) demands of other disciplines. That fact notwithstanding, packaging professionals, by title or job description, are the persons who are most knowledgeable about the accused packaging; therefore, they are valuable partners in their company’s

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defense strategy.

Product liability laws differ throughout the U.S. as to limitations and requirements. What the laws have in common, however, is the process known as discovery, through which the parties obtain information. That information can be about anything concerning the packaging, including conception, research & development, testing, manufacturing, commercialization, distribution, and purchase and use by the consumer.

Packaging professionals might be accustomed to interacting with the legal department (or outside counsel) regarding regulatory compliance, for example. Interactions might be less frequent regarding product liability, limited to when the company is sued. But prior to (and even in the absence of) product liability cases, the two disciplines should cement an understanding of their mutual reliance.

Such can be achieved through meetings and presentations (attended by other disciplines, too), leading to policies and standard operating procedures.

Companies are known to take out product liability insurance, but the premiums become more expensive the more often the policies pay out, assuming that the insurance company doesn’t cancel. Even so, insurance doesn’t cover all the possible damages that might result from being sued. An example is a suit that becomes so publicized that it hurts the Defendant’s reputation. As another example, a Plaintiff can name as a Defendant any member(s) of the supply chain (including the retailer), possibly damaging relationships among members.

Every year there will be new product liability cases alleging that the packaging was of a certain condition, the condition existed at the time the product left the manufacturing site, the condition was unchanged at the time of product purchase, the condition caused the injury, and, if not for the condition, the injury would not have happened.

Product liability is a risk of doing business and should be reflected in the company’s risk management/quality assurance planning.

To best position itself, a company needs to be ever-vigilant, always challenging its own beliefs and assumptions regarding the safety and fitness of its products. A company convinced of its own due diligence is vulnerable to blind spots.

Fortunately, there are management tools available to best assure that product liability concerns are reflected in decision-making at all phases of the life of the packaging. One such tool that’s growing in popularity, called Failure Mode and Effects Analysis (FMEA), will be the topic of next month’s column. PW

9/23/20 6:11 AM

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OMNICHANNEL ANSWERS

By Eric Hiser, Vice President of Standards & Certification, ISTA (International Safe Transit Association)

Five Considerations for Preventing Product Damage Prior to Launch Preparing your package for its journey to the end consumer involves many considerations. One of the critical considerations is to verify that your packaging will perform as designed and leaves the customer with the desired brand impression. The verification of performance involves testing the packaged product to an industry-developed general simulation protocol. At times, this task can feel overwhelming, especially for those who are entering into new markets or are finding themselves engaging testing for the first time.

To help prepare you for this important task and potentially ease those overwhelming feelings, ISTA would like to share five common pre-testing considerations.

1. Utilize the appropriate test. An important step in the selection and use of test protocols is the user’s familiarity with their actual distribution environment.

Understanding the flow of packages—how they are shipped and handled and stored—is critical to test selection and interpretation of results. Users should regularly observe package distribution, both in the manufacturer’s facility and outside of it in warehouses, transportation facilities, vehicles, and customer locations.

There are many established test protocols and ensuring you select the correct one for your desired outcome is important. Absent of detailed knowledge of your distribution environment the test selection matrix (above right) will assist in narrowing down the test options.

2. Define Success Criteria Prior to Conducting Testing. Before testing begins, a determination must be made as to the definition of damage to products and packages. These are dependent upon the product, package, distribution system, market, customers, and other factors and can vary widely. Therefore, product damage and allowable package degradation must be defined by the stakeholders and interested parties (carrier, manufacturer, damage claim group, retailer, and/or others). In most cases, the shipper/manufacturer is in the best position to define product damage due to detailed familiarity with the product. Sometimes others may contribute to these determinations, including carriers and test lab personnel. But in any case, definition and agreement should be reached cooperatively among all

entities concerned.

These are going to vary significantly depending on the product manufacturer’s willingness to accept damage, but some example Product Damage Tolerance (PDT) definitions are no aesthetic damages, fully functional i.e.

TV turns on, scratches less than 0.5” in length and 0.125” in width are acceptable on the “bottom” side of the product. Additionally, Package Degradation Allowance (PDA) examples are no punctures to the outer shipping container, tape or sealing method shall remain intact, minor crushing of exterior shipping container corners is acceptable, or packaging system can provide further protection for the product upon completion of the testing.

3. Use a Certified Laboratory. There are several benefits to leveraging an ISTA-certified laboratory, including their direct access to the most current test protocols and confidence that their equipment can conduct ISTA tests per requirements. There are nearly 600 ISTA-certified labs around the globe. The easiest way to find a lab that is near your location and/or products is to use the ‘Find A Lab’ search tool on ISTA.org 4. Prepare for Testing. If you can’t bring the packaged-product to the test lab, then take precautions to overpackage your test sample for shipment to the testing location. This will help ensure that the test sample is free of any fatigue or damage prior to starting the testing.

5. Do not save testing until the end of the development process. The need for testing comes from the difficulty of predicting what will happen in large-scale operations, coupled with the requirement to make decisions prior to implementation. Therefore, testing can and should be done throughout the full design and development process. This starts with challenging early prototypes to simple and quick tests that allow you to gain insights on the integrity of the design(s). This also helps build confidence in a design and minimizes the risk of discovering concerns directly leading into launch.

While these considerations help provide a clearer understanding of how to tackle this critical design step, designing effective packaging doesn’t end when testing is complete. In a follow up article planned for December 2020, we will outline five key post-testing considerations. PW

ISTA is a non-profit, member driven association for the packaging and logistics sectors. For over 70 years, ISTA has helped its members control costs, damage, and resources during the distribution of packaged-products. ISTA’s members include product manufactures, carriers, suppliers, testing laboratories and educational and research institutions.

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SUSTAINABLE PACKAGING

By Anne Marie Mohan, Senior Editor

Insert Extends Avocado Shelf Life By Two to Four Days For the past decade, one top-of-mind sustainability challenge has been the reduction of food waste and the resulting adverse social, economic, and environmental impacts. From an environmental perspective, “in the U.S. alone, food distribution waste consumes about 6% of our total energy budget and 24% of our fresh water, and generates somewhere around 300 million metric tons of harmful emissions.” That’s according to Aidan Mouat, CEO & Co-Founder of Hazel Technologies, a USDAfunded (it has received $1 million in grants thus far) agricultural technology company that has partnered with Mission Produce to introduce a shelf-life extension program for Hass avocados.

AvoLast Powered by Hazel® relies on a quarter-sized biodegradable, food-safe sachet that blocks ethylene receptors, extending the ripe shelf life of an avocado by two to four days. For more than a year, Hazel worked with Mission Produce, the world’s largest supplier of avocados, to test, validate, and perfect its technology—Hazel® 1-MCP—throughout Mission’s global supply chain.

According to Mission Produce Sr. Director for Business Development Patrick Cortes, the year-long development phase gave Mission the opportunity to ensure the product worked and, even more so, that it made a significant difference in the fruit’s extended quality and shelf life. “Our research team felt it necessary to test the Hazel 1-MCP product in various environments for a prolonged period before exposing it to consumers,” he says.

As Mouat explains, the basis for all of Hazel’s core technologies is the controlled release of active ingredients from solid materials. “We start with natural materials and modify them to become functional for storing and time-releasing atmospheric active ingredients. The core innovation is the controlled release—we are not inventing new types of active ingredients, but rather allowing a more dynamic deployment of industry-standard and food-safe active ingredients that have been academically validated.”

The active ingredient used depends on the application, he continues. “For crops like avocados and apples, the active ingredients we use neutralize the effects of ethylene, a hormone that many fruits and vegetables release, which self-triggers continued ripening and eventually spoilage.”

Explains Cortes, “In order to extend the shelf life of an avocado, the fruit’s respiration rate must be slowed, and the insert does so by conditioning the atmosphere in the box.”

Because different crops have entirely different respiration rates and ethylene production levels, each Hazel product must be tailored

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to that specific crop. Says Mouat, “With Mission, we optimized our product’s application for Hass avocados in supply chains with different lengths and origins to have a truly flexible solution.”

Before partnering with Hazel, Cortes says that Mission had explored a number of post-harvest shelf-life solutions, but they were challenging to integrate into the supply chain. “AvoLast is so easy to use, it was a no-brainer in comparison,” he shares. “Mission will tailor the implementation of the packet depending on the supply chain and the customer’s end goal. That could mean at source, right after packing all the way to treatment after ripening, right before we deliver to the customer, and anywhere in-between.”

He adds that one box of fruit can be served by just one insert. While the number of avocados in a box depends on the fruit’s size, he offers the example of a standard Mission box, which holds 70 “size 70” avocados (those measuring from 4.75 to 6.25 oz), “meaning one insert can serve 70 pieces of fruit,” he explains.

Typically, an avocado’s shelf life is eight days from the time it’s packed to when it begins to ripen, the duration varying with seasonality.

AvoLast by Hazel lengthens that time by two to four days. Reads a press release from Mission, “By increasing the shelf life of both hard and ripe Hass avocados, Mission’s retail and foodservice customers can reduce throwaways, in turn increasing profit and minimizing inventory stress, while creating more positive consumer experiences that drive category growth. Above all, AvoLast can also reduce global food waste, an increasing environmental, ethical, and financial threat.”

Adding to AvoLast’s sustainability story, the active ingredients inside the insert are biodegradable, while the sachet material is a recyclable, food-grade Tyvek. “Many packaging products used in the produce supply chain are not biodegradable and therefore have a net negative impact on the supply chain,” Mouat says. “As the world moves to find non-plastic methods of packaging food while maintaining optimal shelf life, we believe our active biotechnology will support suppliers as they seek to use more eco-friendly packaging types.” Another plus, Mouat adds, is that Hazel’s products are entirely made in the U.S.—a rarity in the space in which it plays.

Watch a video of the partnership at pwgo.to/5720 AvoLast Powered by Hazel was launched in July 2020. According to Cortes, the number of inserts that will be used annually by Mission will depend on how many customers incorporate the product. “But if we estimate that 20% of Mission’s customers incorporate the insert, we will use about 5 million packets per year.” PW

9/24/20 5:12 PM

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Texas Brewer Upgrades Bottling and Adds Cans Installation of a canning line became a top priority as Altstadt Brewery opened new markets in Houston and Dallas. Also getting some serious upgrades was an existing bottling line.

WHAT YOU’LL LEARN

Shrink sleeve label on cans

Depalletize glass or aluminum

By Pat Reynolds, VP Editor Emeritus In the historic German settlement town of Fredericksburg, amid the rolling hill country of Texas, sits Altstadt Brewery, a three-story German Tudor brewery, restaurant, and entertainment center that occupies some 58,000 sq ft. Co-founded by William Scripps Jr., part of the Cincinnati-based E.W. Scripps media empire, Altstadt produces German style beers that are guided by the German beer purity laws of 1516 and are brewed using only four ingredients: hops, barley, yeast, and artesian spring water.

When the brewery opened in 2018, its only packaging format was glass bottles. But when the HEB supermarket chain suggested that sales of Altstadt’s beer in its stores would triple if cans were available, plans for a can line were boosted from the back burner to “let’s do it right now.” In charge of making it happen was Brien Harper, Senior Consultant at J.S. Held LLC. Altstadt management brought on J.S. Held to assist in building and operationalizing the ambitious expansion.

“A can line was always in the plans,” says Harper. “It just happened about two and a half years sooner than Alstadt originally anticipated.” He notes that in addition to the increased production capacity needed to meet HEB’s requirements, there were also plans to open up new markets for cans in Dallas and Houston. That’s why Altstadt, unlike other craft breweries that might opt for modest canning capabilities at first just to get their feet wet with a new packaging format, invested in a canning line capable of 245 cans/min.

To make things even more interesting, it wasn’t just the canning line that got fast-tracked. Also implemented at about the same time were some serious automation

Near the end of the new canning line sits a tray packer that receives six-count cartons from an upstream cartoner and packs them into corrugated trays four per tray.

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upgrades to the bottling line.

But let’s begin with a look at the canning line. Predictably enough, it begins with a depalletizer. Supplied by Uni-Pak, it handles both cans and bottles, so the brewery runs one container format or the other but never both formats at once. A short distance downstream from the depalletizer is a fork in the conveyor connection—down one fork go the bottles and down the other go the LA102-Half-Page-Island-Spread-2.pdf 1 cans.

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All cans are undecorated bright stock. Full-body shrink-sleeve labels supplied by Resource Label are applied by an Aurora labeler from Axon. The mandrel-style machine uses servo motion control from Rockwell to deliver consistent, repeatable performance. A fiber optic sensor reads film registration marks so the PLC can calculate cut lengths to assure sleeve length accuracy. The labeler also features industry-standard PackML programming and HMI interfaces to deliver consistent terminology, consistent screen displays, and standardized program structures, thus delivering ease of operation and maintenance.

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Full-body shrink-sleeve labels are applied by a mandrel style machine that uses servo motion control and a fiber optic sensor to read film registration marks.

The labels are immediately shrunk tight in an Axon steam tunnel. From there the cans pass through an air ionizer that pre-sanitizes the insides before the cans reach an ionized air rinser and a Domino ink-jet coder that prints the bottom of each can with lot and date code information.

Filling is done on a 21-valve KHS Innofil integrated with a six-head Ferrum seamer. Exiting the seamer, cans go through a water-shower rinse, a Filtec fill level and lid detector, and an air blower from Paxton Products that blows off moisture.

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Following an accumulation table, multipacking in paperboard cartons is next, and it’s done on a Brewpack 200 intermittent-motion cartoner from Switchback that features Rockwell Kinetix servo drives for controlling product load, flight chains, and carton erector. As cans are mass conveyed into the Brewpack 200, there are only three infeed lanes to receive them. But there’s no chance for back pressure to build thanks to the clever addition of a recirculation conveyor. Should there be a build-up of too many cans, the excess cans smoothly slide off into this recirculation conveyor and return to the cartoner infeed lanes.

The Brewpack 200 cartoner picks flat blanks from a magazine feed and erects them while also collating cans into six-count groups that can be pushed into the cartons. Flaps are automatically tucked and closed with hot melt applied by a Nordson adhesive dispensing system. The paperboard cartons get a date code from a Domino ink-jet system.

At this point the six-count cartons of 12-oz beer cans enter another Switchback machine, the TP-15 Traypacker. It erects 2-in. tall corrugated trays from flat blanks, pushes four six-count cartons into them, and closes up the flaps with hot melt glue applied, again, by a Nordson unit. Harper points out, however, that when Alstadt is running 16- or 19.2-oz cans, the Brewpack cartoner is bypassed and cans go directly into the corrugated trays 12 per tray.

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The WMCE Case Erector (far left) sends cases to the BCI Basket Carrier Erector/Inserter on the right so that the carriers can be inserted into the cases. The servo-driven paperboard carrier inserter (above) picks up four carriers at a time and maintains control throughout the process of inserting the carriers into corrugated cases.

Palletizing of trays and stretch wrapping of pallets are both performed on a palletizer from TopTier. A concurrent stretch wrapper, the TopTier machine is optimized for palletizing and wrapping loads as the load is built, so loads are stabilized during the palletizing process.

Empty film rolls can be replaced in less than 30 seconds. And advanced film management technology developed by TopTier means that the rate of film dispensed is accurately controlled by precise load cell feedback in combination with proprietary algorithms to assure load stability.

Bottling line upgrade Now for the bottling line upgrade. Designed and integrated by Van Zyverden, Inc., that firm determined that the most economical way to increase the speed of the bottling line and include the new canning line was to combine the two. This allowed both lines to fit in the new packaging hall and share some container conveyors, a combination bottle

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and can depalletizer, case conveyors, and the TopTier palletizer. Van Zyverden provided Altstadt with turnkey installation that included electric, line controls, sanitary piping, and rigging.

One thing that was retained in the bottling line is the Leibinger bottle filler that got things started at Altstadt a few years ago. It’s capable of speeds as high as 12,000 bottles/hr. But it never had a chance to run much past 6,000 bph because the operations upstream and downstream of the Leibinger machine were not optimized or automated. Now that they are, Altstadt is running 12-oz bottles at 8,000 bph and aims to reach 11,000 as soon as some additional adjustments are finalized.

As was mentioned earlier, the same Uni-Pak depalletizer used for cans is what depalletizes glass bottles. Harper says it only takes about 30 minutes to make a change from glass to cans or vice versa. The bottles run through a pressure-sensitive labeler from P.E. Labellers. It applies paper labels supplied by Resource Label. Next is a laser coder from Domino that puts lot and date code information on the bottle.

The bottles run single file into the Leibinger rinser/filler/crowner. A Filtec inspection unit kicks out any bottles with improper fill levels and

9/22/20 7:57 PM

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Shown here is the decline conveyor on Altstadt’s upgraded bottling line that takes cases filled with six-pack paperboard carriers from the overhead mezzanine level down to the case packer on the main floor.

then comes case packing on a system from Climax Packaging Machinery. Feeding this machine from a mezzanine level above are a pair of machines from Wayne Automation. Both offer reliability and ease-ofoperation features to help make the automation upgrades a smooth transition for the bottling line.

The first of these mezzanine-level Wayne machines is a WMCE Vertical Case Erector. It’s an all-mechanical-motion system that erects corrugated cases and hot melt glues the bottoms. The highly reliable upright case discharge simplifies conveyance to the next Wayne machine, the BCI Basket Carrier Erector/Inserter. The BCI outshines similar

equipment because carriers are opened upright and inserted into the case on one compact system. Sixpack paperboard carriers are erected and transported onboard to the inserter section. The servo-driven inserter head picks up four carriers (two per side) at a time and maintains control throughout the insertion process. The use of servo-controlled motion on the BCI enables it to achieve the speeds needed while bringing greater repeatability, better management of paper quality and variability, and ease of maintenance.

The cases then slide down a conveyor connection to the main floor and the Climax case packer, which fills two 24-count cases per cycle.

Then the filled cases enter a Wayne WTS Case sealer that closes the top flaps and glues them shut. Mounted near the case sealer is an ink-jet date coder from Domino.

Now that the dust has begun to settle after the recent flurry of installation and upgrade activity, Harper looks forward to rolling out the new cans. “We’ll hit Dallas first and then HEB, which could involve up to 250 stores,” he adds. PW

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Smooth New Case Packing at Fisher Nuts Secondary packaging on this new line includes the latest in case erecting, loading, and closing. The machines also accept three very different case styles all formed from one flat blank.

WHAT YOU’LL LEARN

Handling multiple formats

Quick changeover

Pat Reynolds, VP Editor Emeritus Sheltering at home, pantry-stocking, and baking are all the rage since COVID-19 reared its ugly head. One consequence has been that demand for snacking and baking products like those sold by Fisher Nuts has increased considerably. That led the firm to install a whole new packaging line in its Elgin, Ill., headquarters facility to keep up with the increased demand, which had been building even before the pandemic.

Secondary packaging is executed on equipment supplied by Delkor.

This is by no means Fisher Nuts’ first experience with Delkor. In fact the firm was an early adopter of Delkor’s Cabrio Case® in 2016. Today Fisher Nuts has eight Delkor packaging lines, all running the Cabrio Case format for their Retail Ready Packaging (RRP) needs.

“Delkor did a fantastic job of taking their Cabrio Case concept directly to the big retailers, who are our customers, and generating interest there,” says John Schafer, Vice President of Engineering at Fisher Nuts.

From Cabrio Case to stackable club store to regular brown kraft corrugated shipper, the end-of-line equipment in Fisher Nuts’ new line handles it all. Behind the cases is the LSP-100 robotic case loader. Inset shows a closeup of the Cabrio Case (Patented & Pats. Pending).

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not like we were forced into the Cabrio Case format because there are certainly other Retail Ready Packaging options out there, but they made it a whole lot easier for us to lean in Delkor’s direction because they had already done all that difficult leg work with the Walmarts of the world.

In addition, the Cabrio Case was more cost effective and provided great shelf appearance for the Fisher Nuts brand.�

The idea with this new line was to provide Fisher Nuts with a case packing line that could accomplish the following: • accept all 40 of their different nut mix combinations • handle each of 14 different primary package sizes—6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 10.25, 11, 12, 14, 16, 22, and 23-oz • package not just the retail-ready Cabrio Case mentioned above but also the other two corrugated shipper formats required by today’s retailers: a conventional brown kraft shipping case and a stackable club store case (see photo on page 46 for examples of each) • perform the above tasks yet require no more Shown here are freshly erected than 8 min for the packaging line—case erecCabrio Cases entering the tor, robotic loader, case sealer—to change robotic case packer. from one case style to another

“By getting the big retailers excited about Cabrio Case, and providing free use of this innovative case design on their case packers, Delkor created a situation where Cabrio Case was rapidly pulled into the marketplace, so we didn’t have to sell it to our customers much at all. It’s

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All of these goals are accomplished by three Delkor machines, which we’ll explore in more detail shortly. The upstream machines feeding them include a 24-head combination scale from Ishida that sits above a K260 vertical form/fill/seal machine from KHS. Integrated with the bagger is a film splicing machine from Butler Automatic that, says Schafer, greatly reduces downtime caused by the need to feed in a new roll of flexible packaging film when it’s called for. Also tightly integrated

with this upstream configuration of primary packaging systems is some unique product mixing equipment that makes Schafer reluctant to talk about primary packaging in any real detail. “It’s not like we’re building the space shuttle over here, but the front end of this line is pretty special so I think we’ll keep that to ourselves,” says Schafer.

One thing that he does say about the bagging machine is that it has on it two date coders. One is a thermal-transfer system from Videojet and the other is a Hitachi ink-jet unit. “We print black with the thermal transfer, but if we need to do white ink, we find the ink-jet works best,” says Schafer.

He also notes that in some cases it’s not Fisher Nuts who specifies the flexible film on which the date coding must be done, let alone whether the graphics on that film require black or white ink. “In addition to our own brand we’re contract packagers, so we do what the market demands,” notes Schafer. “I’d say something like 65 to 70 percent of our business is contract packaging. That’s also the reason why we need to be able to send 14 different bag varieties into the secondary packaging equipment and why we need to complete a changeover on that equipment in less than eight minutes.”

Adjustable case forming cavity Filled pouches drop out of the KHS bagger and pass over an Ishida checkweigher on their way to the Delkor LSP-100 case packer. That machine is fed by the Delkor Trayfecta® G-Series Case Erector. This is Fisher Nuts’ first implementation of a Trayfecta erector equipped with Delkor’s adjustable forming cavity.

The adjustable cavity, a new (patent pending) feature for the Trayfecta case erector, enables multiple formats and sizes to run on a single cavity. This feature enables the erector to transition among the three case styles in just 3 min.

“Since our engineering team developed this adjustable forming cavity design in 2019 we have installed about fifty Trayfecta G case erectors with this capability,” says Rick Gessler, Delkor’s Vice President of Engineering. “Our customers have had such success with this development that it has become the new standard. This feature enables a 3-minute changeover, is highly tolerant of warped corrugated, and the dynamic compression provides perfectly square cases.”

No one appreciates these optimally squared-up cases more than Shafer. “We’ve had some experience over the years with failed glue joints,” he says. “After all, it’s corrugated, and sometimes it can get a little wonky on us, which can lead to having trouble with those glue joints. With this system we get more compression on those joints so we can tolerate board that is less than ideal.”

Applying the hot melt adhesive that makes those glue joints is a Nordson ProBlue hot melt adhesive system. As for the Trayfecta’s controls platform, it features

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5-axis servo control, Compact Logix PLC, The case closer handles and Panelview HMI—all from Rockwell. all three case styles at The Trayfecta G-Series offers recipe-driven speeds to 60 cases/min. changeover that minimizes the number of manual adjustments involved.

Fisher on its new line produces 5 Cabrio Case sizes for retail ready display, two standard top-load shipping cases, and one stackable club store tray. With each shipper style on this new line the case is formed from a flat corrugated blank to minimize corrugated usage and reduce shipper cost. For example, Gessler says that by replacing the traditional Regular Slotted Carton (RSC), which includes a manufacturers joint, savings on corrugated are in the range of 15%. He estimates a 20 to 30% savings on the Cabrio Case compared to a tray/hood shelf-ready format.

Some additional aspects of the Cabrio Case are worth noting. The display front can be tailored to best complement the product being displayed, and the size can be optimized to meet shelf-facing requirements. “In addition, the case design is provided free of charge with the purchase of Delkor equipment, with no obligations to buy your corrugated from a specific supplier,” says Gessler.

Robotic case packing Erected cases discharge from the Trayfecta case former and are conveyed a short distance to the Delkor LSP-100 case packer. Also conveyed on a path parallel to the cases are freshly filled bags of product. The LSP-100 is equipped with two Fanuc M-10 six-axis vision-based robots in combination with a full Rockwell controls platform. Delkor’s vision

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Closely connected to the robotic case packer is the Trayfecta case erector, which now features an adjustable forming cavity (Pat. Pending). system eliminates the need for collation chains, pushers, and buckets commonly associated with case packers, thus greatly reducing the number of, or need for, change parts. Each robot uses a vacuum end-of-arm tool to pick bags one at a time and place them into cases. The robots are programmed to share the loading of incoming products, and cases are moved between load positions with a high-speed case-feeding system.

This case-feeding system, Gessler notes, is important for CPGs that are supplying their product in low case counts for e-commerce. “We can easily feed through cases at a rate needed for two-packs,” adds Gessler.

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The bags going into Cabrio Cases are loaded flat and shipped flat.

“This means they level out nicely instead of product all settling at the bottom like it would if they went through distribution standing up vertically,” says Shafer. “And then, when you open the case in the store and pull that hood off, each bag lines up vertically and looks just right.”

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Gessler points out that in some cases, such as when loading club store display trays, it’s beneficial for primary packages to be loaded in a vertical orientation. While some makers of case packers rely on sheet metal buckets and a tipping mechanism to bring this about, the LSP100 relies on a push-button tilt-index button on the HMI that the operator can select if needed. This automatically causes the conveyor on which the erected cases are carried to tilt at a 45-deg angle. At the same time, the robotic end-of-arm tooling tilts at a 45-deg angle just before putting its bag into the case. The net result is that when those cases exit the case packer, bags are oriented vertically. Go to pwgo.to/5744 for a video showing the conveyor tilting function: End-of-arm tooling is typically produced on one of four 3D printers that Delkor operates. “We run anything from standard 3D printed nylon to carbon fiber-impregnated materials,” says Gessler. “It lets us get really low-mass tools with high strength, which in turn helps to maximize the speed at which the robots can operate.”

All that remains at this point is for the filled cases to be closed. This is performed by Delkor’s Capstone F350 case sealer. Like the Trayfecta G-Series, it is able to close all three of the case formats, and it does so at speeds up to 60 cases/min. And once again it uses a Nordson unit to apply the adhesive.

Schafer says that a final piece of equipment involved is a pressuresensitive labeler from Multi-Color Corp. that puts a pre-printed label on each case for lot and date code information. “Currently,” he adds, “we palletize and stretch wrap manually.”

One last observation by Shafer is in regard to how much he appreciates the modularity of the most recent Delkor systems compared to some earlier machines installed at Fisher Nuts. “You can bend and twist and curve the connecting conveyors much more readily with this modular approach and make things fit your space better,” says Schafer. PW

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Small Batch Skin- and Haircare Line Offers Glass Packaging on a Budget After making the switch from a career in occupational therapy, a former hand specialist offers a variety of personal care products with cruelty-free, natural ingredients in recyclable packaging.

WHAT YOU’LL LEARN

Glass in the e-comm channel

Advantages of local suppliers

By Keren Sookne, Director of Editorial Content, Healthcare Packaging Magazine Natural skin- and haircare company Scrubtious Inc. is remaining agile during the pandemic. Founder Shannon Clark has been producing natural skincare products since 2008, when she began blending moisturerich oils and soaps for her then one-year-old nephew whom suffered from a severe case of eczema.

Clark’s Compton, Ca.-based apothecary has expanded from the original “Huggy Bear’s Butter” body butter—named after her nephew—to

a thriving range of facial serums, beard oils, hair/scalp products, pain salves, and more.

“My goal is to get natural products out to people, with ingredients you can pronounce,” says Clark, adding that every product she sells is edible (though not advisable), without questionable chemicals, parabens, or sulfates. Scrubtious touts some vegan products and some with hemp oil—all are cruelty-free.

Clark switched from glass to plastic two years ago, and though the extra weight was an adjustment with shipping, she says consumers enjoy the premium feel and the product benefits from higher quality and longer shelf life.

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What began as a side hobby for Clark, an occupational therapist for 13 years, grew into a full-time career. The company has temporarily pivoted away from brick-and-mortar to its longstanding e-commerce channels. “We did have a brick and mortar store in Long Beach prior to COVID-19, but we recently closed. Once we’re able to get back, we’ll have another storefront to sell the product… currently we’re busy with online sales in our Etsy shop and on our website.”

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Packaging considerations Whenever possible, Clark uses glass packaging, especially for oil-based products. “It’s non-porous so it makes prodScrubtious Inc. founder Shannon ucts last a bit longer,” she says, Clark has been producing natural and offers a high-quality feel. skincare products since 2008.

“We also prefer glass because it’s recyclable and reusable. We have a promotion that if customers utilize at least three products and recycle their bottles with us, they can receive a product for free.” This is not only a valuable for sustainability but for brand loyalty, as well.

Scrubtious selected SKS Bottle & Packaging and Berlin Packaging glass bottles. “SKS Packaging is an eco-friendly company that offers paperboard-based packaging, glass, and BPA-free plastic. We switched from plastic to glass two years ago. It was a bit of a switch dealing with the extra weight in shipping, but it did make a major difference in the quality of the product. Things didn’t expire as quickly and customers were happy to receive a glass bottle.”

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The Scrubtious branding has remained the same, with labels mainly in black, gold, and silver. Says Clark, “We want people to feel they have a bit of luxury at a budget cost.�

Packaging liquids and oils for e-commerce comes with extra considerations. “We use a double-stick sticker after we’ve sealed everything and we heat-wrap all of our bottles with plastic. Once it’s in the shipping environment, the packages bounce around. Temperatures are high in summer.

Things loosen up if you don’t put a seal on them, so we add a sticker seal on most products so they don’t leak.�

Prior to COVID-19, formulation and filling also took place at the brick and mortar location. “We’re pretty compact now that we’ve moved from brick and mortar into a smaller facility for inventory and operations for now. Hopefully once all this is clear, we can get back into a bigger facility.� Clark says there is a silver lining in the smaller location. “It’s helped us to be a bit more efficient with being in such a small space because we have to.� PW

Beginnings of automation As an emerging brand, all of Scrubtious products have been produced in small batches and filled manually at the apothecary. “We’ve added an automated hand pump for pumping oils into jars, just to make it easier since we have larger inventory now. We used to be hand-poured for a lot of our oils, but once we got a little bit bigger, we chose a Sumeve manual filling machine.�

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Facial serums are available in 2- and 3-oz amber glass bottles with droppers or sprayers.

Changes due to COVID-19 Beyond the temporary switch to all e-commerce, Scrubtious made changes once the pandemic hit. “We were using an overseas label supplier prior to the COVID situation, so we switched to a U.S.-based company. Since we had this change, it did make us look at more domestic sourcing and distribution. We all try to find a cheaper way of getting products—sourcing from other countries—but now that this happened it’s kind of pushed us to shop locally.�

Clark updated her company’s sanitization for disinfecting bottles and cleansing them prior to ship out. “We purchased an autoclave because I wanted to be sure products were disinfected,� notes Clark.

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60 PW OCT2020

Two-phase Upgrade at Ferrara Candy After four scale/bagger systems produced welcome results on primary packaging efficiency, some impressively versatile and compact case packers were added to the mix.

WHAT YOU’LL LEARN

Case packing versatility

‘Fines removal’

Pat Reynolds, VP Editor Emeritus Phase two addressed secondary packaging. Four Somic automatic case packers were installed as well as four Ryson spiral conveyors that take finished cases back up to the mezzanine level and then to palletizing.

Prior to these upgrades, the confectionery products made in Bellwood were bulk packed and shipped to a Ferrara facility in a nearby Chicago suburb for primary and secondary packaging. Lack of space in the Bellwood plant was the key driver behind this bulkpack-and-transfer arrangement. But eventually the Ferrara operations team saw an opportunity to increase efficiency. Perhaps even more important, the team was able to identify automated packaging equipment that would fit where it needed to fit in the Bellwood plant once some modest reconfiguring, involving the removal of a wall, had been completed.

Ferrara Project Engineer Rafal Nagorzanski says each of the four Somic 424 T2D case packers runs at 23 to 25 cases/min. He emphasizes how important it was that both the primary and secondary packaging equipment selected be capable of keeping up with the upstream candy-making system, which produces 127 lb of Trolli Sour Brite Worms every minute. But he also points out that the footprint of the case packers was of paramount importance.

“We evaluated a number of case packing systems, and what we found was that some have a pretty sizeable footprint,” says NagoShown here is one of four case packers that receive bags (lower left) and then discharge rzanski. “We did not have the space for that. finished cases (lower right) into a spiral conveyor takeaway.

What Somic has been able to do is condense things so that multiple functions take place in a very tight space. ConPhase one in 2018 consisted of the installation of four Multipond sequently, you don’t need much floor space to fit their machines in.”

MP-22-1000/400-H combination weighers each paired with a SmartOne additional requirement that the Ferrara team had is format Packer CX250 low-drop vertical form/fill/seal bagger from GEA. Also flexibility. “In addition to conventional wraparound cases, we also do essential was the installation of hundreds of feet of mezzanine-level two other formats,” says Nagorzanski. The formats he refers to are both conveyor connections from Dorner that take the freshly made candy Retail-Ready Packages (RRP), and there are two varieties. One is a tearout to the four weighers.

Chicago-based Ferrara Candy Co., a company related to Ferrero Group, recently completed a two-phase upgrade of the packaging operations for two of its best-selling candies: Trolli Sour Brite Worms and Black Forest Gummy Bears. The new equipment went into the firm’s facility in the Chicago suburb of Bellwood.

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The combination scale (left) is notable for a “fines removal” system that minimizes the amount of unsightly sugar that would otherwise collect in the bottom of each bag of product.

Each of the four wraparound case packers feeds a spiral conveyor that takes cases to an overhead level and on to palletizing (below).

apart wraparound case, with perforations, that turns into a Retail-Ready Package in the store.

No tools are needed by store personnel. They just break the perforations along the sides and pull off the top.

The other RRP produced at Ferrara is a twopart tray-plus-lid format, and the tray is a brightly decorated paperboard. Any one of the four case packers could be called upon to produce this twopart format. That’s why all of the case packers are equipped with a second magazine feed from which corrugated lids can be picked. According to Somic’s Peter Fox, this tray-plus-lid format has some rather noteworthy features.

“Most notable is the way we tuck the corrugated cover inside the paperboard tray,” says Fox. “We then glue that tab to the inside of the paperboard tray so that there’s no adhesive to spoil the graphics on the outside of the tray. Also, the person in the store can easily push their thumbs into the two thumb holes on opposite sides to break the adhesive bond and easily pull the corrugated cover off. It’s much easier than the tear-apart wraparound case with perfs.”

‘Great solution’ “These case packers proved to be a great solution,” says Nagorzanski.

Director of Project Engineering Jim Tandy adds this: “When Somic made a presentation to our marketing team, that’s when the Somic machines became the leading candidates, because our marketing team had never seen equipment capable of handling so many formats at such speeds in such a small footprint. We worked very closely with Somic on the case,

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tray, and tray cover designs. That collaborative element was a big part of what made this installation such a winner.”

According to Fox, it’s largely because Somic embraced servo technology and mechatronics so long ago—and then continued to optimize their deployment of these technologies—that the firm is able to design machines having a small footprint, impressive speeds, and the ability to handle multiple case formats. The machines at Ferrara, he notes, use Schneider controls, including PacDrive-3 for motion control.

“We’ll use other controls technology if a customer requires it, but our standard is Schneider,” says Fox. “It’s very decentralized, which

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means, for example, that our electrical enclosure can be very small because there are no drives housed in that enclosure. The drives are all integrated out on the servo motors wherever they are on the machine.

In this case that’s something like 40 servo motors. With servo motor and drive in one form factor, you greatly reduce the amount of cabling needed going in and out of the electrical enclosure. It also simplifies troubleshooting.”

The other impressive characteristic of Somic’s equipment is the response time. “It’s all the more critical when you’re combining all these functions together,” says Fox. “If you’re going to layer all these different functional groups on top of one another, everything has to be precise and fast when it comes to sending and receiving signals.”

Also from Schneider is the case packer’s industrial PC. “That’s where we store all our format recipes and case parameters, and it’s where operators interface with the machine,” says Fox. “You don’t have to go into the PLC ever on our machine.

That’s all done through the HMI. No plugging a laptop into the controls cabinet.”

In addition to conventional wraparound cases and a tear-apart wraparound case with perforations, each case packer can also produce this retailready paperboard tray-plus-lid format.

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At least one, and oftentimes all four, of the lines are in production practically 24/7—except, of course, during scheduled maintenance and sanitation. All four lines—each consisting of a combination scale over a vertical f/f/s bagger, a case packer, and a spiral takeaway conveyor—receive candy directly from the cooler that is the last piece of processing equipment.

A bucket conveyor from Deamco brings product from the ground-floor discharge of the cooling unit up to the mezzanine level. Eventually the product reaches an impressively efficient array of Dorner belt conveyors that split the flow of product twice. This is how the product eventually reaches the vibratory infeed conveyors of the four Multipond combination weighers.

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Primary packs produced on the line can range from 4 to 8 oz. On the day of our visit, the primary pack in production on all four baggers was an 8-oz bag of Trolli Sour Brite Crawlers, and all four case packers were set up for the same case format: a 12-count wraparound corrugated. We’ll focus here on just one of the four

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A belt conveyor drops candy into a diverter bucket that swings back and forth to feed belt conveyors that run in opposite directions, each feeding a pair of baggers. lines, beginning with the Multipond 22-head weigher. Like all such machines, it uses load cells to weigh product and then picks the best combination of weighments to drop into the bagger below. But one rather unique feature offered by Multipond is what’s called “fines removal.”

Fines are the fine-grained substances that occur during the manufacturing and processing of products including not only confectionery but also sugared gum sweets, salted crackers, and nuts. If too much of this substance makes its way into the bag, the package simply doesn’t look as attractive. Also, fines can sometimes interfere with seal integrity if they interfere with the heat-seal jaws that need to close as cleanly as possible on the flexible film.

Multipond’s machine removes fines through a unique patented design. Product is vibrated from the center cone and down into the 22 vibratory cross-head feeders. Each feeder has a very small slit cut into it.

The product pieces are much too big to pass through these slits, but the fines slide right through and into a funnel that leads to a circular trough

of sorts (this can be seen clearly in the top left photo on page 61). The contents of the trough are constantly removed by vacuum. This greatly minimizes the amount of fines that are able to make it into the scales below or, ultimately, into the bags.

“Ferrara has had a long relationship with Multipond,” says Tandy, “and they have demonstrated that they are the best when it comes to handling the gummies and sticky kinds of products that we produce.

Their fines removal technology is definitely one of the things that makes them stand out.”

As bags are formed and filled on the GEA bagger, they pass a Markem-Imaje ink-jet coder for imprinting of date codes. The bags then drop onto the belt conveyor that is the first component of the Somic case packer. It includes a product conditioner that vibrates and applies top-load compression to smooth out each bag and keep product from clumping in the bottom. “If this clumping is allowed,” says Fox, “you need to oversize your case to account for the ‘thicker’ bag.”

Just ahead of the actual case packer infeed, bags pass through a Mettler Toledo metal detector and an Ishida checkweigher. Then a servo-driven smart belt feeds bags with the proper spacing onto an independent servo-driven pivot belt that pivots up slightly as it drops bags into one pocket of a two-pocket collation device. Then, once the collator indexes slightly at a right angle so that its second pocket can be filled, the pivot belt returns down to its start position and again pivots in an upward direction as it neatly stacks another six bags into the second pocket. Once the collation device has all 12 bags, it strokes a short distance perpendicular from the direction of the pivot belt to a position from which two overhead paddles take turns sweeping 12 bags at a time at another right angle onto a flat corrugated blank that has been picked from the magazine feed by vacuum cups.

Bag orientation varies It’s important to note that for the conventional wraparound case, bags simply lie flat as they are fed onto the corrugated blank. But when either of the Retail-Ready Packages are in production, specialized tooling is used to first tilt the bags into a standing position before they’re pushed onto the flat blank.

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Confectionery Trends According to Trends and Advances in Food Packaging and Processing, a 2019 report by PMMI Business Intelligence, candy and confectionery hold a 5.1% share of the nine food categories, but face headwinds like increasing cocoa prices and consumer preference for healthier options. Download the report, or get a FREE executive summary, at pwgo.to/5575.

One other design detail Fox points out is the “forming cassette” that positions itself around the bags the instant they’re in place on the flat corrugated blank. The single-wall B-flute corrugated (or the 30-pt SUS in the case of the tray-plus-lid format), is thus formed around this sturdy steel frame rather than around the comparatively shapeless bags themselves. This produces a much sturdier case. It’s while the corrugated is being pushed against the forming cassette when the hot melt adhesive, applied by a Nordson Pro Blue Liberty 14 unit, sets up.

Then a hold-down device comes down and holds down the bags while the forming cassette is extracted.

Shown here are hot melt adhesive dispensers that are part of the wraparound case packers.

At this point the container is indexed at a right angle to a station where Nordson-applied hot melt adhesive is applied to the top flap and the case can be closed. Or, in the case of the paperboard tray-pluslid format, a corrugated top is picked from a secondary magazine feed and placed over the tray.

All that remains is finished case discharge around a turn, a MarkemImaje coder that ink jets the date code information, and an Ishida checkweigher. Then cases enter a roller conveyor that takes them to a spiral conveyor from Ryson leading to an overhead conveyor and eventually to palletizing. So far, palletizing is done manually, as once again space constraints make it difficult to fit an automated system in. But considering how efficiently the Ferrara team found a way automate case packing in a tight space, it’s possible this could also change before too terribly long. PW

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Sophisticated Coding and Marking of Mangoes Ensures Traceability This Mexican leader in the export of fresh mangoes has automated the traceability process in its secondary packaging, and made it profitable, by integrating the latest generation printing equipment with automatic data collection.

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Lilián Robayo, Editor, Mundo PMMI, and Media Director for Latin America In a company like the Cultivares Group’s Fruta-Exporta, where fresh mangoes are the only products, one could think that packaging, marking, and traceability operations are simple, thus they experience few setbacks. But the complex demands of international traceability standards—which precede the fruits’ harvest—are evident when looking at the set of variables involved throughout the chain: five varieties produced, different sizes and weights, about 20 types of different corru-

gated shippers in which the mangoes are packed, and the varied information requirements printed on the packages regarding batches, dates, barcodes, and other data necessary for their shipping and marketing.

Fruta-Exporta is a second-generation family business that currently holds a 15% share of total exports of fresh Mexican mangoes to the U.S., with annual sales of more than 6.5 million boxes, as well as customers in the European, Japanese, Korean, Australian, and New Zealand markets.

Fruta-Exporta is a secondgeneration family business that currently holds a 15% share of total exports of fresh Mexican mangoes to the United States, with annual sales of more than 6.5 million boxes.

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Traditionally, marking and traceability operations for their products’ boxes were carried out with thermal printing labels, requiring up to six people per packaging line. “We did everything manually, we did not have barcodes, and the information on lots, compliance stamps with United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) requirements and other data were provided even with ink stamps,” recalls José Luis Aramburo, director of Operations and of the Fruta-Exporta packing plant, located

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in the Municipality of Rosario, Sinaloa, 80 kilometers south of the Port of Mazatlán.

Every year, the agricultural products industry handles around six billion boxes of fruits and vegetables in the U.S. alone. These volumes have raised marketers’ awareness of the benefits of a systematic, industrywide approach that improves supply chain speed, efficiency, visibility, and control. In 2008, health problems on the Mexico-United States border gave rise to what was known as the “tomato crisis.” Leading buyers such as Walmart, Costco, Dole Food Company, Publix Super Markets, Sun Pacific, Consumers Produce, Inc., and Dawson Orchards, among others, established strict control measures for agricultural products entering the country—which in turn led producers to implement traceability technologies and ensure hygiene and safety conditions.

Walmart, in particular, had announced a project in 2016 to track the origin of mangoes sold in its stores.

On its website, the chain points out the background and results of this initiative and quotes the then Vice President of Food Safety, Frank Yiannas: “For mangoes, we started by establishing a benchmark. We brought a package of chopped mango to a Walmart store and asked employees to identify the farm it came from as quickly as possible. Employees started calling and writing to suppliers and finally got a response, almost seven days later. This is not bad by industry standards, but at Walmart we wanted something much better.”

After several tests and work with partner companies, the chain developed a traceability system that dramatically streamlined the identification process: “The time required to determine the origin of mangoes went from 7 days… to 2.2 seconds,” reads the summary of this project.

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In 2017, the approach between Fruta-Exporta and Impresoras Tintas y Fluidos, S.A. de C.V., a Mexican distributor of inkjet coding and marking equipment from manufacturer Squid Ink, allowed the company to address this need to improve traceability of its products.

Fruta-Exporta’s production and marketing of fresh mangoes for export were already part of a diversified operation, which over time included different types of packaging. “For cardboard boxes where we pack our mangoes, we have more than 20 different designs (4, 9, 14, and 21 kgs), while most other companies only use one or two types of boxes,” says Aramburo, referring to the complexity of their packaging and marking and coding operations.

This diversity required versatile and efficient solutions, provided ideally by the integration of Squid Ink’s inkjet printing technologies with special software developed by Impresoras Tintas y Fluidos, S.A. de C.V. By the end of June 2018, Fruta-Exporta had acquired 14 of Squid Ink’s CoPilot 500 systems for mark-

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By the end of June 2018, Fruta-Exporta had acquired 14 CoPilot 500 pieces of equipment for marking and coding, whose technical specifications comply with the demanding traceability standards.

ing and coding, whose technical specifications comply with the demanding traceability standards. Thanks to the height of its heads (2.8 in.), high resolution of printed characters, clear text, and use of highcontrast inks, the equipment guarantees accurate reading of barcodes on the mango boxes. As of 2020 the number of CoPilot 500 systems acquired by Fruta-Exporta has risen to 25, with the purchase of 11 more units in two years.

Along with installing the equipment in various Cultivares Group plants in the states of Chiapas, Oaxaca, Michoacán, and Sinaloa, Squid Ink—together with Impresoras, Tintas y Fluidos—began developing special software that allows managing variable information for each packed box, eliminating the use of thermal printing labels. “We started by developing the support, based on information on communication protocols and working closely with systems and mechatronics engineers, to begin integrating data into Squid Ink equipment that would allow dynamic changes to be made to packaging lines,” recalls Enrique Vázquez, engineer at Fruta-Exporta’s Squid Ink distributor, Impresoras Tintas y Fluidos.

With the Squid Ink´s CoPilot 500 equipment, the items required for traceability are now included on the boxes of mangoes ready for export: barcodes that store valuable product information, regulated by the authority in this field (GS1). “The code contains a large amount of information, so when it is entered into a computer the entire associated chain can be printed and you can access, anywhere in the world, the product’s information and complete trajectory,” says Vázquez.

“This software allows specific information to be added or deleted

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during printing, according to the specific needs of each client, which helps meet traceability requirements,” adds Aramburo. “To facilitate the marking and coding process, boxes are distributed among different lines in the packing plants, to ensure only three or four different types come out of each one,” explains the director of the plant in Sinaloa.

The advantages the installation of the new equipment has represented for Fruta-Exporta are notable beyond this operational aspect.

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Due to the magnitude of its operation and the large number of plants and lines, savings in labor costs represented by Squid Ink’s marking and coding technologies translate into high economic efficiency.

Before acquisition of the CoPilot 500 equipment, marking and coding operations at Fruta-Exporta used manual application of thermal printing labels that required six operators on each line. Now, after the Squid Ink equipment was installed, only one operator is required per production line. “We did cost, personnel, and material waste analysis, and calculated we will recoup the investment in equipment in the course of just two or three seasons,” Aramburo says of the quick ROI.

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“From the point of view of Squid Ink machinery, several advantages are offered. One is a communication protocol from an external medium that allows dynamic and variable printing, in the case of Fruta-Exporta,” says Ángel Cartagena, Squid Ink Latin America Sales Manager.

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The newer CoPilot 500 models offer a slightly higher print range (2.8 in. with one print head) and works with oil-based inks for marking or coding on porous surfaces in high-pressure and demanding production environments, such as agro-industry, with speeds of up to 30 marked boxes/min. “The use of oil-based inks for printing on cardboard boxes guarantees the heads do not dry out, which ensures that downtime for Squid Ink systems is almost non-existent,” states Ángel Cartagena, Squid Ink Sales Manager for Latin America.

The process of adopting the Squid Ink technology was gradual, evaluating equipment performance in different plants along the way. “Initially we acquired two printing systems, and when we realized that they worked very well we asked for two more. We have kept

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growing, until the purchase of 14 more units for the El Rosario plant, where we changed the entire marking and coding system to inkjet,â&#x20AC;? explains Aramburo.

The relationship between Fruta-Exporta and Squid Ink has consolidated since their first meeting during an association of Mexican mango producers show. â&#x20AC;&#x153;We saw their equipment at the booth, and it is in widespread use in the sector; between 30 and 40 percent of mango packers in Mexico work with them,â&#x20AC;? says Aramburo. Today, the two companiesâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; close collaboration ensures that operation of the installed equipment is reliable and its service timely. â&#x20AC;&#x153;We have an on-site engineer at Fruta-Exportaâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s main plant in Sinaloa. We are not taking risks; service is immediate, guaranteed from an office in the City of Celaya, Guanajuato, and by four additional engineers who live in the places packaging operations are carried out during harvest seasons,â&#x20AC;? says VĂĄzquez, referring to customer care in the service and maintenance areas.

This timely response to precise needs is also reflected Fruta-Exporta and Squid Ink are currently working on developing a box counting in the specific properties of the equipment, adapted to function to estimate payment for packers, on using the production data acquired the requirements of Fruta-Exporta. â&#x20AC;&#x153;The printing systems through a software, and on process optimization in all packaging lines. are operator-friendly and intuitive,â&#x20AC;? says VĂĄzquez. â&#x20AC;&#x153;When VĂĄzquez points out that his company is making progress in adaptwe developed them, we understood that the operators, members of ing software for data acquisition and collection to optimize control communities close to the operations, would often have limited educaand packaging processes. They are also currently working on capturing tion, so we included special functions that facilitate their handling.â&#x20AC;?

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production data information, such as the number of boxes by batch, sizes, and cold storage entry, among other variables, to develop new modules for the program that allow better control of inventories and product movement. “From the point of view of Squid Ink machinery, several advantages are offered. One is a communication protocol from an external medium that allows dynamic and variable printing, in the case of Fruta-Exporta,” says Squid Ink’s Cartagena. This integration with

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external media such as databases, for example, allows the printer to not only receive data but also communicate information about the process and products.

Growth Forecasts For Squid Ink and its Mexican distributor, working with the Cultivares Group has been an enriching and mutual learning experience. “The Cultivares Group is very representative of the mango producers sector in Mexico, and an example of efficiency. Every time they need something, they call us and we develop solutions jointly,” says Vázquez. An example of this joint work was a modification requested

by Walmart to the package’s coding, six months after the traceability standard was implemented. “FrutaExporta communicated the required guidelines to us and we applied them quickly. We have achieved a winwin relationship, where they bring us up to date with trends and changes in the markets and we develop the answers, always with the future in mind,” states Vázquez.

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The two companies are currently working on developing a box counting function to estimate payment for packers, on using the production data acquired through the software, and on process optimization in all lines. “We have expansion and upgrade projects in other plants and, in general, we want to be ready to serve new customers in Europe, Korea, and Japan, and all those we contact each year to expand our natural market, which is the U.S.,” concludes Aramburo. PW

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The scope of ocean plastics pollution is staggering. Each year, 8 million metric tons of plastic leak into the ocean, which is the equivalent

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of dumping the contents of one garbage truck into the ocean every minute. While it’s estimated that 20% of these plastics come from marine sources, e.g., fishing ropes, nets, and lines, during the Ocean Conservancy’s most recent International Coastal Cleanup program in 2018, nine of the top 10 most prevalent items collected were plastic packaging. Among them were single-serve plastic bottles and caps, foodservice items such as straws, stirrers, plates, cups, and lids, and plastic grocery and other bags.

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Given the visible nature of the crisis, end users of plastics, such as Consumer Packaged Goods companies, foodservice operators, and retailers, along with plastic providers have borne the brunt of the blame.

To stem the flow of plastic packaging into the world’s waterways, these companies, along with others up and down the supply chain, as well as non-profits, legislators, and academics have formed a number of alliances, initiatives, and programs dedicated to finding solutions. These include The Alliance to End Plastic Waste, the Global Plastics Alliance, Project STOP, the Plastic Bank, and Clear Blue Sea, to name just a few.

Most of the strategies put forth by these organizations include a focus on at least one of the following: expanding waste management, consumer education, design thinking around single-use plastics to optimize end-of-life, research and development, and cleanup, among others. No matter the composition of its members or its focus though, all agree on one thing: global collaboration will be the key to solving the ocean plastics pollution crisis.

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On the first day of the expedition, participants were invited to visit the gyre in a Zodiac boat.

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A Journey to the North Atlantic Gyre If a picture tells a thousand words, then experiencing first-hand the devastation caused by ocean plastics speaks volumes about the scale of the problem and the need for immediate solutions. In May 2019, SoulBuffalo gathered 160 people from 60 organizations from up and down the plastics supply chain to visit the North Atlantic Gyre for an experience many participants called “life changing.”

Shares Ed Huber, Vice President - General Manager, Kingsford and Chief Sustainability Officer for The Clorox Company, who joined two of his Clorox colleagues for the four-day expedition, the boat had just set out on its first day at sea when the organizers from SoulBuffalo spotted a massive patch of sargassum, a floating brown microalgae where plastic debris is often entangled.

“They said, ‘We’re going to re-juggle our entire agenda so that every single person on the ship who wants to go out and snorkel and see for themselves what’s going on can do so,’” Huber recalls. “And literally, I don’t think there was a single person left on that boat. When we all got back and were sharing stories and the samples we had collected, there was a realization that, at that point in the journey, we were 70 to 100 miles from the nearest point of land. Yet, to see all the plastic debris that was captured in that floating sargassum that far away from civilization, it was moving. I mean, there was everything from toothbrushes to a toilet seat that had survived who knows how long out in the middle of the ocean.

“And so that created the motivation, which would have been hard to

Members of the summit went diving within the gyre to see first-hand the plastics entangled in the sargassum. replicate if the starting point had been pictures on a PowerPoint. There was a crystallization that action is required, and we have some of the biggest brains in the industry across multiple spectrums of the total supply chain here on the boat, so let’s do this.”

Catalyzing that desire to find solutions to the ocean plastics crisis and facilitating an environment in which to do so was SoulBuffalo’s intention when they created the event, which they named the Ocean Plastic Leadership Summit.

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First 100% Certified Ocean-Bound Plastic Beverage Bottle Launched The use of ocean plastics for packaging is not new. In late 2011, Method was the first, with a liquid laundry detergent bottle made from 100% recycled polyethylene, 25% of which was retrieved from the Great Pacific Garbage Patch. Since then, companies introducing limited-edition or everyday packaging

additions to their portfolio that incorporate ocean plastics have included Procter & Gamble, SC Johnson (see sidebar on p. 90), and Dell. What is new is the use of ocean-bound plastics for a food-grade application.

While Coca-Cola introduced a sample beverage bottle in October 2019 made from 25% marine PET to show the potential of recycled ocean plastics, bottled water company ZenWTR has actually done it. Last February, the company launched its vapor-distilled, high-alkaline water in a bottle that uses 100% recycled ocean-bound plastic, certified by social enterprise OceanCycle. Ocean-bound plastic, or “ocean-diverted plastic,” is plastic recovered from within 30 miles of a coastline, or collected from beaches, waterways, and coastal areas.

ZenWTR is a mission-led company formed by entrepreneur Lance Collins, the man behind CORE, NOS, FUZE, and Body Armor. According to company CEO Bryan Crowley, ZenWTR was inspired to use ocean-bound plastics because “the team feels there is a great responsibility for companies to play their part in innovating more-sustainable solutions that can contribute to helping solve global problems like pollution and climate change.”

“When people think of plastic, inevitably they think of the plastic pollution issue in the ocean,” Crowley continues. “So we set out to create a more-sustainable option that effectively helps to clean plastic from coastal environments, preventing it from reaching and polluting the ocean where the likelihood of its retrieval is low. There is plenty of plastic already in existence that can be recycled, and ZenWTR believes we should work to

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and sustainable bottled water. It is available in 16.9-oz, 23.7reuse what’s already available as opposed to making new plastic.” oz, and 1-L sizes, with 1% of ZenWTR sales going to charities The ZenWTR bottle was in development for more than three dedicated to ocean conservation and coastal cleanup. Based on years, due to the complexity of its operations. As Crowley current projections, the company says it’s on track to rescue 70 explains, sourcing from global communities means it takes million bottles from the ocean by the end of the year. PW longer for the recycled plastic to reach the U.S. for production, recycled plastic is more expensive pound for pound than virgin plastic, and processing recycled plastic versus virgin plastic requires additional steps and takes more time.

“This means that timelines for production are longer, making the process more complex and costly than it would be if plastic was sourced locally or if we used virgin plastic,” he says.

“However, producing with recycled plastic versus virgin plastic uses about 84% less energy and cuts greenhouse gas emissions by 71%, and we’re helping to contribute to the cleanup of coastal environments and prevent a lot of plastic from polluting oceans, so for us, it’s worth it.”

The plastic resin is sourced from CarbonLITE, a California company that specializes in processing used bottles into bottle-grade PET pellets that can be used to manufacture new beverage bottles and other products. Regarding the network of accredited supply partners employed to collect the ocean-bound material, as well as the manufacturer of the bottle, Crowley says the information is proprietary. Also confidential is the technology used to remove the haziness that results from the use of 100% recycled PET. While PET is widely recycled, the labels, ink, and adhesives used for beverage bottle decoration often result in lower-grade recyclate that can’t be used for food applications. With this in mind, ZenWTR created a proprietary label material that it says is more easily and widely recyclable than current industry offerings. Says Crowley, “ZenWTR’s 100% recyclable labels are APRapproved for their PET-only material and washable ink system, making the recycling process ABB Robotics helps consumer product manufacturers significantly easier than standard PETG labels.” improve quality and productivity while providing The bottle is topped with a recyclable cap, as well. efficiency to package more products on the same lines, On the front and back of the bottle label is copy switch between products with minimal downtime, that advises consumers that the package is made and quickly ramp up to full-production speed for new from “100% Recycled, Verified Post Consumer products. Highlights include vision-enabled palletizing Ocean Bound Plastic” and is “100% Recyclable.” It and depalletizing systems that can adapt to infinite box also notes that up to five plastic bottles are rescued variations on the fly; and the unmatched agility of the from coastal environments to create each bottle.

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SoulBuffalo was co-founded by Dave Ford, Jason Throckmorton, and Rick Fascina. Notes their website, “In 2015, after traveling the world, SoulBuffalo’s founders recognized the urgent need to create systematic change on a global scale. To do that, we brought a broad spectrum of leaders from across the value chain to the table. Our role in all of this: to control the chaos and navigate change through learning, collaboration, and action.”

Before organizing the summit, SoulBuffalo had worked primarily with individual corporations, leading their executives and senior management on expeditions to areas with environmental challenges. When two very large CPGs simultaneously inquired about having them put together a trip to see ocean plastics, “the light bulb went off,” says Throckmorton. “What we realized was that this was a big opportunity to do a multi-stakeholder event. That was the first evolution of our business.”

To gather together as broad a spectrum of participants as possible, Throckmorton says SoulBuffalo invited “everybody.” He adds, “We have a very robust list through our advisory board and through our own research of all the companies in the plastics value chain, and we literally reached out to the entire industry.”

Those who accepted the invitation included corporate executives from some of the largest CPGs and plastics suppliers in the industry, NGOs, scientists, artists, innovators, and students, among others.

Huber says Clorox had already begun working with partners across the supply chain to find solutions, so they saw the expedition as a great opportunity to learn more and engage more deeply. “We’re a big company, but we’re not a multinational,” he says. “So we’re very reliant on collaboration. And so we used that opportunity to take some of the partnerships we already had and extend them further up and down the supply chain.”

Joining Huber from Clorox were Paula Alexander, Burt’s Bees Director of Sustainable Business and Innovation, and Matt Kopac, Burt’s Bees Manager of

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Sustainable Business and Innovation. At the time, Huber represented Clorox’s Glad and Brita brands. “At Clorox, we’re proud to say that we’re in 90% of U.S. households, but with so many brands, we have a lot of different initiatives that are at different stages,” Huber says. “The idea was that we wanted to have brands there that were already leading in the [sustainability] space and the ones that were motivated to do so, and then also brands that were newer in the space looking to get some motivation to be a bit more transformative.”

Close quarters lead to greater understanding According to Throckmorton, coming across the plastic gyre on the first day of the expedition was an auspicious beginning for the trip. As he explains, most people’s understanding of the gyres is that they comprise “football field, after football field, after football field of garbage and plastic that you can see.” The reality is very different. “A lot of it is very, very fine micro and even nanoplastics,” he says. “So to even be able to find one of the gyres is a challenge.”

Because the seaweed in the North Atlantic Gyre acts as a natural trap for plastics, participants in the summit were easily able to reach down below the plants and pull up handfuls of microplastics. “I think for a lot of people, it was an emotional experience,” Throckmorton says.

While the ship was the literal vehicle that allowed participants to share the experience of seeing the gyre, it was also the vehicle through which they were able to form relationships and collaborate in ways that don’t typically happen outside of such a unique setting—especially

Ed Huber, Vice President - General Manager, Kingsford and Chief Sustainability Officer for The Clorox Company, was among those representing CPG companies at the event. where relationships are contentious. In one example of this “forced” interaction, an executive from Nestlé Waters and a member of Greenpeace were assigned a shared cabin.

“I was on that boat, and I can tell you, the cabins were maybe 150 square feet, so very tight quarters,” says Throckmorton. “One of the big Aha! moments for us [during the trip] was that when you bring people

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SC Johnson, Plastic Bank Focus on Collection, Fighting Poverty In June 2020, SC Johnson rolled out a 100% recycled ocean-bound plastic trigger bottle for its Mr Muscle Platinum Window & Glass Cleaner in the U.K. and Ireland. The package joins another ocean plastic bottle from the company: the Windex trigger bottle for its Original, Vinegar, and Ammonia Free formulas, with 8 million bottles hitting North American retail shelves in February 2020.

The new product offerings are part of the company’s global partnership with social enterprise Plastic Bank, forged the previous fall, to reduce the amount of waste entering the ocean, while also helping alleviate poverty in developing countries.

The partnership is also a major part of its plan to triple the amount of PCR plastic content in its packaging by 2025. Under the partnership’s three-year agreement, the goal is to collect 30,000 metric tons of oceanbound plastic, the equivalent of stopping

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approximately 1.5 billion plastic bottles from entering the ocean—a target that an SC Johnson spokesperson says they are on track to meet.

“Under the new three-year agreement, we will reach a total of more than 500 collection centers and points across several countries, including Indonesia, the Philippines, Thailand, and Vietnam—four of the five countries that contribute the most to ocean plastic—as well as Brazil,” the spokesperson shares.

An interesting twist to the initiative is Plastic Bank’s use of Blockchain technology to help plastic waste collectors earn a stable income. The Social Plastic ecosystem invites residents in the world’s poorest regions to collect and exchange plastic for digital tokens. Through blockchain, they can use the tokens in exchange for access to necessities, healthcare coverage, school tuition, local

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loop and advance a circular economy while developing infrastructure in the areas where it is needed the most. We are eager to expand exponentially and maximize our efforts in cleaning the environment, prohibiting waste from entering the ocean, and alleviating poverty simultaneously. There is no better partner than Fisk [SC Johnson Chairman and CEO Fisk Johnson] and SC Johnson—other CEOs should take note.”

In the U.S. and Canada, the three Windex formulas in the Social Plastic bottle are sold in a number of retailers, such as Target and Walmart, as well as on Amazon. In the U.K. and Ireland, the Mr Muscle bottle is available from homewares and household goods retailer Wilko and through Amazon. Thus far, says the SC Johnson spokesperson, the company has collected 4 million kg of ocean plastics through its partnership with Plastic Bank. PW

currency, and more, reducing the risk of loss or theft.

According to Plastic Bank, residents can substantially boost their incomes through this system, as they receive the spot market rate plus premium for the plastic they collect.

Explains the SC Johnson spokesperson, once the Social Plastic is collected, the company purchases it at a premium over other post-consumer recycled plastics. It is then recycled through a number of SC Johnson suppliers and is manufactured into the Mr Muscle and Windex trigger bottles.

Notes the spokesperson, there are some imperfections in the PET bottle, which come with the use of any PCR plastic, but the plastic is ground, washed, and re-pelletized to ensure its strength and quality.

Says Plastic Bank founder and CEO David Katz, “Together with SC Johnson, we now have the ability to help close the

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together who may have different viewpoints, especially in person in a very unique setting, the humanity of the experience can really bring them to common ground on some issues. Now there are obviously going to be areas where these groups will never, ever agree, and so we focus on that middle ground, where there can be some collaboration and some meeting of the minds where they can agree to disagree on some things and agree to agree on others.”

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Says Huber, the lack of distractions from cellphones and e-mail also allowed participants to be more present and engaged. “We were in the middle of the Atlantic Gyre, disconnected from technology and otherwise. What we found was that even though during our day jobs we may have differing points of view on the how, everybody on that boat was committed to the what,” he explains. “It fostered an air of creativity and a kind of solution-first mindset in which everyone just kind of parked their egos and their current strategic plans at the door, and rolled up their sleeves, talked about the problem, and looked for different points of view.

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“You learn so much more from people who have a different point of view than your own, but having the time to really invest and learn and listen is tough. The boat enabled that, and it was amazing, the energy on the ship, because of that. There were no clocks, and so we were steamrolling through meals, and next thing you know, it’s like, ‘Well, the sun’s going down, maybe we need to grab a bite to eat.’

“The environment created was very, very unique in that regard, and I’ve stayed in touch with multiple people that I met for the very first time on that ship.

Now it’s been well over a year, so that’s a good testament to the power of that kind of event.”

Teams tasked with finding solutions The work that summit members were steamrolling through meals to get back to included activities such as presentations, panels, and discussions. In addition, participants were divided up into teams of approximately eight multi-stakeholders and placed in one of 10 Design Labs. The labs each focused on a different issue—for example, chemical recycling, the elimination of (non-essential) single-use plastics, and creating

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Decision Labs made up of a mix of stakeholders in teams of eight were tasked with identifying needs around specific challenges and creating solutions along with roadmaps to support implementation. a roadmap for minimal-to-no packaging in the CPG ecosystem.

The task of each team was to identify needs, come up with ideas for high-impact solutions, and develop action plans and roadmaps to support implementation. On the final night of the summit, each team presented the concepts they had developed, requesting commitments from other participants to pursue the concepts.

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The Lab Challenge for Huber’s team, Zero Hero, was that the retail experience is a significant driver for plastic waste in CPGs. The goal was “to incentivize both the public and industry to minimize negative impacts associated with consumption and waste and make zero waste mainstream.”

As described in the report published following the summit, the Breakthrough Idea for the Zero Hero team was “a transformative collaboration between big box retailers and CPG companies to create unified messaging, commitment, and support for zero-waste products and behaviors.”

Explains Huber, “Because of the timing of the trip, we didn’t have any retailers on the ship. So my working group was tasked with, ‘Okay, how can we take some of these ideas and see if they can get traction with key retailers and find ways they could be part of the solution.’”

As a result of the ideas generated from the working group, in February, Clorox began testing concentrated cleaners with a major retailer.

“Talk about examples of being holistic, right?” Huber says. “So you start with a bottle that lasts 10 years versus is one that is disposable. Therefore, you’re actually using 75% less plastic by using a refill cartridge instead of a spray bottle. And then because you’re not shipping water around, you can fit 70% more product on a truck. To put it another way, to ship the same amount of product, you’d use 70% fewer trucks.”

While he acknowledges that concentrated cleaners paired with refillable bottles is not a new concept, with several e-commerce retailers offering the solution, he notes that Clorox’s position as the largest

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PepsiCo, TerraCycle Tackle Plastic Waste in Thailand While ocean plastics pollution is a global issue—some of the highest concentrations of plastic litter particles have been found as far as remote parts of the Arctic—90% of this pollution originates from only 10 rivers, eight in Asia and two in Africa.

The main offenders are China, Indonesia, the Philippines, Vietnam, and Thailand and are the result of poor or mismanaged waste systems in those countries.

In 2018, TerraCycle founded the TerraCycle Global Foundation (TGF) with $450,000 in seed money from The PepsiCo Foundation. TGF is a 501(c)3 public charity dedicated to dramatically reducing the volume of marine debris and plastic waste found in the world’s waterways. The foundation’s inaugural platform is focused on Thailand (the Thai Foundation, or TGFT).

According to Burgess Davis, Vice President, Global Sustainable Plastics at PepsiCo, the company chose to support TGF because it aligned with PepsiCo’s focus on creating a circular economy for plastics. “We look for recognized partners like TerraCycle that have deep expertise and a demonstrated track record of success as well as hyperlocal, respected waste management organizations as part of our global portfolio of partners to reduce plastic waste and build a world where plastic

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need never become waste,” she explains. “Our Foundation’s partnerships are focused on outcomes—including tons of waste recovered and CO2 avoided—and we prioritize investing and funding projects with partners that are innovative, scalable, and can create lasting systemic change.

“Our goals through this partnership are to recover tons of plastic waste from our waters, increase public awareness and engagement to reduce plastic pollution, catalyze funding from others to scale impact, and ultimately to use recycled waste to create materials like primary packaging and road or constructions materials.”

In 2019, TGFT partnered with the Blue Carbon Society, a local Thai environmental group, to support the Thai government in installing marine debris capture devices, the River Trap, in the tributaries of the Tha Chin River, located in Samut Sakhon. Says Davis, “In Bangkok, in close collaboration with the Bangkok Municipal Administration, TerraCycle Global Foundation has installed three river plastic capture devices in the Lat Prao Canal that are intercepting five metric tons of plastic waste per week, and they anticipate installing additional devices in the surrounding waterways to further prevent the large volumes of

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plastics from reaching the wider rivers and oceans.”

Other projects of TGFT include working with local waste pickers to improve collection rates by providing fair wages, tools, supplies, financial literacy, education, care for children, and health and safety training; engaging local district governments and organizations to ensure the long-term stability and maintenance of the collection programs; and engaging a network of partners to identify innovative recycling solutions and end markets to sell the collected materials.

“We believe the TerraCycle Global Foundation will lead international public awareness about the need to address river and ocean plastics, and by finding recycling solutions for the collected materials, it offers a holistic approach to reducing plastic waste to create meaningful, long-lasting change that can be replicated across the world,” says Davis.

The foundation’s plans for the future include expanding to local communities in Central and Southeast Asia, including India. PW Read the full interview with PepsiCo’s Burgess Davis at pwgo.to/5741

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manufacturer of household cleaning products will allow for their use on a larger scale. “We’ll continue to be inspired by competition and other folks,” he says. “But more importantly, controlling our footprint, coming up with ideas, and then working with major retailers, that’s where we can make the biggest impact.”

“Maybe the biggest takeaway [from the working group] was that meaningful solutions require collective action,” Huber adds. “We can’t rely solely on one thing. We’re going to have to do better at design—like the refillable spray bottles. We’re also going to have to focus more on consumer behavior, which is really more around reduce. So how can I get people to, instead of going for another single-use plastic bottle, just fill up their Brita at the tap, which is a behavior change more than anything else.”

Summit results in four funded initiatives From those Decision Labs evolved what are now called Action Accelerators, or initiatives that have now been funded. Currently there are four, soon to be five, says Throckmorton, with Zero Hero being one.

Another Action Accelerator he says has gained a lot of momentum is the Plastic Pickers Operational Working Group (POW), which since its inception at the summit has received more than $100,000 in funding from major organizations across the globe.

Explains Throckmorton, “There are 1.5 million informal waste pickers in the world. As you know, they’re all over, in developing countries in Africa, Asia, some parts of Europe—you name it. There’s no real repre-

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sentative organization or body that is looking out for things like quality of life, health and wellness, making sure there is fairness in pricing and so forth.”

POW has a two-pronged goal: 1.) to help waste picker communities gain access to healthcare, living wage training, and micro-financing loans, and 2.) to connect these communities with global market leaders

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to stabilize secondary plastics markets.

Another working group that has received funding is Zero Plastic Waste Communities, administered by Pyxera Global. The idea is to take best practices that look at how plastic is being introduced into local villages and communities, how it is being sold and distributed, and how it is being captured, and share the intellectual property around the world.

Takoradi, Ghana is the first village earmarked for the initiative.

COVID-19 requires pivot to digital, expanded focus

The member organization that resulted from the summit, the Ocean Plastics Leadership Network (OPLN), managed by SoulBuffalo, was formed in January 2020. At that time, SoulBuffalo had three experiential events planned for the year, all of which have been postponed indefinitely due to COVID-19. Switching gears in order to keep the momentum from the first summit, SoulBuffalo moved the organization online. Every two weeks, it hosts a gathering that may feature a speaker on a topic—for example, green chemistry—or a virtual networking event for members to discuss a number of issues.

“We have panels and breakout panels and so forth,” Throckmorton says. “So it does start to look a bit like a virtual conference. But we found that people We provide automation solutions for the most demanding production environments. are adapting to the Zoom life, and they are looking to Capabilities to design, manufacture, customize, install: stay engaged, so it’s something that’s been very well received.”

• Container palletizers and depalletizers When SoulBuffalo moved the network online, it • Container transport Conveyor Systems (single lane, mass, single created a half-dozen products. One, called SALT – Susfilers and deceleration tables, gates and laning systems) tainable Action Leadership Training, comprises online • FILO or FIFO Accumulation Systems courseware that many of its members are mandating • Elevators/Lowerators that all of the employees in their company complete.

• Cable Conveyors In working with CPGs, SoulBuffalo found that many of • Case Conveyors them had just a few employees tasked with bringing • Can Twists and Fittings sustainability to the entire company. SALT helps those • Air and Water Rinsers in other departments, such as engineers, plant manag• Container Washers and Dryers ers, R&D, and salespeople, to understand what ocean • Bulk container totes and dumpers plastics are, why the problem is happening, and the • Production line electrical control systems ethical and financial impact for the organization in order to motivate them to work toward solutions in their own areas of expertise.

Since COVID-19, Throckmorton says OPLN has become almost a “COVID-specific charter,” at least for the next 12 to 18 months. Each month, a specific OPLN taskforce comprised of advisors and members meets to look at all the issues related to COVID. “So it could be everything from policy, to bag bans, to packaging, to the amount of PPE that is being created, to just the amount of plastic that’s being introduced into consumers’ lives beyond what they were normally consuming, and try and figure out solutions to that,” he shares. “Our mission has always been to bring people together, educate, and accelerate. This has just expanded our mission.”

Says Huber of the postponement of SoulBuffalo’s immersive events, “I would love another engaging experience, but I’m fine just continuing to roll up the sleeves and work on the solutions. Hopefully, when this epidemic is behind us, we’ll get back together on something that looks like another physical summit.

Until then, it’ll just have to be virtual, but we’re not going to quit working at it.”

Details on the COVID-19 Ocean Plastics Crisis Hub, For more information and specifications call the SALT Standard, OPLN, and Action Accelerators can Container Handling Systems Corporation be found at https://soulbuffalo.com/. PW at 708-482-9900 or go to

Container Handling Systems

www.ContainerHandlingSystems.com We Handle a World of Containers

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©2020 Container Handling Systems Corporation

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100% COMMITTED TO SUSTAINABILITY For more than 60 years, we have grown through collaboration with brand owners to design and deliver packaging solutions and manufacturing processes, driving demand for the next life of products and helping to reduce food waste.

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POST-CONSUMER RECYCLED CONTENT

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EVENT PREVIEW

PACK EXPO Connects Takes the Trade Show to You Live. Virtual. Reimagined. Connect with the packaging industry at the year’s most engaging event, to be held everywhere Internet is available on Nov. 9 to 13, 2020.

The value of domestic shipments for packaging machinery is forecast to continue growing nearly 5% (CAGR) to $8.7 billion by 2025, according to State of the Industry 2020, from PMMI, The Association for Packaging and Processing Technologies. With a continually evolving—and sometimes crippling—worldwide pandemic making supply chains and previous supplier and consumer packaged goods (CPG) connections complex, PMMI Media Group introduces a live, virtual event like no other, PACK EXPO Connects 2020, Nov. 9-13. Complete with live chats, live product demos and engaging educational opportunities, this reimagining of virtual shows provides attendees a direct connection with top suppliers to the solutions they need.

The first experience of its kind, this event boasts several new important features that will help foster connections with the widest variety of solutions providers available anywhere–minimizing attendee time and effort to find the innovations that you need. An easily searchable database of exhibitors and products, conveniently organized by 12 major categories, allows attendees to zero in on specific needs and schedule live chats and interactive product demos with technical experts. The intuitive, state-of-the-art interactive platform makes live engagement with exhibitors simple via MyConnects planner. At the same time, Outlook calendar integration allows attendees to add My Planner events to their Outlook calendar for ease of reference.

Now more than ever, packaging and processing professionals need solutions for a rapidly changing world. PMMI Media Group brought together all of its digital marketing expertise and decades of extensive industry knowledge to provides attendees an event full of virtual showrooms for live demos, live chats with product experts, and overarching educational offerings. n Live Product Demonstrations will connect attendees with exhibitors. These time-efficient, 15-minute, live demonstrations will allow attendees to check out what’s new, ask questions and engage with exhibitors in real-time. n Live 1:1 Chat will allow attendees to chat directly with exhibitors during dedicated event hours. If an attendee can’t catch an exhibitor during the event hours, Virtual Business Cards will help foster those connections even after the event’s conclusion. n Comprehensive Educational Content will feature thought-provoking sessions from leading suppliers and industry experts on today’s packaging trends. Attendees can take the information gleaned from these sessions to enhance their knowledge before heading back into the virtual showrooms for specific solutions. All content noted will be available both as scheduled and on-demand after the event.

Immediate industry excitement Early exhibitor commitment and support outpaced initial projections, forcing PMMI Media Group to extend exhibit hours, adding an additional hour to each day to ensure attendees were able to visit as many virtual showrooms as possible.

“The packaging industry looks forward to PACK EXPO each year, so any virtual event linked with the PACK EXPO name is something we

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know we needed to be a part of,” says Dustin Lee, director of sales, Morrison Container Handling Systems. “In our ever-evolving world, we have to be agile and continue to adapt. It may feel different but using this virtual platform to come together at PACK EXPO Connects is an opportunity for our industry to grow in a new innovative way.”

More than 500 exhibitors committed to the show in the first three weeks of sales and live showroom hours will run Monday through Thursday, 10:00 a.m. to 3:00 p.m. CST and Friday 10:00 a.m. to 1:00 p.m. CST. PACK EXPO Connects will bring together a full range of solutions providers–minimizing the time and effort necessary for attendees to find answers to real-world packaging and processing challenges.

PACK EXPO Connects has been designed to foster interactions between CPGs and suppliers with an intuitive, state-of-the-art virtual platform that makes live engagement easy.

“We are excited by the level of support we’re getting from exhibitors who are eager to share their technologies through this new platform,” says Dave Newcorn, senior vice president, digital and data, PMMI Media Group. “To ensure the greatest possible access for both exhibitors and their customers, we are expanding exhibit hours for PACK EXPO Connects. And, despite the expanded inventory, we expect live demo slots will fill up soon.”

Long time PACK EXPO exhibitor Dorner Manufacturing is also intrigued and enthusiastic about the prospects of the web-based PACK EXPO Connects.

“As Dorner worked to adapt our marketing strategy through these challenging times, selecting and then participating in the right virtual events is essential,” says Matt Jones, vice president Dorner Mfg. Corp. “An event with the cache and name recognition of PACK EXPO is sure to bring the packaging community together to educate, enlighten, and even entertain target customers seeking our products for their applications.”

Each day also features international demo hours to expand PACK EXPO Connects global reach. International demos will be broadcasting at 10:00 a.m. China Standard time (8:00 p.m. CST) and 10:00 a.m. Greenwich Mean time (4:00 a.m. CST). These time slots will enable exhibitors to demonstrate their solutions and enjoy live interaction with attendees outside the Western Hemisphere. In addition, all educational sessions will be available on-demand for international attendees to watch at times convenient to them. Spanish language closed captioning will also be provided for specific content and interviews with industry newsmakers.

“PACK EXPO Connects is shaping up to be the most innovative and engaging industry event this year,” says Jim Pittas, president and CEO,

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PMMI. “We are so happy that the research and effort invested in this debut event received such an enthusiastic response.”

In the months leading up to the announcement of PACK EXPO Connects, PMMI Media Group conducted extensive end user interviews with some of the world’s leading CPGs. These all-encompassing in-depth interviews had one goal: To ensure PACK EXPO Connects represents exactly what the packaging and processing industry wants out of a webbased event.

Immediately, the number one request across the board was a desire not only to see live technology, but also to have the ability to interact with exhibitors during the video demos of actual machines.

PACK EXPO Connects delivers the technology for exhibitors to conduct these interactive connections, complete with live chat features, resembling virtual Factory Acceptance Tests (FATs). These live video demos, coupled with the ability to interact with technical personnel and product experts, best mimic and fulfill the expectations and experience of what attendees expect from an in-person event. This also reinforced the need for a collective group of exhibitors demonstrating technology in action, with PACK EXPO Connects offering a one-stop-shop for CPGs. Beyond experiencing technology in action, attendees want to spend their valuable time exploring new products, rather than existing products presented as new. PMMI Media Group solicited its in-house team of editors to vet what is and isn’t new, serving as neutral industry experts.

Together, they will help make sure that attendees can track down the latest and greatest offerings and the virtual exhibitor showrooms presenting them.

Finally, attendees wanted robust, engaging virtual exhibits. The research revealed that attendees are not impressed with fancy 3D renderings of booths on a computer screen. They want to quickly understand what products are available, see live demos, and connect with experts in real-time. As a group, participants revealed that they would prefer fully fleshed-out web-based showrooms, complete with live feedback and interactions vs. simple listings offering a static encounter. PACK EXPO Connects developed the package to ensure exhibitors can deliver the solutions to attendees’ current packaging and processing challenges.

Free attendee registration launched Sept. 15, giving CPGs plenty of time and opportunity to prepare for preview week, Nov. 2-6.

This soft opening is a key time for registered attendees to browse live demo descriptions, build their planner and save items to Outlook calendars. Organization and pre-planning are the means to success as there will be so much to see and experience at PACK EXPO Connects.

As a bonus, packexpoconnects.com will remain live until March 31, 2021, offering additional opportunities for attendees to connect with companies via their virtual showrooms.

Get Schooled at PACK EXPO Connects Wide-ranging and informative content make up the backbone of PACK EXPO Connects educational and networking offerings, featuring thought-provoking sessions from leading suppliers and industry experts on packaging trends. All content noted will be available both as scheduled and on-demand: n Innovation Stages: Tune in for these 30-minute sessions to hear from exhibitors and industry experts on the latest breakthroughs and trends in sustainability, food & beverage, and more. Presenters will

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be available during their scheduled session for a live chat Q&A. If attendees miss a live scheduled session, video links will be available for future viewing. n Start each day with the morning Jumpstart sessions. The dynamic daily kick-off presentations are highly engaging and fast paced, featuring multiple subject matter experts in addition to reporting from our own PMMI Media Group editors. Visit packexpoconnects.com for more detail, but for quick reference the topics each day include: • Monday - Sustainable Packaging and Processing • Tuesday - Workforce Development. A special Packaging & Processing Women’s Leadership Network Education Session with Jan Tharp, president and CEO at Bumble Bee Foods, sponsored by Morrison Container Handling Solutions, Plexpack, Septimatech, and SMC. PPWLN events connect the audience through valuable insights on women in the packaging industry.

• Wednesday - The Robotic Revolution • Thursday - Remote Monitoring, Remote Access, and Virtual FATs • Friday - E-commerce, Emerging Brands, Healthcare Packaging Trends and Contract Packaging n Trend Chats will feature interactive discussions on buzzworthy industry topics. n Daily Download: Get the best-of-the-best rundown from our PMMI Media Group editors as they recap can’t miss showcases, the latest innovations, and thought-provoking sessions. Listen in as they review their daily highlight reel and what they are most looking forward to seeing tomorrow. Catch the session live daily or listen on-demand to make sure you are experiencing all the latest opportunities. n The Solution Room will consist of 45-minute interactive sessions led by industry thought leaders and partner organizations, discussing packaging challenges. Collaborate to find the solutions you are searching for and engage via live chat with our industry gurus from the Institute of Packaging Professionals (IoPP), The Association for Contract Packagers & Manufacturers (CPA), the OpX Leadership Network and OMAC - The Organization for Machine Automation and Control. n Packaging and Processing Women’s Leadership Network: Featured in a morning Jumpstart session, PPWLN will feature a presentation from Jan Tharp, President and CEO at Bumble Bee Foods.

PPWLN is sponsored by Morrison Container Handling Solutions, Plexpack, Septimatech, and SMC.

Pub Trivia

FOR YOUNG PROFESSIONALS Sponsored by Duravant Emerging leaders and young professionals alike can engage, interact, compete, and have some fun with Pub Trivia. Just like the good old days of happy hour trivia, this opportunity promotes fun, games, and networking for a good cause, the PMMI Foundation. Pub Trivia will take place via zoom meeting on Monday, Nov. 9, 4 p.m. – 5 p.m. CST. All you need is a pen and paper to participate. Visit packexpoconnects.com for further details.

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n The

Showcase of Packaging Innovations, sponsored by Klöckner Pentaplast, will feature winning entries from worldwide packaging competitions, including the Association of International Metallizers, Coaters and Laminators (AIMCAL), Flexible Packaging Association (FPA), Foil and Specialty Effects Association (FSEA), Institute of Packaging Professionals (IoPP), ProFood World’s Sustainability Excellence in Manufacturing Awards, Paperboard Packaging Council (PPC), Reusable Packaging Association (RPA), The Tube Council, and World Packaging Organization (WPO). n Miles to McCormick Walk/Run Challenge: Have some fun, be active, and support a good cause, the PMMI Education Foundation. While we will be missing PACK gives BACK and the miles we put in at McCormick Place we encourage PACK EXPO Connects participants to take a break, get some fresh air and go for a walk. Log your miles on a tour from O’Hare Airport to McCormick Place in Chicago. Participants logging their walks/runs three times throughout the week will be entered to win one of three, $150 gift cards for Chicago-themed treat from Taste of Chicago. n PMMI Media Group Awards • Sustainability Excellence in Manufacturing Awards ProFood World will recognize food and beverage processing and packaging innovation projects via the 6th annual Sustainability Excellence in Manufacturing Awards competition. Speakers from Smithfield Foods, Conagra Brands, McCormick & Co., and Hiland Dairy will present details about their award-winning projects in water, electricity, landfill, and product-loss reduction.

• Packaging & Processing Hall of Fame PMMI will introduce the Packaging & Processing Hall of Fame Class of 2020 during PACK EXPO Connects. The Hall of Fame celebrates professionals who have advanced the fields of packaging and/or processing; honorees are professionals who have dedicated themselves to the industry. Inductees, who are profiled starting on page 106, will be introduced during Friday’s Jumpstart sessions.

• Manufacturing Innovation Awards ProFood World will recognize food and beverage processing and packaging innovation projects via the 4th annual Manufacturing Innovation Awards competition. Speakers from The J.M Smucker Company’s new Colorado facility, Hermes Boissons—world’s first installation of in-bulk HPP, and Lotus Bakeries’ greenfield facility in North Carolina will discuss their award-winning projects. PW

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Each of the following market-leading companies* participating in Packaging World’s 2020 Leaders in Packaging Program are named sponsors of PW’s Future Leaders in Packaging scholarship.

This year’s recipient is the University of Florida Packaging Engineering Program.

We appreciate the support of all participants on behalf of packaging education.

More Information: packworld.com/leaders *These logos represent some of the recent Leaders in Packaging Participants. Sponsor recognition will alternate every other month. ©2020 PMMI Media Group

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PACKAGING & PROCESSING HALL OF FAME

Honoring Hall of Fame Careers Now on a biennial cadence, the Packaging & Processing Hall of Fame is inducting four new members into its ranks in 2020.

Here, we introduce a distinguished class.

The Packaging & Processing Hall of Fame recognizes career packaging and processing professionals for their significant contributions to the industry and education. The honor, which PMMI coordinates, had been awarded annually from 1971 until 2014. After a brief hiatus, the Hall of Fame induction schedule resettled into a biennial cadence starting in 2018, thus a new class is being inducted in 2020. Packaging World presents the four distinguished members of the 2020 Hall of Fame class, first announced on Oct. 1, 2020. The 2020 class includes Jane Chase, Pat Reynolds, Paul Singh, and Fritz Yambrach.

The Packaging & Processing Hall of Fame is the top honor a packaging or processing professional can receive in his or her career. Past inductees are packaging leaders who have dedicated themselves to the industry through

expanding knowledge and volunteer leadership and have personally advanced the field of packaging.

“Without theses pioneers, the packaging and processing industry would not be the dynamic manufacturing business that it is today,” says Jim Pittas, CEO, PMMI. “It is our honor for them to receive the recognition they deserve as the newest class of inductees into the Packaging and Processing Hall of Fame.”

You can view videos to learn more about the individuals who have been chosen for induction into the Hall of Fame Class of 2020 by visiting www. pmmi.org/hall-of-fame, or by joining PACK EXPO Connects, and viewing the morning Jumpstart session on Friday, November 13th. Check out more precise dates and schedules at packexpoconnects.com. PW

Pat Reynolds, Packaging World Currently VP/Editor Emeritus at Packaging World, a publication of PMMI Media Group, Pat Reynolds has spent 37 years in the packaging trade press.

Looking back on his career, he says he’s most grateful for the people he’s worked with and the opportunities he’s had to travel across the globe—from places as near as Gilman, Ill., to locations as far-flung as Hong Kong and Australia, to name a few.

Reynolds’ path to packaging journalism after studying English literature at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign and Anglo-Irish literature at University College Dublin was pure serendipity. After deciding a career in academia wasn’t for him, Reynolds sought a job in a field requiring similar skills. “One day I saw an ad in the paper for an opening at a trade press magazine,” he recalls. “And it turned out to be Packaging Digest. That was in 1983.”

A decade later, Reynolds joined—without hesitation—a new challenger in the packaging space, Summit Publishing and Packaging World magazine. Reynolds says he was confident in the success of the new venture, given the knowledge and experience of the people he was joining. Among them were two future Hall of Famers, Lloyd Ferguson and the late Arnie Orloski, along with Chuck Winnicky, Joe Angel, and Jim Chrzan. Angel and Chrzan are still with the company, occupying the positions of President of PMMI Media Group/Publisher of Packaging World and Contract Packaging, and VP, Content, respectively.

From the beginning, what attracted Reynolds to packaging, he says, is

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that it’s a horizontal market with an endless range of topics to cover. “One day it’s soup, and another day it’s nuts, and everything in-between,” he says.

That variety plus being in constant contact with the talented people who drive innovation in the packaging market have continued to fuel his enthusiasm for all things packaging. “They’re problem solvers, and they’re really, really clever. And it’s not just the marketer, or the engineer, or R&D, or the procurement person—it’s all of these titles that you interface with on a daily basis. It’s constantly varied, it’s constantly interesting.

I’ve always enjoyed the problem-solving aspect of packaging.”

Reynolds believes his role as a packaging editor is to bring together suppliers and buyers and inform them of each other’s needs and capabilities. “It’s really an extension of what PMMI does,” he adds.

Despite the many changes in the packaging market Reynolds has covered in his nearly fourdecade career, he says that some of the most transformative ones he’s witnessed are also some of the most recent, specifically digital printing, e-commerce, and SKU proliferation.

Another sea change occurring of late, he notes, is the amount of collaboration taking place among brands and suppliers, especially in the sustainable packaging space. Along those lines, he shares that one of the most fascinating articles he’s worked on was one he just produced in July 2020 on a 10-year project by Numi Organic Tea to develop a compostable film overwrap for its tea bags that involved a number of

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S. Paul Singh, Michigan State University At the relatively young age of 59, S. Paul Singh Ph.D., CPP, has achieved a lifetime of accomplishments. He became a Lifetime Certified Packaging Professional at the age of 47. Two years later, he was inducted into the Military Packaging Hall of Fame. And this year, in addition to being welcomed into PMMI’s Packaging and Processing Hall of Fame, he has received a Lifetime Achievement Award from the International Association of Packaging Research Institutes (IAPRI).

Through 26 years as a faculty member at Michigan State University’s School of Packaging, the Consortium for Distribution Packaging Research, and his current work in consulting and legal testimony, the lynchpin of his career has been education. Born in India, Singh was raised in a family that put a high level of importance on education. His grandfather travelled to England to get a Ph.D.; his father went to Australia for his Ph.D.; and Paul Singh went to the U.S. He got both his master’s and his doctorate at MSU, where he is now Professor Emeritus.

“Knowledge belongs to humanity. Anybody who is an educator should be sharing this always through every media,” he says, emphasizing the importance of publications like Packaging World as well as PACK EXPO—the first trade show he attended as an MSU student back in 1982 and where he first learned about the packaging wonder that is the common banana.

Singh continues on his road to learning. “If you want to learn, I’m ready to put my hand in as a student, know the subject matter, and then become the expert in that field,” he says. He draws on former students for some of that knowledge. “I go and see what my students are doing. I find the right people, the right students from before, and I become a student.”

With a background in mechanical engineering and fundamentals in dynamics and robotics, Singh sees packaging as universal, regardless of what’s inside. “Every time I do a project, I look at the four functions of a package: to contain, to protect, utility, communication,” he says. Working with the

packaging suppliers (see pwgo.to/5753).

Continuing to catalog the highlights of a richly rewarding career, Reynolds shares how much he has enjoyed the globe-trotting that has come with reporting on the packaging market, including the opportunity to visit Düsseldorf, Germany, a number of times to cover international shows such as interpack and drupa. “Along the way, a lot of my travels also had to do with being a member of IPPO [the International Packaging Press Organisation],” Reynolds explains. “IPPO was another real highlight of my career. I’ve made lifelong friends in that organization with people from around the world, and that means a great deal to me.”

Reynolds emphasizes the important role played by his wife of 44 years.

“Without Sue’s support and understanding, there simply is no packaging journalism career,” he notes. Another friend Reynolds would like to acknowledge is the late John Kowal, Director of Business Development at B&R Industrial Automation, who passed away July 8, 2020. “When I was assigned to cover controls and automation, I had a steep, steep learning curve,” Reyn-

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U.S. Department of Defense during the Gulf War deployment, he learned that it was just as important to get the beans and BandAids there as the bullets—and it all comes down to packaging.

Along with Gary Burgess, Singh created the Consortium for Distribution Packaging Research at MSU in 1990 and served as its director until 2010. The consortium brought together federal agencies, associations, and leading companies like Clorox, Exxon, and General Motors. “Over the 20 years of that research center we did everything,” Singh says.

“You name a fruit, and we followed it from orchards all the way to the store. And then we did the same thing for high-tech.”

Ultimately, Singh moved into sustainability and how to reduce packaging. He emphasizes, however, that reduced packaging is not sustainable if it causes more damage. “A damaged bottle is more expensive than overpackaging,” he says, noting that one leaking bottle will cause an entire 24-pack to be tossed in the trash. “Something that costs more is not sustainable. You have to make sure sustainability is sustainable on an economic front.”

Singh has worked closely with professional organizations like ISTA and ASTM over the years to develop packaging standards.

“Industry standards are the best way to prosper—not only for the United States but the whole world because they look to us for our standards,” he says.

Packaging is not the field Singh had in mind when he set his sights on studying in the U.S. As a top student in mathematics, he wanted to be a nuclear scientist. But he has no regrets, and recommends packaging for students today the same way a teacher did for him in 1983: “A packaging major knows more engineering than a business major and knows more business than an engineering major,” he repeats, adding, “We are the bridge between engineers and business. And we make things successful. I want people who are in packaging to be proud of that.” —Aaron Hand

olds recalls. “John was extremely accommodating in helping me understand as much as I needed to in order to get by.”

He is also grateful to his first packaging trade press colleagues at Packaging Digest who helped bring him along, including Bob Heitzman and the late Sarah Lee Gerrish—both hall of famers. “It was Bob who brought me into packaging journalism in the first place,” he adds.

In 2014, PMMI – The Association for Packaging and Processing Technologies purchased Summit Media Group. Four years later, Reynolds turned the editorial reins of Packaging World over to Matt Reynolds, transitioning from his 16-year role as Editor to his current position as VP/Editor Emeritus. The change was a smooth and seamless one, a fact that Reynolds is thankful for.

“Transitions are important in any business, and on a personal and professional note, I’m pleased with the way it’s gone,” he says. “New blood was definitely called for, with all the new digital and social media technologies, so the timing was perfect. I believe I’ve left the editorial ship in good hands, and I’m very proud of that.” —Anne Marie Mohan

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PACKAGING & PROCESSING HALL OF FAME

Fritz Yambrach, San Jose State University Just as we continue to see in today’s youth, a barely college-aged Fritz Yambrach, now Ph.D., had no idea packaging was an option, much less that he was attending a school with a world-class packaging program, when he was admitted to Michigan State.

It was a tennis buddy—Yambrach was a competitive junior tennis player, more on that later—who lobbed him this tip: “Take a look at the packaging school.” The advice led him to take an introductory course that would serve as the gateway to his career in the industry.

“It seemed to me that it was interesting, there was a reason for everything, and it was incredibly necessary,” he says of his experience in that course.

Degree in hand, Yambrach entered the real world for years before returning to the academic life. A Michigan kid, it was fitting that his first packaging job was at Mopar parts, then part of Chrysler, on Eight Mile Road in Detroit. Next up was a gig as a packaging engineer at ICI Pharmaceuticals in Wilmington, Del., one of the largest petrochemical companies in the world that would eventually be folded into McNeil J&J. He then spent time as a packaging engineer at Baxter Labs, a medical device specialist in Chicago, and followed that up with a stint in Rochester, N.Y., as a tennis pro.

Wait, what? A tennis pro?

Let me explain. In the intervening years, Yambrach met and married a globe-trotting academic in pursuit of a doctorate in toxicology and pharmacology, so he followed her as she moved from school to school. When his wife, Caroline English, followed her major professor to the University of Rochester, he left Baxter and made the move with her. It just so happened that it was down the street from another one of the world’s leading packaging institutions, RIT. “The first year I was in Rochester, I was a tennis pro at one of the local clubs,” he says. “At some point I happened to walk in the door at RIT and met Dave Olsson, who hired me as a faculty member. There, I helped develop maybe five or six different courses at RIT over 23 years.”

While on faculty at RIT, Yambrach completed a Ph.D. of his own at near-

by University of Buffalo. His dissertation was the first to specifically identify packaging suppliers as geographic sources of competitive advantage driving innovation in the medical device industry. This specialization of skill sets in external support areas create a milieu of shared learning, labor, and technologies, which benefits each firm. This is the main reason medical device firms have agglomerated in specific regions in the U.S. and the EU. A current example of this type of agglomeration is in Silicon Valley, where medical device firms have located to secure IT expertise to create products that have therapeutic benefits but now record and transmit data in real time.

By 2007, Yambrach had made his way to Silicon Valley, too. He did so after being asked to develop a packaging program at San Jose State to help feed that newfound local packaging need with educated talent. SJSU Packaging program director Herb Schueneman sought him out based on several recommendations along the lines of, “If you need a new program, call Fritz. He’ll do it.” His RIT reputation had preceded him.

“I think part of it is because I like teaching,” Yambrach says. “I’m good at it, and I realized that the student’s career is very important, almost more important than my career at that point. Teachers are blessed with the ability to improve people’s lives. I’ve seen that positive change for my students, and that’s why I teach and why I’ve taught so long. I decided to take the opportunity at SJSU because, as I asked myself, ‘how often are you given the opportunity to actually build something in the way that you want it to be built?’”

Yambrach says that while all packaging programs, at least at the bachelor’s level, are somewhat similar, there are different slants and tacks to take.

One element of SJSU’s packaging program has been Yambrach’s creation of a learning community, where students in the program would take classes together, be routed on course tracks together, and hence would study, eat lunch, socialize, and learn with one another.

Continued on page 112

The 2020 Packaging & Processing Hall of Fame Selection Commission Coordinated by PMMI, a Packaging & Processing Hall of Fame selection commission evaluates nominations and chooses the 2020 class out of a deep pool of deserving, influential nominees. The commission is made up of a cross-section of industry professionals, including suppliers, journalists, and end users.

• Joe Angel, President, PMMI Media Group, Publisher, Packaging World

• Jeffrey Loth, Global Packaging Manager, Microsoft Corporation

• Kim Carswell, Director, Packaging, Target

• James Perry, Director, Package Innovation + Sustainability, Abbott Nutrition

• Kay Cooksey, Ph.D., Professor and Cryovac Endowed Chair, Department of Food, Nutrition and Packaging Sciences, Clemson University

• Bill Rice, Principal, Packaging Technology, SC Johnson & Son, Inc.

• James Downham, President & CEO, PAC Packaging Consortium

• Michael Richmond, Ph.D., PTIS, LLC Global Management & Packaging Consultants

• Mary Gregg, President, Springboard Packaging Solutions, Inc

• Thomas L. Schneider, CPP, Past Chairman, Institute of Packaging Professionals

• Glen Long, Senior Vice President, PMMI, The Association for Packaging and Processing Technologies

• Nancy Wilson, CEO, Morrison Container Handling Solutions

• Suzanne Fisher, CPP, Fisher Packaging, LLC

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• David S. Smith, Ph.D., R&D Executive, Consultant, David S. Smith Associates

9/26/20 1:16 PM

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PACKAGING & PROCESSING HALL OF FAME

Fritz Yambrach continued from page 110

“What they did is they became a single unit community at the university, one that works together, and it’s worked exceedingly well. The students support each other,” he says. “Right now, after 13 years, I have a number of students who are out working that are now coming back and they’re hiring our kids, they’re giving talks, and they’re supporting the program, because they’re part of the culture.”

This collaborative culture serves students well in their careers on multiple levels. First, it accurately reflects the collaborative nature of packaging itself, and prepares students for accepting inputs from a number of differently skilled stakeholders on any given project. Packaging is multidisciplinary in that it’s composed of material science, engineering, marketing, and logistics, to name a few.

Also, in a small cohort of interdependent folks that number from 15 to 25, kids can’t hide. Packaging students are expected to be active in their learning. Accountability is key in this program, just as it will be in the real world.

“There’s no reason to make the students feel competitive,” Yambrach says. “There are more than enough opportunities in packaging for everyone.”

He knows that dynamic well. He’s been capitalizing previously unseen, even previously non-existent opportunities in packaging for an entire career. Case-in-point: He started a non-profit firm which designed a water vest for easier carrying of potable water in impoverished areas (www.Fritz WaterVest.com). Expect that kind of innovation to continue—except, of course, during his weekly court time at the tennis club. —Matt Reynolds

Jane Chase, Institute of Packaging Professionals As Executive Director of the Institute of Packaging Professionals (IoPP), Jane Chase, CPP, Fellow, taps into a swath of experience, education, achievement, and skill that fits the multidisciplinary field of packaging. Her start in engineering has branched into safety, operations, packaging R&D, processing. brand design, and a recent emphasis on education and networking. This collection of attributes rounds her into a complete, for lack of a better term, package.

A Midwesterner through and through, she left her North Dakota home to study mechanical engineering at Milwaukee’s Marquette University. Then, with bachelor’s degree in hand and a master’s degree from the Milwaukee School of Engineering in the making, she balanced grad school with real world experience while working at Johnson Controls.

That quality engineering background opened doors at nearby SC Johnson Wax, and an early introduction to packaging came when they asked her to develop a supplier certification for packaging components.

“As I thought of it then, I was only three years out of school, and I got to do what I considered play,” Chase says.

“I couldn’t help improve a quality system if I didn’t understand the supplier’s process. So, I had to learn blow molding, injection molding, thermoforming, paperboard, corrugated, aerosol cans, you name it. It gave me a strong, early background in packaging.”

This led to an aerosol packaging manager’s role for a few years, and a packaging R&D role for six years after, a decade she thinks of as her growing-up period. It was around then that the die was cast for a lifetime as a packaging pro.

“In quality, the packaging was either good or bad, and you had to figure out what to do with it,” she says. “I thought I could go into operations, never make any bad product, and save the world. I discovered quickly that if you didn’t have good R&D up front, you were pretty much doomed from the get-go.”

Over the years with SC Johnson, Chase had the opportunity to work on iconic brands and launch pack formats that, though revolutionary for the time, now seem mainstream. Consider the Shout brand of textile stain release gels. Remember the splash made by the gel-dispensing molded bottle with integral brush closure? That was Chase. How about the Schwan’s Food Co. pizza in a thermoformed tray and a peelable lid instead of on a shrinkwrapped corrugated disc? Also Chase.

“It’s just when you look back on the series of different products that you’ve been able to bring to the market, you look at them all as a whole,” Chase says. “Once you’ve done it for so long, the product innovations start to blend together, and as a leader, your recollection becomes about the contributions of your teams. There’s an overarching sense of accomplishment that

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you’ve been able to influence a business, an industry, and the consumer.”

Such innovations garnered awards—she has a handful of Ameristar Awards—new projects, new positions, and new brands. After SC Johnson, Chase has served in roles of increasing importance in packaging development and innovation at places like General Mills, Ecolab, U.S. Food Service, ConAgra Food, and Schwans, where her specialties included structural design, packaging line efficiency improvement, and strategic business development. She also holds three U.S. patents for packaging inventions and has been published and spoken on packaging innovation and sustainability on many occasions.

At least one constant through her varied and successful career has been membership in, and volunteer leadership of, IoPP. Chase first became a member only six years into her career and has been a fixture ever since. In a lot of ways, her ascendency to the helm of IoPP mimics her “day-job” career, with responsibilities and scope incrementally growing over time. She had served for more than 25 years and twice as chairman of the all-volunteer board before being hired as Executive Director, where she now serves.

“IoPP provided me with so much support as I was building my career,” Chase says. “I benefited greatly from the networks that I have been able to establish, the leadership opportunities that were afforded to me, and the skillsets I was able to build. In my mind volunteering in the organization was my way of giving back for what they had afforded me.”

Over her three years as executive director, Chase has been able to build a bridge to a bigger, broader base of the packaging industry through a partnership established with PMMI. She led the charge to convert IoPP classes— specifically the Fundamentals of Packaging Technology program—from a classroom course to an online, digital learning format, and did so well before the specter of a pandemic. She also oversaw the launch of PackChat, the online packaging ideas exchange, which has an active online community following. These most recent activities have been tactics as part of a larger strategy to get kids energized about the packaging industry.

“The industry continues to struggle to fill positions. We need to be making those matches and developing the next generation to take up the new challenges,” Chase says. “The thing that I am the proudest of, and what’s going to drive me for the rest of my career, is developing the next generation of packaging engineers. There’s nothing that gets me as energized as when someone who I’ve connected with in my career over the years picks up the phone and wants to stay in touch and bounce ideas off me. It’s about developing and encouraging that next generation.” —Matt Reynolds

9/26/20 1:17 PM

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EVENT PREVIEW

Be the First to Learn About New Packaging Trends The Innovation Stage at PACK EXPO Connects brings you the latest advances taking place across the industry. Check out these 30-minute sessions to discover coming trends and technologies that need to be on your teamâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s radar and create your event plan today at packexpoconnects.com.

CONNECTS November 9-13, 2020

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Below is a sampling of what you’ll see at the the Innovation Stages.

Please note this is a listing as of 9.1.20. For a complete listing visit the full Innovation Stage schedule here - PE.show/IS

Monday, November 9, 2020 12:00 PM An Interview with Ventura Foods - Building the Ventura Edge Operating System with Redzone at Its Core

Redzone Production Systems

Navigating the Challenging Path to More Sustainable Packaging

Amcor Flexibles North America

The Secret to F&B Manufacturing Agility in a Changing World

Siemens Digital Industries US

1:00 PM Automation 201 – Clarifying Your Automation Requirements for Project Success

Epson Robots

Packaging as an Ally: Sustainable Considerations in the Evolving Normal

Presto Products Company

The Intralox® ARB™ Multilane Divider S7050

Intralox, L.L.C.

2:00 PM Product Inspection Solutions for Foreign Material Prevention

METTLER TOLEDO

Tuesday, November 10, 2020 12:00 PM Initiating a More Sustainable Future with New Packaging Guidelines

Amcor Flexibles North America

Manufacturing Pivots in a Post-COVID Environment

Hitachi America, Ltd.

1:00 PM Adapting to be Future-proof as the Demand for Sustainable Packaging Increases

Syntegon Packaging Technology, LLC

Automate Your Factory Via App

Bosch Rexroth Corporation

Leveraging Digital Twins for Virtual Factory Acceptance Tests

Siemens Digital Industries US

2:00 PM Metal Detection with Artificial Intelligence

Sesotec Inc.

Unlock the Value of your Fluid Control & Pneumatic Systems by Turning Data into Actionable Insights and Driving Operational Improvement

Emerson

Wednesday, November 11, 2020 1:00 PM End-of-Line Automation – Risk Reduction Through Digital Twin Technology

Pearson Packaging Systems

Role of Packaging Innovation for Successful HPP Process

Teinnovations LLC

2:00 PM Adaptable, Efficient & Fast: A Look at the Future of Packaging Automation

B&R Industrial Automation Corp.

Ensure Seal Integrity for Every Package with New Food and Beverage Leak Detection System

Emerson

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Custom Cartoner Helps Employ the Blind As a non-profit with a mission to create jobs, automation can be a tricky proposition.

But with a custom machine optimized to be easily used by legally blind operators, Horizon Industries struck a positive balance between labor and automation.

WHAT YOU’LL LEARN

Validated changeover for vertical startup

Custom features for unique workforce

By Matt Reynolds, Editor Non-profit Horizon Industries, a division of East Texas Lighthouse, is one of the largest converters of industrial cleaning towels for the U.S. government, and uniquely is based on initiatives meant to rehabilitate and support the blind community.

Industrial towels converted and packaged at Horizon are sold through distribution to government institutions like the military, schools, and federal and state agencies, among other accounts. The mission underpinning Horizon’s core paper converting competency is to empower the visually impaired population to succeed through rehabilitation, education, training, and, most prominently, employment. Horizon currently has about 40 legally blind employees working at its facility, accounting for more than 75% of direct labor and more than half of all the personnel in the company.

Horizon’s Tillson says the versatile Criterion CL-240 cartoner was enhanced with safety Business had been humming along happily features, which allow its blind employees to successfully operate the machinery. until February, but it received a big bump from what was then an unexpected source. The 2020 pandemic precipitated min. For a company that had been running at around 20-30 cartons/ a newfound consumer adherence to sanitation, and a whole lot more min previously, that’s a big leap. surface cleaning and hand-washing in public spaces. So, as we consumAfter all, while business was good last year when the installation ers remember from our experiences in retail store shelves in March, went in, neither Tillson nor anyone else could have anticipated the paper towels and their ilk became a hot commodity. pandemic-led demand spike awaiting Horizon. And since the company “That’s a slight understatement to call it a bump. It’s been more like was—and still is—hand-loading the infeed, the blazing 240 carton/min a mountain,” says Lee Tillson, Vice President Sales/Business Developspeeds wouldn’t seem necessary. Currently, the speedy machine is runment at Horizon. “Essentially, we almost doubled our business overning at a leisurely pace of around 40 cartons/min. So why automate to night. I think the pandemic started making waves for us around March that degree of speed and sophistication?

13th, and we started seeing a huge increase the very next week.”

What at first blush seemed to be overkill was in fact a well-laid plan rooted in the local workforce dynamics, a previously unmet need for parts and service, and a blend of safety and flexibility considerations that truly are unique to Horizon.

By sheer luck—if any luck at all can be ascribed to a global panFirst, with a mission to employ those who are blind, Horizon’s redemic—Horizon had in July 2019 upgraded its primary packaging macruiting focus must be very specific to continue to find people who are chinery from older, slower legacy equipment to a new Criterion CLT-240 qualified to work, ready to work, and also happen to be blind or visually cartoner from R.A Jones, capable of cartoning towels at speeds of 240/

“Overkill” automation ends up just right

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Colors that readily reflect light are easiest for the legally blind to see, so bright orange sheet metal plates were added between the article bucket openings as a color contrast to aid the operators in loading the article bucket pocket and preventing access to the bucket conveyor chains. impaired. Packaging World readers know that there’s already a nearly pan-industrial labor shortage. There are only so many people who are blind or visually impaired in any given population—and Tyler, Texas isn’t a major metro area with a lot of candidates from which to choose.

“From that standpoint, we needed automation that could stand in for any potential lack of employees in the future,” Tillson says. “But on the other hand, we’re in the business of employing people, not eliminating jobs through speed and automation. We’re not looking to reduce jobs, that’s not what we’re about. But you can’t just ignore the fact we may encounter times where we’re just unable to find employees. That resulted in a balance of us keeping and trying to maintain a lot of older, fairly manual equipment.”

About five years ago, some of the upstream converting equipment aged completely out of usefulness. Tillson started replacing some of these lines, but not necessarily packaging equipment, at least not yet.

His upstream equipment productivity improvements, as they tend to do, strained downstream resources, and the existing packaging equipment’s age—on a line that the majority of the company’s revenue ran through—began to show.

This pushed to a breaking point the company’s collective negative experiences with older equipment. Even if they couldn’t yet use all of the speed or functionality of a new line, Tillson and his team wanted a recognizable, dependable brand that they could count on for the foreseeable future. They were willing to pay a premium for service and support.

“It was hard to get parts or any kind of service for the old primary

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packaging equipment, and the OEM itself had gone under or been sold off a few times,” Tillson says. “Meanwhile, we had quite a few packaging professionals in our plant that knew of R.A Jones and spoke highly of the equipment. In fact, I had looked into it in the past. Back then [five years ago], it just wasn’t practical—we just weren’t ready to spend that kind of money at the time. But when it came down to looking to replace the old equipment, we knew where we wanted to go.

I went back to R.A Jones in [2018], and they’ve made a lot of advances in their equipment over the last five or six years. I was immensely surprised what all they had to offer.”

What really sold Tillson on selecting R.A Jones was the number of field service techs the company had on staff. At the time, the number stood at 34, a number large enough to communicate to him that there was an extensive installed base of well-cared-for machines that lasted a long time. That was the tipping point that ensued in a partnership.

Flexibility and safety are 1A and 1B On a sheer practicality level, Tillson required more flexibility than was afforded by any of the standard, off-the-shelf equipment he shopped. The carton size mix at Horizon ranges from 4.5 in. to 16 in. in length, almost all solid bleached sulphate (SBS) paperboard with a few new clay-coated exceptions.

“For all the OEMs I went through this exercise with, the range they could accomplish was much smaller, and would require two machines or parallel cartoning lines,” Tillson says. “R.A Jones had standard machines that went to 14 inches, but they were able to modify that machine to run up to 16 inches. And those two inches might as well be a mile.”

In Horizon’s unique case, the need for OEM supplier flexibility extends well beyond the range of SKUs it can handle. With more than half of the total employees being legally blind, visual acuity considerations not present in most production facilities required further machine customization on the line.

Jumpstart Your Day at PACK EXPO Connects Interested in optimizing your employee safety and productivity like Horizon Industries did?

Jumpstart your day at PACK EXPO Connects with a segment devoted to workforce development on Tuesday, Nov. 10th at 9:00 a.m. Central, to charge up ahead of a full day of product demos, innovative educational sessions, and more.

Visit packexpoconnects.com

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“It was a no-brainer when we understood they could provide specific features for our visually impaired employees to work independently, and every operator that runs that machine is legally blind,” Tillson says.

Some custom features of this Criterion CLT-240 system included modifications to the standard infeed buckets, which were monotone gray metallic steel in appearance, in favor of bright orange bucket walls.

The infeed is manual, but it’s a continuous operation with one to two

operators having to keep pace with loading. Colors that readily reflect light are easiest for the legally blind to see, so bright orange sheet metal plates were added between the article bucket openings as a color contrast to aid the operators in loading the article bucket pocket and preventing access to the bucket conveyor chains.

The infeed itself was also lengthened by about 10 feet to allow more operators or allow the standard operator configuration more room to load buckets. Another feature is the ergonomic, lowlevel magazine. Operators find it easier to load at waist height, around 36 to 40 in with more of a bird’s-eye view of their task, instead of loading at shoulder or eye height. Once loaded, magazines incline to be fed into the cartoner. Machine design alterations also included a safety lift gate and a lifeline emergency stop for added protection and assurance.

Beyond the structural considerations, a custom fault-zone system, developed with the help of Banner Engineering, uses Banner’s WLS28-2 two-color red/ white lights, with the XS26-2 safety controller, to direct operator’s attention directly to the precise location of any problems. This bypasses the need for an operator trip to the HMI to determine where a detected fault resides.

“Compared to some of the custom builds we’ve done, our team really beefed up this machine for safety, and for good reason,” added Sean Spees, Key Account Sales Manager, R.A Jones.

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We already mentioned Horizon’s SKU range is significant. And going from 4.5- to 16-in. carton formats mean changeovers are a major consideration.

That’s why Tillson opted for R.A Jones’ Acc-U-Change validated changeover platform. Within this system, every change part carries RFID information. When each change part is swapped out, the platform reads the RFID to find out whether it’s the correct change part for the recipe indicated. The red light/green light is for the electric counters with feedback on rotary adjustments. This is a touch-to-verify system. RFID is the second part of the Acc-U-Change system. There is also a mobile touchscreen tablet to assist the operator. The platform simply will not let the machine start back up until every change part is validated as a go. An operator likely wouldn’t be tempted to try unless all the lights are green, validating the right parts are locked into the correct positions.

Strictly from a changeover perspective, the process on an R.A Jones machine remains largely the same whether the machine has Acc-U-Change system or not, just with the added measure of validated assuredness.

The real gains come in the ensuing startup, which can be said to be a vertical startup.

“Press go and you’re making product,” says Spees.

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once had to complete—which usually meant first finding, then tinkering with one ill-fitting change part—is eliminated. The vertical startup also eliminates any scrap, waste, or ugly product associated with slowly coaxing a machine up to speed and dialing into a more precise flow.

“If you follow the changeover steps one-by-one, and the lights are all green, you’re good to go,” Tillson says. “If you miss a step, the machine will not start. You can’t mess it up really. In the past, we’d have missed a step, turned it on, and ‘boom,’ the machine just jammed up. So that technology, it’s amazing. It really is amazing.”

But Horizon wasn’t simply adding Acc-U-Change to an existing machine. Compared to the legacy equipment it had been running, Tillson was able to drastically cut down on changeover time and reduce labor with the new machine, irrespective of the vertical startup capabilities.

“Changeovers used to mean involving our maintenance department, and if we wanted to make a major change, it would take two to three hours,” he says. “I don’t even think the maintenance department is involved anymore, now it’s our operators that do it. Most changeover are down to eight or nine minutes.”

Taken together, the triad of: 1. greatly shortening changeover time, 2. drastically limiting the labor involved, and 3. eliminating dial-in time and waste via the vertical startup account for perhaps the most significant practical performance improvements on the line. That is, of course, unless Tillson decides to use more of that 240 carton/min machine’s capacity.

What’s on the horizon Future packaging requirements for the company were also considered in the custom machine design, and Tillson made sure he had the ability to easily modify or enhance the packaging line as needs may grow or change. The hand-loading operation at the infeed is currently a bottleneck if you’re only looking at the speed variable, but it fulfills the larger mission of providing meaningful employment to vision impaired people.

But the reality is that labor is hard to find, East Texas is somewhat sparse, and people move around. Add to that the mission of hiring blind or visually impaired associates, and the available labor pool gets even shallower. Tillson is hyper-aware of that dynamic, and future automation may be necessary. One likely spot for that is the manual infeed, since it sits between the Criterion CLT-240 and increasingly sophisticated and fast interfolders—equipment that prepares and folds clips of towels to be cartoned—just upstream.

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R.A Jones machine was built to handle a change to automation,” Tillson says. “So now we manually put the clips in the buckets, but we set it up so that in the future, with minor modification, we could automate where the clips would be machinefed into the cartoner.”

During the FAT in Covington, Ky., Tillson’s team even tested a faster infeed, at about 130/min, or the pace newer interfolders, to ensure the catoner could keep pace if and when that time comes. It met the challenge.

Given the nature of Horizon as a nonprofit serving a good that’s greater than simple efficiency, Tillson has to walk a fine line between what can seem to be competing goals. It didn’t bear mentionThe machine’s Acc-U-Change feature provides validated changeover, which ensures set-points ing earlier, but Tillson himself is legally are placed for vertical start-up, while Fault Zone Indication illuminates the work area and blind, and he is as invested in the societal highlights the area of the machine where a fault may occur. goals as he is the performance goals. But if this cartoner is an indicator of the path he intends to walk with labor “We have multiple interfolders that we feed into the cartoner now. and automation, he’s threading the needle between workforce realities, But part of the process in the efficiency part, and this back up to the difand keeping viable a cause that helps people gain meaningful employficulty in finding employees, that if and when we get to the point where ment. That’s a winning balance to strike. PW we’re ready to buy a larger, faster interfolder, from say like Bretting, the

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AUTOMATION

OEM APPLICATION NOTE

Automation Platform Helps Liquibox Build Better Bags An advanced automation and controls platform combined with a fast communications protocol has helped this bag-in-box bag maker optimize manufacturing over the years.

WHAT YOU’LL LEARN

Effective use of sensors A leading producer of the flexible film bags used in a wide variety of bag-in-box applications, Liquibox has steadily optimized the performance of its Maverick line of bag-making machines by leveraging an Omron controls and automation platform. High on the list of performance characteristics enjoyed by Liquibox thanks to its use of Omron’s technology is the ability to handle a range of film types, bag sizes, and dispensing fitments with minimal downtime thanks to quick changeover and simple-to-navigate machine operation. An added benefit— and one that is increasingly important as businesses of all stripes strive

Adjustment on the fly to be more environmentally responsible—is minimal material waste.

“Our relationship with Omron has enabled us to move forward from their CJ2M PLC and G5 servo systems to their Sysmac platform, which is providing even better performance,” says Kyle Brookes, Liquibox Engineering Manager. “Our machines deliver 133% higher output than comparable machines made by our competitors.”

Sysmac is the latest machine automation platform from Omron and features full integration from controller to software. The result is a robust platform whose NJ Machine Automation Controller (MAC) integrates motion, sequencing, safety, networking, and vision inspection.

A new software, Sysmac Studio, includes configuration, programming, simulation, and monitoring. Included is a fast fieldbus network, EtherCAT, to control motion, safety, vision, sensors, and actuators.

The processing speed of the MAC combined with the network speed of EtherCAT makes it possible to use feedback to make calculations that let operators adjust on the fly to bring about improved performance.

Accurate control of film speed and tension is critical on the Maverick bag making system, and Liquibox gets a big help from both fiber optic and proximity sensors that feed into the automation platform. Also a key are temperature controllers that deliver consistent side seal temperatures (inset above).

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As for the quick changeovers, Brookes attributes that to Omron’s NS10 TV002 HMI. “Being able to select a variable combination of film types, material sizes, and fitments allows our machines to produce a variety of applications during a single shift with minimal downtime,” he says.

Each selection on the HMI triggers a signal that indicates the need to stop producing the current product and to load a new set of raw materials. With the additional guidance of Omron’s motion and control prod-

AUTOMATION

ucts, the Maverick machines react in near real time, reducing energy consumption and minimizing waste.

The films used to produce Liquibox’s bags come in large rolls. It’s important for each roll to be loaded on the unwinder properly and also for the film to be controlled accurately all along the length of the machine.

Otherwise, wrinkles and other defects can occur, which in turn means waste. To prevent such defects, Liquibox relies on Omron’s servo motors to ensure accuracy as the film is drawn along the machine. “We have a tight tolerance of plus or minus 2 mm on the draw,” says Brookes. “The Omron servos allow us to achieve our specification without experiencing over-pull or under-pull.”

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Also critical parameters in the films that Liquibox runs on its machines are the gauge and melting points.

Both dictate the temperature needed for effecting a proper heat seal without burning through the film.

“Omron’s E5C series of temperature controllers ensure the temperature on the sealing bars remains stable throughout any production run,” says Brookes. “And they easily adjust to accommodate the temperature variance from any changeover in film.”

Another way Liquibox has been able to minimize waste in production is with sensors. “When used in combination with control and motion products, Omron’s sensors predict and counteract slippage,” says Brookes. Liquibox uses the E2E series of proximity sensors to detect the alignment of film between the guide rails as well as for tracking the accuracy of the draw when multiple layers of film are present for an application. They also use the E3XDA series of fiber optic sensors to detect film position at various critical

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The bags made by Liquibox hold a wide variety of liquids, from wine to milk to 1 07.09.20 10:50 motor oil.

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AUTOMATION

control points. Both types of sensors provide data to Omron’s automation platform, which then automatically adjusts the servos to the correct speed and tension, making sure the film enters and stays in alignment throughout a production run.

Liquibox’s bags boast features that are more sustainable than bags it made in the past. Film thickness, for example, has been reduced by 20% in recent years. They’ve also reduced the width of the top and bottom seal area from 0.6 to 0.25 in. while still maintaining seal strength according to ASTM standards. “The best way to handle lightweight packaging like this is by relying on an automation platform like Sysmac and a communications protocol like EtherCAT that permits optimized communication between the various automation products and components on the machine,” says Brookes. “Omron’s automation platform allows modules along the entire machine to talk to each other. Everything is synchronized to compensate for any changes needed to produce the new films, from sealing temperature to sensing for different film thicknesses all the way to adjustments in motion or speed.

“My experience with Omron has been exceptional and has exceeded not only my expectations but also those set forth by Liquibox on behalf of our customers. I’m excited about continuing this partnership into the future.”

—Pat Reynolds

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AUTOMATION TECHNOLOGY

Pressure, Conductivity Sensors Baumer adds to its line of process sensors with the new PP20H pressure sensor and CombiLyz AFI conductivity sensor featuring digital and analog interface.

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Line Scan Cameras Omron Automation launches the compact GigE Vision line scan cameras featuring PoE and PTP technology.

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SMAC launches the HT35 and HT55 series of brushless motors designed for specific OEM applications. They are available in 7.5-, 35-, and 55-mm sizes as standard.

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Code Reader for Miniature Codes Sick launches the Lector61x compact camera-based code reader designed to detect 1D, 2D, and stacked codes for identification, inspection, or content monitoring in production processes.

I/O System Field Wago introduces the I/O System Field designed for cabinet-free automation. It meets the requirements of decentralized production facilities, providing maximum performance and high-level connectivity.

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Item Detection Camera Cognex introduces the 3D-A1000 Item Detection System, a motion-capable smart camera that can identify the presence or absence of objects on all types of sorters traveling at production line speeds.

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Rotor Motors Nanotec expands its line of BLDC motors with the DFA90 external rotor motor, which has a rated power of up to 170 W and a diameter of 90 mm.

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SUSTAINABLE PACKAGING

Laundry Pod Pioneer Advances Sustainability with Move to E-Commerce The first company to launch liquid laundry detergent pods in 2005, Dropps moves from retail to D2C to strengthen its responsiveness to consumers and advance its sustainable packaging efforts.

WHAT YOU’LL LEARN

Sustainable product & packaging

E-commerce strategy

By Anne Marie Mohan, Senior Editor In 2012, Procter & Gamble made a splash in the laundry products market with its introduction of single-dose, dissolvable pods containing concentrated detergent that reduced the use of water from 50% to 10%.

The concept was lauded for injecting some much-needed innovation into the category and represented a significant step in sustainability by a global brand owner.

But years before Tide’s announcement—seven, to be exact—Philadelphia-based Cot’n Wash, Inc., introduced what was actually the first water-soluble laundry pod with its Dropps brand. In contrast to Tide’s product however, removing the excess water was just one aspect of Dropps’ sustainability proposition. Its formulation was also biodegradable—a rarity at the time.

The shipper for Dropps’ 64-ct order is a unique construction of two tuck-top E-flute corrugated boxes, each holding 32 pods, that are connected at the bottom with a perforated panel.

Over the years, Dropps has pioneered other firsts in the single-dose detergent pod market. For example, in 2015 it was the first in the U.S. to introduce an aversive bittering agent to the capsule’s water-soluble film as a precautionary measure for child safety. Despite the company’s ingenuity however, the preferential treatment given by retailers to “big laundry,” as Dropps founder and CEO Jonathan Propper refers to wellknown brands such as Tide and others, as well as a recent saturation of green brands in the category motivated Dropps in 2017 to move away entirely from retail to an e-commerce model.

According to Propper, the shift to Direct-to-Consumer sales has significantly enhanced the company’s ability to gather and act on insights from consumers and has further reduced its products’ environmental footprint. In early 2020, the company shared that it had experienced year-overyear sales growth for the previous two years, driven exclusively by direct-to-consumer (D2C) e-commerce. Since its inception, the company has sold more than 50 million pods.

On Feb. 18, 2020, London-based investment firm The Craftory, which describes itself as a “cause capital, counter-corporate, and anti-traditional VC” firm, announced it would be investing $16 million in the company. Given that The Craftory invests only in mission-driven challenger brands, news of the partnership was an affirmation of Dropps’ eco-conscious efforts and its growing success.

Pod packaging progression Dropps’ roots go back to the early 1980s, when Propper and his mother, Lenore Propper Schwarz, developed a detergent that would be gentle enough for the cotton sweaters they produced at their textile

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factory, Conshohocken Cotton Co. The first iteration, Cotâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;n Wash, eliminated the enzymes used in traditional hand-laundry detergents, which the company says can damage fabric fibers over time, as well as irritate sensitive skin.

Droppsâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; website tells the story of the next evolution of the product: â&#x20AC;&#x153;With all the stuff we took out of this new detergent, we knew we had a small wonder on our hands. Which got us thinking: â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;What else can

we make smaller?â&#x20AC;&#x2122; Then we thought the last thing anyone needed was another huge drippy, sticky jug of detergent to deal with. So we put all the cleaning power in small, convenient, dissolvable pacs. Each is premeasured to make laundry down-right fool-proof. You just drop â&#x20AC;&#x2122;em in the laundry. Voila! Dropps was born.â&#x20AC;?

The single-dose pods use a dissolvable, low/mid-hydrolysis polyvinyl alcohol membrane to contain the liquid detergent. The PVOH used

by Dropps is listed on the EPAâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s CleanGredients databaseâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;the definitive marketplace for chemical ingredients whose formulations have been pre-approved by the U.S. EPA for use in Safer Choice-labeled products.

After the pod membrane dissolves in the washer, it enters the water stream, and micro-organisms, including bacteria, yeasts, and fungi that commonly exist in water treatment plants, consume the monomers.

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While Propper says he canâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t disclose the companyâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s suppliers, he notes that Dropps has invested time and resources in ensuring that all its suppliers meet its high standards for safety and sustainability.

Since the pod was launched, the productâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s secondary packaging has gone through several iterations, becoming increasingly more environmentally friendly as the thinking around what constitutes sustainable packaging has advanced. â&#x20AC;&#x153;The original Dropps product was packaged using an rPET clamshell,â&#x20AC;? shares Propper. â&#x20AC;&#x153;Then in 2007/2008, we switched to a flexible stand-up pouch to reduce plastic and create a more efficient package. One high-density polyethylene plastic bottle of traditional liquid laundry detergent equals 292 of our old pouches.â&#x20AC;?

The problem with the pouch though, as Propper explains, was that its multilayer film construction made it non-recyclable. In 2011, the company partnered with upcycler TerraCycle to create the Dropps

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Laundry Detergent Pouch Brigade to collect pouches after use, but according to Propper, â&#x20AC;&#x153;the process was inconvenient for the consumer, adoption was incredibly low, and it ultimately led to more plastic packaging production. â&#x20AC;&#x153;Then, in 2016, we rethought our packaging to introduce the worldâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s first liquid unit-dose laundry detergent packaged in a recyclable, compostable, and repulpable container.â&#x20AC;? When Dropps transitioned to D2C the following year, the durable construction of the corrugated packaging allowed it to double as a shipper as well, further reducing excess packaging.

Compact and clever shipper

As opposed to pod products from â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;big laundryâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; that use multiple chambers and colorants in their formulas, Droppsâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; pods use just one layer of PVOH and contain natural, transparent ingredients.

In the e-commerce age, itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s not uncommon for emerging brands to launch online first to quickly expand their geographical reach and then move to retail as their brand grows. Dropps took the exact opposite route, completely removing its products from store shelves and shifting entirely to online salesâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;a move that Propper says has enabled it to boost consumer convenience and sustainability. â&#x20AC;&#x153;When third-party retailers were part of our strategy, we didnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t have very much insight on consumer behavior from our retail partners. Now, we have a direct line of communication with our customers, which gives us invaluable insight to streamline the user experience and help us formulate new products,â&#x20AC;? he says. â&#x20AC;&#x153;Also, the traditional third-party retail model is extremely wasteful. Quite simply put, it adds an extra layer of shipping into the supply chain. By eliminating those retailers,

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Dropps Partners with Oceana to Protect World’s Oceans In September 2019, Dropps announced a partnership with Oceana, an international organization focused on protecting the world’s oceans, “to make prevention the cure by addressing the issue of plastic pollution at the source,” said Dropps at the time of the announcement.

“At Dropps, we are dedicated to designing daily consumer products in a manner that is convenient for the consumer and engineers-out single-use plastic. To some extent we are all experiencing Sustainability Anxiety Disorder (SAD). Dropps gives families easy-to-use solutions that are both eco-responsible and economical— which, if multiplied across a multitude of families, can have a measurable impact both on the planet and their wallets,” said Propper. “This forms part of our initiative, One Family, One Home, One Future.”

The One Family, One Home, One Future platform is designed to educate American households on small, easy changes that, in the aggregate, can have a big impact on the environment. Elements of the platform include content and initiatives on a dedicated Dropps site that are being rolled out throughout a year-long partnership. They include: • Educating consumers on the impact of their actions and choices, and encouraging them to care about the massive global plastic pollution crisis.

• Providing actionable and shareable content, including articles, infographics, interactive quizzes, and a pledge to eliminate single-use plastic.

• Advising individuals on how to choose plastic-free alternatives, and mobilizing industry and government to do the same.

“Plastic is everywhere in our ocean—floating on the surface, mixing in the saltwater, and sitting on the ocean bottom, miles and miles deep. And it’s no secret that the household consumer goods category contributes to the problem,” said Andy Sharpless, CEO of Oceana. “Dropps is showing that companies can address this issue now and reduce throwaway plastic by giving people real plastic-free choices. We face a tsunami of plastic in our future, unless more companies also take meaningful action.” PW

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our product goes from warehouse to the customer’s doorstep, reducing our carbon footprint in the process.”

Dropps detergent pods are available as a one-time purchase or on a subscription basis, for a 25% discount, and come in quantities of 64 (Single), 120 (Couple), and 240 (Family). Products are also available in bulk quantities of 804.

The secondary-package-turned-shipper for Dropps’ 64-ct order is

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a unique construction of two tuck-top E-flute corrugated boxes, each holding 32 pods, that are connected at the bottom with a perforated panel. The layout of the shipper allows it to be closed like a book, with one box placed upside down on top of the other. When the consumer receives the shipper, they can separate the two boxes via the perforations for easy storage.

Despite holding enough detergent for 64 loads of laundry, the shipper is compact, with its front and back panels sized to fit a 4 x 6-in. shipping label. As noted, the corrugated material that makes up the box is robust enough that the pods can be loose-packed without the risk of damage. In addition, the stability of the pods’ PVOH membrane also helps protect them in transit.

“These days, almost everything you get in the mail is double-packed,” says Propper. “No one likes getting a box inside a box, and it’s a huge waste of resources.

That’s why our packaging doubles as a shipping container.”

Giving the packaging material its sustainability credentials, Dropps’ corrugated board suppliers are Forestry Stewardship Council-certified, with forests certified by the Sustainable Forestry Initiative. The tape used to seal the shipper is a kraft paper material, which Dropps chose after consumers called for the company to swap out the plastic tape it had been using previously. “We’ve even gone several steps further by using recycling-compatible adhesive [RCA] to ensure the [paper] tape remains recyclable and compostable after use,” says Propper. “Our sustainable shipping labels are also recyclable and compostable and use the same RCA as our packaging tape.” The labels’ release liners are recyclable too, unlike traditional siliconecoated liners.

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Watch Dropps’ cheeky YouTube commercial, “The Naked Truth About Laundry,” here: pwgo.to/6724 Aesthetically, the kraft shipper is brown on the outside and white on the inside, with copy and line drawings printed in dark blue throughout. When the shipper is open, a note from Propper with the heading, “We’re All in This Together,” is visible on the connecting panel.

Penned pre-COVID, his message refers to Dropps’ commitment to making “sustainable and powerful cleaning accessible to all.” Copy and illustrations on the outer panels of the shipper read, “Save Plastic,” “Save Time,” “Save Water,” and “Save Money,” while a message on the inside of the opening flap of each box asks consumers to “Please re-use, recycle, or compost this box.”

According to Propper, the driving force behind Dropps’ packaging design is the digital and customer experience. “When we were in third-party retailers, we had to comply with their standards and requirements for packaging in order to sit on their retail shelf, and even then, ‘big laundry’ was always front and center. It

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was truly a hierarchical caste system,” he says. “Now that our business is 100% e-commerce, our packaging is designed for efficacy and sustainability, with aesthetics being a close second.

“Our compact packaging size allows us to maximize space when it comes to shipping, and the same can be said for the end user as well.

Smaller living is becoming more apparent, especially for our customers in major cities. Sustainability is a journey, so we continue to innovate our packaging, while keeping sustainability top of mind.”

Not all pods are created equal

Over the years, Dropps has added to its dissolvable-pod household cleaning line with products such as this powdered, lemon-scented dishwash detergent.

Since water-soluble pods were first introduced to the market, nearly every major brand as well as smaller players in the laundry and dishcleaning products markets have launched single-dose detergent packs.

But not all pods are created equal. Says Propper, Dropps prides itself on offering a safer, more sustainable clean than its competitors.

According to Dropps, in contrast to some mainstream detergent pod products that contain more than 20 different chemicals, its pods use just six natural ingredients and are free of phosphates, dyes, and nonylphenol ethoxylates (NPEs), which are toxic to aquatic life. The pods themselves are smaller too. Dropps pods weigh 10 g and use a single layer of PVOH. In comparison, many of its competitors’ products weigh 25 g-plus and comprise multiple chambers filled with “water, unnecessary additives, and colorants.”

In the years since it first developed its liquid laundry detergent, Dropps has reformulated the product and has developed new product

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lines with the EPA’s CleanGredients ingredient database as a guiding resource. Dropps’ products now also include scent booster and fabric softener pods for the laundry, oxi-booster pods for household and laundry use, and dish detergent pods, all in powder form.

While many eco-friendly-positioned household cleaning products have entered the market of late, Propper says Dropps’ longevity in the space has been a big selling point for the brand. “The customer has

more options than ever to be ‘eco-responsible.’ It can be overwhelming to some, especially when greenwashing buzzwords come into play,” he says. “Because Dropps has such a tenure and a reputation that supports it, we have been able to maintain trust with both experienced and novice sustainable households.”

In the online space, Dropps offers another competitive benefit versus its competitors as well: The company recently achieved carbonneutral shipping status. In addition, it now offers free carbon-neutral shipping on all of its products.

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Full supply chain control For many brands, both startup and established, one of the more complex aspects of implementing an e-commerce strategy is logistics, or shipping D2C, rather than to a distributor. Instead of employing a 3PL, Dropps operates its own distribution and fulfillment center in Franklin Park, Ill., a northwest suburb of Chicago. Propper says the location was strategically selected, “as historically this region of the country has always been the epicenter of logistics because of the seemingly equal distance from end to end.”

Having its own facility not only allows Dropps to eliminate one more step in the supply chain, but with the advent of COVID-19, it has also enabled the company to ramp up quickly to meet increased demand for its products and ensure worker safety.

“As of late, there has been a spotlight placed on the logistics of these massive e-commerce brands, with the welfare of warehouse employees taking center stage.

However for Dropps, that has always been the case,” says Propper. “Our logistics infrastructure has had to adapt and evolve to meet the changing landscape and increased demand. In addition to massively upgrading

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our distribution center, we have made significant investments in our logistics and warehouse staff to meet this new normal.

“Prior to being D2C, we had to trust our product in the hands of the complex logistics systems of thirdparty retailers, many of which have been scrutinized as of late because of the way they operate. Now that we control the entire supply chain, including logistics, we ensure that all operations are efficient and sustainable, and not just for the consumer, but also for our valued staff that are fulfilling all of these orders and successfully keeping our supply chain moving.”

A risk that has paid off Moving out of retail to a 100% D2C model turned out to be a very successful strategy for Dropps, but it was not without its risks. One of the biggest challenges, says Propper, was increasing brand awareness. “Brand discovery wasn’t happening in brick-and-mortar since we were no longer on the shelf,” he says. “So how do you find the consumers to whom your brand appeals if they don’t walk by and pick up your product on the shelf?”

Dropps addressed this challenge by heavily investing in various digital marketing plays. “That, coupled with a vastly increasing consumer adoption of

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D2C/e-comm, has been our saving grace,” Propper notes.

Further propelling its success has been the opportunity the D2C model has afforded the company to quickly understand and adapt to consumer behavior. Using sophisticated e-commerce tools, Dropps is able to generate consumer data, providing a glimpse into how its customers shop and what they expect.

“Big data aside, moving to e-commerce only has brought human

connection back to customer service,” Propper says. “When we were in traditional retailers, we didn’t have the insight into who our customers were. We couldn’t see how or when they bought our products, and we couldn’t hear what they wanted from us. Now, our customers have direct access to us. We can see the varying nuances of laundry day from customer to customer via Instagram. We can hear how Dropps has allowed families to cut down on their plastic waste in our product reviews. We can gather feedback on how we can improve, or what we should do next via our 24/7 customer service.

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“In addition to this human connectedness, moving to e-commerce has allowed us to significantly cut down on waste. We thrive in the digital world. So much so that outside of our warehouse, all Dropps staff work remote to help cut down on our carbon footprint. This has been the case for the past four years.”

Moving forward, Propper says Dropps will use the $16 million investment from The Craftory to continue to broaden its product offerings, expand its market reach, and build its sustainably-focused infrastructure. “The Craftory is an ideal partner for our business, and I’m humbled by their investment,” he says. “Their founders and operational team provide more than just money to their portfolio companies. In addition, The Craftory’s revolutionary investment philosophy aligns well with our mission-driven values so we can maintain our triple bottom line of social, environmental, and financial impact.” PW

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AUTOMATIC PRINT INSPECTION MADE SIMPLE

SICK has been at the forefront of vision innovation for many years and now, in partnership with AutoCoding Systems, is providing a breakthrough innovation in automatic print inspection. Utilizing the latest vision technology from SICK and the AppSpace programming environment, AutoCoding’s 4Sight software inspects codes for accuracy, legibility, and location to maximize performance. The system can detect something as simple as print presence to comprehensive OCR capabilities.

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New Line Features Two Blow/Fill Systems To maximize the ability to change over from one neck diameter to another and to fill either aseptic, CSD, or still products, Bickford’s doubled down on blow/fill technology.

WHAT YOU’LL LEARN

Versatile manufacturing

From hot-fill to aseptic

Pat Reynolds, VP Editor Emeritus Bickford’s, a family-owned and well-known Australian beverage brand, recently installed a complete PET line featuring one blow/fill system for aseptically filled beverages and a second blow/fill system for either non-aseptic still beverages or carbonated soft drinks (CSD).

The new line is in response to growing health and wellness concerns around the world that are driving the growth of beverage categories such as bottled water, especially flavored options. Recognizing that this trend represented opportunity, Bickford’s started to search for a highly

flexible production line capable of handling both still and carbonated beverages as well as low- and high-acid aseptic products. Moreover, they wanted to run multiple PET bottle designs and to decorate with either a shrink sleeve or a pressure-sensitive paper label.

For this particular challenge, they turned to Sidel packaging machinery, a leader in aseptic PET applications and packaging design, for the first time in their long history. In the process, they became one of the first to invest in Sidel’s dry preform decontamination technology.

One of two new fillers operating at Bickford’s.

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Bickford’s uses a 28mm closure for CSD and non-aseptic still products and 38-mm for aseptic products.

“Previously, we were mainly familiar with hot-filling PET applications,” says Angelo Kotses, Bickford’s CEO and owner. “We decided to partially shift to aseptic PET bottling because we wanted to optimize our production set-up and achieve a better TCO, which is of course critical if you plan to attract more consumers. Plus, we really wanted to diversify our product portfolio by introducing new references, including coffee-flavored dairy-based products and coffee-flavored non-dairy product, and by moving some drinks formerly packaged in glass and cans to PET.” And so it was that Bickford’s and Sidel became collaboration partners in the commissioning of a versatile PET line equipped with an Aseptic Combi Predis blow/fill/cap system for shelf-stable aseptic bever-

ages in three bottle sizes plus a Combi SF300 for non-aseptic beverages, both still and carbonated, in 1-L bottles. Both filling systems feed into the same labelling, sleeving, case-packing, and palletizing equipment, so only one filler runs at a time.

Sidel’s Herve Herambert, Account Director Sales Aseptic South East Asia Pacific, says that it would have been possible for Bickford’s to install one blow/fill system capable of producing all three beverage types— CSD, non-aseptic still products, and aseptic juices and flavored milks.

But the firm wanted two different neck finishes: 28-mm for CSD and non-aseptic still products and 38-mm for aseptic products. This made it far more affordable, efficient, and practical to install two separate Combi machines.

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Save Space and Increase Throughput.

Ryson makes a full line of spiral conveyors that can satisfy most vertical conveying needs. Ryson Spirals need less floor space than conventional conveyors and are faster and more reliable than any elevator or lift.

Unit Load Spirals convey cases, totes and packaged goods smoothly on our slat style belts and come in 9 standard slat widths ranging from 6” to 30”. Available in powder coated carbon steel, stainless steel, washdown and freezer versions Mass Flow Spirals handle full and empty bottles, cans and jars in mass up to 2000 units per minute. Available in 4 different slat widths ranging from 6” to 20”.

Narrow Trak Spirals are super compact and designed to handle your smaller loads. Our new 6” and 9” wide nesting slats can endtransfer small cartons and packages or side-transfer small bottles and containers in a single file or in mass at speeds in excess of 200 FPM.

High Capacity Spirals are in response to our customers need to go higher and handle more weight. They can handle double the weight capacity of our regular spirals at speeds up to 200 FPM. The new WT Model comes in a slat width of 30” and 36” and can provide an elevation change of up to 50 feet with only one drive.

Multiple Entry and Exit Spirals allow loads to enter or exit the High Capacity Spirals at intermediate elevations. New special induction and divert conveyors have individually adjustable conveying surfaces to match the spiral pitch, assuring a smooth and reliable operation.

Quality and service come first at Ryson. We are the number one spiral manufacturer in the USA. For application assistance or more information, give us a call or visit www.ryson.com.

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Two labellers, too

By replacing so much of its hot-fill production with aseptic filling, Bickford’s gained great freedom in terms of packaging design and container decoration. In total, the new line now processes more than 20 different SKUs, including still water, CSD, four different flavored waters, coffee-flavored milk, coffee-flavored non-dairy products, and eight types of juices. In addition to switching quickly from one product to another, the line also moves efficiently from 250-mL to 500-mL to 1-L bottle sizes.

Throughout the project, Sidel’s packaging experts worked in close collaboration with Bickford’s marketing team to launch their products. “Looking at our water and CSD range filled through the Combi SF300, we wanted to achieve an iconic shape to help our brand stand out in a very crowded marketplace. Our new bottles needed to offer convenient handling to our consumers and be robust enough to hold their ergonomic shape and carbonation once opened,” explains Beverley Reeves, Senior Brand Manager at Bickford’s.

In the case of Bickford’s water and CSD bottles, the Sidel packaging team started from scratch. The bottle they came up with incorporates Sidel’s StarLITE base.

Formed during blow molding, it gives the finished bottle improved mechanical properties—without the need for adding additional weight to the bottle—that help it resist deformation that might otherwise occur due to top load weight during distribution.

A redesign was also needed for the family of drinks previously packaged via hot-fill technology and now packaged aseptically. In this case, the top priority was to retain as much of the previous design’s brand equity while at the same time achieving some serious lightweighting goals. The results are impressive. The aseptically filled 1-L juice bottle weighs in at 32 g, which is half of what its hot-filled predecessor weighed. Not to mention that the hot-filled PET bottles needed vacuum panels in the sidewalls to prevent the bottles from deforming as internal pressure formed during product Patent Pending cooling. With aseptic filling, these vacuum panels are The NECOFLO-G6 has been designed from the ground up and provides no longer required, which translates into a smooth and the following features: far more attractive surface on which to apply a label.

• Controlled valve actuation “We were really impressed by Sidel’s package design • Single piece, FDA approved, long life, elastic polymer container seal capabilities,” says Reeves. “To streamline our decision • Bi-flow, self cleaning vent system process, they provided many bottle design alternatives • Recipe driven, multiple zone, product settling system and great conceptual designs with current labels as • Stainless steel measuring flasks well as new prototypes. Considering the productivity • “Lift Table” for each container advantages we gained and the high consumer accep• Variable height fill head tance around our redesigned containers, we are plan• Closed loop MAP gassing system ning to strengthen the cooperation with Sidel further • “no-container no-fill” system by launching additional new formats.”

Also notable is that the line incorporates two labelling machines.

The 1-L bottles filled on the SF300 are always labelled on a Fuji Seal shrink sleeve labeller that applies a partial PETG shrink sleeve label.

But the 250-mL, 500-mL, and 1-L bottles filled aseptically can either be decorated by this sleeve labeller or they can bypass it and receive front, back, and neck pressure-sensitive labels applied by a Sidel labeller.

Engineered for Performance

Nalbach Engineering’s NECOFLO-G6 high speed powder filler runs faster, cleaner, provides superior product settling and fill accuracy.

For more information and specifications call Nalbach at: +1-708-579-9100, go to www.nalbach.com, or scan the QR Code to the right.

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Video: Scan the QR Code to the right to learn more about the Nalbach NECOFLO-G6. www.nalbach.com

Hot-fill lines removed To install the new line, Bickford’s reorganized production set-up and raw material handling. This process was made easier by the removal of two out of three hot-fill lines previously in place. The challenge was to complete the installation without disrupting

©2020 Nalbach Engineering Company, Inc.

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packaging solution when Predis and the production routines, while also Capdis are combined. securing the very high hygienic reIncluded in the new operation quirements needed in aseptic prois aseptic processing technology duction. from Tetra Pak Processing Systems, The Aseptic Combi Predis system which, like Sidel, is part of the Tetra has six blowing stations that feed Laval Group based in Switzerland. directly into 30 filling stations. The Maximum speed is 13,500 bottles/ key value proposition of the whole hr on 1-L bottles.

Predis concept is that it is small Over on the non-aseptic blow/ preforms that are being decontamifill operation, where 1-L bottles nated prior to blowing rather than are filled at speeds to 18,000 botblown bottles being decontaminattles/hr, the Combi SF300 has eight ed. With this approach, there is no blow stations and 70 filling valves. need to rinse with water, thus the Filled bottles run through a 10-staterm “dry decontamination.” tion capper. Also featured on the Predis technology employs the Both of the newly installed filling systems feed into this Combi SF300 is Sidel’s compact and injection of H2O2 into the preform wraparound case packer. hygienic BlendFill configuration for just before it enters the oven. This CSD products, combining carbonator and filler in a single system for results in activation of the H2O2 by the existing preform heating stage, reduced consumption of CO2. Gebo OptiDry, a fully washable, stainless ensuring a high level of decontamination while minimizing not only the size of the item being decontaminated but also the size of the sterile steel drying system with a proven efficiency of over 99%, is integrated. zone required. Critical parameters are continuously monitored to ensure Downstream from the two Combi blow/fill systems, their two disfull production sterility, beverage integrity, and food safety, regardless of charge conveyors merge into a single conveyor leading to the rest of liquid type or beverage characteristics. The same dry decontamination the line. This includes a VersaWrap wrap-around case packer and a Patechnology is applied to caps with Capdis, ensuring a 100% dry aseptic lAccess palletizer, both from Sidel, followed by a stretch wrapper from

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Robopac. These pieces of equipment are designed with multi-format versatility and fast and simple format changeovers in mind, therefore perfectly suiting Bickford’s needs.

Naturally, date coding of primary, secondary, and tertiary packaging is part of the new line. This is accomplished by various Videojet systems, including an ink-jet coder that marks the shoulder of each bottle, a thermal-transfer print-and-apply labeller that labels each corrugated

case, and a thermal-transfer print-and-apply labeller that applies a label to each wrapped pallet.

According to Reeves, “We produce according to forecasts, so it’s hard to say if half the running time is aseptic and the other half not. The flexibility built into the line lets us pivot from one filler to the next depending on what is required.”

Bickford’s first sellable product from the new line was introduced to the market in the summer of 2019. The firm celebrated the opening ceremony for the line commissioning in September in the presence of Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison and Premier of South Australia, Steven Marshall.

SUPER COMBI COMPACT

MORE PERFORMANCE, LESS SPACE.

This shrink sleeve labeler is one of two labeling systems on the line.

Sidel Super Combi Compact integrates five process steps into a single system: preform feeder, blower, labeller, filler/capper and cap feeder.

“It’s a pretty advanced and capable line with a lot of new equipment, so we had to get comfortable with that level of sophistication,” says Reeves as she looks back over the past year. “But we’re proud of how it’s gone. There were two key drivers. One was to futureproof the business by bringing in capabilities we did not have at the time and leveraging them not only for our own brands but for contract packaging business, too. And the second was to create something that was world-class, something that would identify us as a leader, something that would say we are firmly planted here and this is where we are going to stay.” PW

This solution drastically reduces the space required, while enhancing performance thanks to new dynamic filling technology that produces up to 54,000 bph. This makes it the ideal solution for maximising water production and increasing line efficiency while reducing your TCO. That’s one compact, super-efficient solution.

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The caramel wafer biscuits are individually die-fold wrapped in aluminum.

Caramel Wafers are Wrapped and Case Packed at 650/Min New packaging line for caramel wafer biscuits from Scotland’s Tunnock’s die-fold wraps, multipacks, and case packs caramel wafer biscuits with high flexibility and fast changeover.

WHAT YOU’LL LEARN

Die-fold wrapping

Horizontal flow wrapping

Flexible case packing

By Anne Marie Mohan, Senior Editor Thomas Tunnock Limited, commonly known as Tunnock’s, is a familyowned baking business based in Uddingston, near Glasgow, Scotland.

Founded in 1890 by Thomas Tunnock, the company is now one of the region’s largest employers and is renowned in the U.K. for its caramel wafer biscuits and teacakes.

Sir Boyd Tunnock, the 86-year-old Chairman and CEO of Tunnock’s and the grandson of Thomas Tunnock, sets high standards not only for the manufacturing of the company’s products, but also for the packaging of the products. In 2017, due to a steady growth in demand for its caramel wafers, Tunnock’s decided to invest in an additional production and packaging line to increase its output. Having worked with Syntegon, formerly Bosch Packaging Technology, for decades, Sir Boyd Tunnock turned to the equipment supplier to provide the needed packaging equipment.

Says Tunnock, “As quality and reliability are of highest importance

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to me, I always buy the best equipment. I am happy with my Syntegon packaging lines, and that’s why I asked them to suggest a solution for our new caramel wafer line.”

One of the requirements for the new line was that it have a smaller footprint than Tunnock’s existing equipment, due to limited space in a new packaging hall. In addition, machinery on the line had to be easy to operate, clean, and maintain for fast changeovers.

Syntegon’s solution was a two-leg packaging system, comprising a Sigpack DFR buffer, two die-fold machines from Sapal, two Sigpack HCM horizontal flow wrappers, and a Sigpack TTMC case packer.

Buffer, linear motor ensure constant product flow Tunnock’s Real Milk Chocolate Caramel Wafer Biscuits come in one size: 94 mm L x 29 mm W x 20 mm high. Packaging of the product on the line takes place after the caramel wafers are enrobed in chocolate

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of the buffer’s gondola and move through the buffer to the discharge zone. Here, the rows are discharged on a first-in-first-out basis on two levels to the infeeds of the two wrapping legs.

Should either or both of the downstream legs stop running, the buffer will start to accumulate rows of products by moving the two triple carriages down. This increases the percentage of filled gondolas within the DFR buffer. Once the interruption is remedied, the downstream legs speed up to empty the buffer as quickly as possible. The DFR can accumulate products for up to 12 minutes.

Watch video of the system at pwgo.to/5496.

Via the Syntegon horizontal flow wrapper, individually-wrapped wafers are multipacked in units of four, five, six, or eight. and then cooled to an appropriate temperature so they can be automatically handled and packaged.

Once on the packaging line, the wafers are transported to a 90-degree-angled infeed conveyor and are passed on to a row aligner downstream. Here, rows are accurately aligned before moving on to the infeed of the DFR buffer. The rows are then accelerated to the required speed for loading onto gondola shelves within the buffer. Misaligned rows are rejected beforehand by way of a pull-nose dump and a lateral reject conveyor. Suitable product rows are passed on to the shelves

Each wrapping leg consists of a metal detector from a proprietary third-party supplier, a Sapal DPN7 single-lane aluminum foil wrapping machine, and a Sigpack HCM multipack flow-wrapping machine with Sigpack FIT intelligent infeed.

In the first step, the wafers are wrapped singly in aluminum by the DPN7 die-fold wrapping machine at speeds to 400 packs/min. After wrapping, the packs are discharged crosswise and evenly spaced onto the infeed of the Sigpack HCM multipack flow-wrapping machine.

One of the reasons Syntegon says Tunnock’s chose the HCM was the machine’s FIT infeed system, which uses Beckhoff XTS linear motors, rather than a traditional infeed with chains, to assemble group packs.

This vacuum-free technology provides gentle handling for the wrapped wafers to protect the products. It also enables a fast and continuous flow of product within the machine, where the packs are collated into groups

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of four, five, six, or eight. After collation, movers emerge in the appropriate gap and push the groups to the HCM wrappers.

Syntegon adds that the XTS linear motor technology also enables format changes at the push of a button, without the need to use tools or to add or remove lugs. In addition, the machine supplier notes that continuous production is also aided by fast and safe film reel changes, which are enabled by automatic film splicing.

Easy changeover, high-flexibility case packer

After multipacking, the flow-wrapped packs are transported in two streams from the two flow wrappers into one Sigpack TTMC case packer.

The TTMC is based on Syntegonâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s TTM platform, which Syntegon says was engineered for extreme flexibility for different formats and pack styles and offers a high degree of process safety.

On Tunnockâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s caramel wafer line, the TTMC uses two parallel infeed chains to index the multipacks into batches on edge before they are pushed out into a joint collating unit that forms and compresses rows of multipacks on edge. The collated rows of packs are then lifted by an overhead robot and are top loaded into an erected RSC case. Tunnockâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s uses three case sizes, which hold 20-, 30-, and 40-ct multipacks of product. Once a case is full, it is transported out of the TTMC and passes through an integrated taper that closes and tapes the top flaps of the case.

In early March, we Designed for easy, tool-less changeover, the TTMC transitioned our company to a â&#x20AC;&#x153;work has lightweight, pre-formatted changeparts that are from homeâ&#x20AC;? model. As easily locked and unlocked to ensure the complete a software company, reproducibility of settings. Explains Syntegon Sales it was simple. Since Manager Meyrick Hilton Long, â&#x20AC;&#x153;All of the components we use cloud-based that have to be exchanged during a changeover are systems, as long as employees have their designed in a way that one person can handle them laptops and an internet and do the format changeover in a very short time.â&#x20AC;? connection there is no change in our capabilities or response Installed in June 2018, the new, two-leg packaging times. line has an overall footprint that is four meters, or apIt should be easier proximately 13 ft, smaller than Tunnockâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s existing lines. for packaging Says Tunnockâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Project Manager Stuart Loudon, â&#x20AC;&#x153;The professionals and manufacturers to do the same.

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One of our customers, the packaging company Gadge USA, is in the midst of this transition. I spoke with Anne Mao, their Director for Customer Experience. For Anne and her team, their VPN couldnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t support the FOUJSF PGmDF XPSLJOH from home without huge lag times. Moving to a cloud-based software like Specright will help them both increase performance and collaboration â&#x20AC;&#x201C; no matter where they are.

Specright

During the COVID-19 pandemic, many companies have struggled to transition to remote work especially packaging teams.

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new Syntegon packaging line is very compact.

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Through a combined classroom and practical machine training program, Tunnock’s employees learned how to maintain and adjust the new equipment. In addition to the training course, Syntegon also provides support through its U.K. service hub in Derby, England. “After the installation, the support has always been very good as we worked very closely with the Syntegon experts. This is beneficial for both Syn- The TTCM case packer can handle 20-, 30-, and 40-ct cases with fast and easy changeover. tegon and ourselves,” Loudon says.

And the joint projects between Tunnock’s and Syntegon are not over After several months of operation, Tunnock’s found that the producyet. Sir Boyd Tunnock has decided to invest in two more Syntegon mation levels on the new line—at 650 packs/min—repeatedly exceeded chines to assist in the company’s growth. “We are keen to take our prothose achieved on its existing lines. “With the new line having the intelduction to the next level,” he explains. “Knowing each other’s business ligent infeed system, we expect to generate a fast return on investment for more than 25 years is a great advantage and translates into an open based on increased efficiency, quicker changeover times, and reduced and trustful business and personal relationship.” PW maintenance costs,” says Bill Gow, Financial Director at Tunnock’s.

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At 33 m in length, 13 sub-machines, and up to 33,000 bottles an hour—the new packaging machine at Rotkäppchen-Mumm not only has an impressive set of statistics but also provides outstanding flexibility.

Big Packaging Line in a Small Footprint? No Problem if it Handles Every Format With the large but flexible Innopack TLM packaging system, a KHS and Schubert collaboration, this many-SKU winery introduced just one machine to pack a dozen formats and varieties.

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Matt Reynolds, Editor With 180 years of history behind it, German wine maker RotkäppchenMumm Sektkellereien has in modern times grown into a world-leading manufacturer of wine and spirits. Since 1984, the brand with the eponymous red cap (in German, Rotkäppchen refers to the “Little Red Riding Hood” nursery rhyme) has been the leader for sparkling wine in the local Saale-Unstrut wine-growing region. More recently, it has been acquiring complementary wine brands and vineyards on its journey to offer a comprehensive selection of wines of all varieties. The range of

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different packaging styles required is thus also sizeable, proving something of a challenge for production.

“Up until now we needed a separate secondary packaging machine for each format,” says Lars Grebe, head of Sparkling Wine at the Rotkäppchen-Mumm Enology Competence Center in Eltville, Germany. The Center is where the winery’s all-star sparkling wine brands—Mumm, MM Extra, and Rotkäppchen fruit secco—are filled into 0.75-liter bottles and piccolo containers holding 200 mL. “Our production site is in the

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isfy growing market and marketing requirements. The company arrived at a collaboration between two local German companies with global scope—KHS and Gerhard Schubert GmbH. Working together on the Innopack TLM packaging system, these two suppliers were able to master this mammoth task using just one machine to cover an immense variety of wines and their ensuing pack formats.

Taming a growing SKU and format list

“Compared to our previous standard we’ve doubled the line capacity for our gift packs of one and two bottles,” reports Lars Grebe, head of Sparkling Wine at the Rotkäppchen-Mumm Enology [study of wine] Competence Center in Eltville, Germany. middle of a residential area bordered on one side by the River Rhine.

There’s therefore no room to expand. As we only have a very limited space at our disposal, it’s imperative that we make efficient use of it.”

Grebe and his team began looking for a specialist who could make its secondary packaging area more powerful and flexible in order to sat-

The packaging variants range from batches to individual bottles in a gift pack—which are bundled in wrap-around cartons of 24 for ease of transport—to clusters of four bottles. When the packaging system was first ordered, the list already included nine formats, and further formats were added during the machine’s commissioning. The need for more varieties is in part due to the fact that market requirements in Germany and Europe are changing ever faster, and the shelf space provided by retailers is not always increasing despite the growing variety of products.

This is why, for example, in the future 12-pack cartons might have to be filled with two 6-packs instead of the previous 3x4 bottle-format. The KHS and Schubert mono-block solution implements all desired formats in a single machine at up to 600 products/min.

The single-machine solution The Innopack TLM system, installed in late 2018, includes 13 submachines, and is an impressive 33 m (108 ft) long. This is anything but small, but the combined packaging system scores on performance,

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one integrated module could easily divert, transfer and sort multiple package types?

As many as 33,000 bottles per hour are placed by the KHS pick-and-place packer in the cartons erected by Schubert sub-machines. quality, adaptability on several counts, and its flexibility to cover all sorts of formats, making the space efficiently spent.

“Compared to our previous standard we’ve doubled the line capacity for our gift packs of one and two bottles and can now package up to 33,000 bottles an hour,” reports Grebe, who thus far has run the machine in two-shift operation. Even so, speed is not everything, as he is keen to emphasize. “While a shipping carton of 24 can get away with the odd tiny flaw, we want 100% quality for our gift packs, so there’s practically no leeway here.” After all, the person receiving the gift should have fun unpacking it, and the wine producer believes that beautiful wrapping makes a gift all the more enjoyable.

Speaking of gift packs, in the case of gift packaging for the MMchen sparkling wine, for example, up to 10 of the 13 sub-machines can be used. In the first two sub-machines, F3 robots take up to 550 blanks/ min from the magazine, depending on the desired output. Then, dF2 robots pick up the individual packs lying in a row, straighten them for correct orientation during transfer, and place them on a Transmodul

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Securely packed and sealed

Ready for delivery to customers: The shipping cases containing gift packs are sealed by F2 robots. for further processing. On the way to the next sub-machine, the tabs are glued. There, F2 robots seal the underside of the gift packs, stand them up and place them in rows of two on another Transmodul line. The KHS packer feeds the small bottles and carefully places them into the open top gift packs. In the next two sub-machines, four F2 robots then also seal the top of the packaging and place it on one of two further Transmodul sections for pre-grouping.

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Shortly before the end of the packaging process, the shipping cases come into play: similarly to the gift packs, flattened, die-cut shippers are unstacked, erected, and placed on their own Transmodul line. In the second to last sub-machine, two F2 robots lift and transfer the prepared MMchen into the outer cartons—in four groups of six products.

The Schubert machine fills up to 23 cycles/min, with three Transmodul lines working in parallel. To ensure that Rotkäppchen-Mumm can finally transport everything safely to the customers, the tabs of the large outer cartons are also glued and closed on the upper side.

The various sub-machines are linked by Schubert’s patented Transmoduls. Thanks to their inductive (wireless energy transfer) energy supply and wireless transfer of data and signals they glide back and forth on their rails along the entire line without interfaces. Maximum availability and the best possible efficiency are ensured by a considerable reduction in the number of mechanical parts.

Tight timelines for the install One can imagine that the planning, installation, and commissioning of such a complex machine was a huge challenge for all involved. “The time slot for installation was extremely ambitious,” says Max Schwaiger, who is responsible for Packaging Product Support at KHS. “Thanks to our good project management we were able to keep to the deadlines.

This wasn’t just a matter of course, as the growth in the number of formats during the process resulted in a certain level of complexity.” Owing

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where we have to change over several Transmodul plates, or just switching the heads on the KHS pick-and-place packer, this only takes 30 to 90 minutes,” Grebe says.

to the limited space at the final place of installation in Eltville, the system had to be completely dismantled and brought into the building horizontally. With the help of 3D simulation, calculations were also made with millimeter accuracy as to how much space the machine column on the pick-and-place packer would need during erection of the machinery.

In a work of absolute precision, the ceiling grid only had to be dismantled and cut out at this point.

More formats, twice the speed

Prepared for the future The most important criterion for the winery was flexibility. As such, the machine is designed in such a way that only a few format changes are necessary, tools can be changed quickly, and the system can absorb new packaging variants that may be implemented in the future.

“It was extremely important for us to know that our new packaging machine would enable us to meet all the requirements of the retail trade for many years to come,” says Joachim Engler, Technical Manager at Rotkäppchen-Mumm.

“I’m convinced that we’re also wellable to meet future demands from the retail trade with our new technology,” Grebe adds. “One prospective option could be the packaging of 0.75-liter wine bottles, for instance, and also new format sizes, such as packs of three or five.” Another major aspect of the machine’s flexibility is that it has been designed so that only a few format changeovers are necessary and the tools can be switched over relatively quickly. “We convert the machinery a maximum of four times a week. Depending on whether we’re making a hard change from fruit secco to sparkling wine,

Thanks to the Innopack TLM from KHS and Schubert, the wine producer benefits from a variety of formats that, according to them, no other manufacturer could have implemented in a single machine. And it does it in a system that works twice as fast as the legacy equipment it replaces. “[KHS and Schubert] make a really strong team,” Grebe observes. “We’d never have come up with the idea of Schubert and its Transmoduls on our own as we associate these with totally different branches of industry—from pharmaceuticals to candies. Only in conjunction with KHS’ expertise in the beverage sector and particularly in the handling of bottles have we found the perfect solution.”

For Rotkäppchen-Mumm one big success factor was also that there was only one point of contact in KHS’ system of project management.

In the meantime, the new technology also has the system operators convinced.

“Over the years our colleagues of course build up a kind of emotional bond with their old machines which can be ‘knocked back into shape’ with a hammer if need be,” Grebe says. “The overall function and look of the new machine are so fascinating and convincing, however, that initial skepticism has long given way to total enthusiasm.” PW

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Multipacking Applicator Maximizes Can Output for On-Trend Mixed Drink Producer A multipacking applicator helped leading Canadian beverage producer Black Fly to fully automate its packing line and double its canning output, achieving a noteworthy ROI. WHAT YOU’LL LEARN

Flexible multipacker

Sustainable can handle

Multiple pack formats

By Matt Reynolds, Editor Based in London, Ontario, Canada, Black Fly Beverage Co. produces a range of ready-to-drink alcoholic beverages alongside its co-packing services, beverage alcohol production, and packaging sales. With customers across Canada and the U.S., the business was looking to automate its previously manual multipacking process for its range of cans.

A G2 multi-packing applicator from WaveGrip, a Berry Global company, was selected for the project, and Black Fly hasn’t looked back. The system was specifically designed for medium-volume can multipacking,

and at Black Fly, the applicator is packing regular and sleek 12-oz cans and regular 16-oz cans in both four and six-pack cartons, at speeds of up to 245 cans/min (cpm). Operating 24/7, the G2 has replaced a previously manual process and, at the time of purchase in June, it was expected to deliver payback within six months.

“When it comes to the multipacking of cans at mid-range volumes, our research showed that the WaveGrip G2 is the only practical solution in the marketplace,” says Martin Kamil, Vice President of Finance

This can multipackaging system is packing sixand four-packs of cans at Black Fly Beverage Company at rates of 245 cans per minute.

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through the strength of the wider and Operations, Black Fly. “Installagroup, we knew we would have action was both quick and easy, with cess to the latest material developthe G2 operating straight out of the ments and sustainable multipackbox. Our multipacking is now fully ing options.” automated, delivering significant The company says the WaveGrip savings both in terms of output G2 is competitively priced, can run and the ability to re-deploy labor multiple pack formats, and signifielsewhere in the business. We are cantly reduces downtime with its delighted with the results we have quick changeover times. With the achieved to date.” ability to handle both standard and As well as the improvements in sleek can designs, it boasts speeds production, the sustainability of the of up 400 cpm for standard, and WaveGrip carriers, and their contin325 cpm for sleek carriers. ued material development, played Designed and engineered by manufacturing partner Massman Designed and engineered by a large part in the decision-making Automation Designs, the G2 is one of the WaveGrip range of manufacturing partner Massman process for Black Fly. applicators, which also includes the G1, an entry level machine, Automation Designs, the G2 is Weighing less than 4g for a stan- and the larger G3 model which can handle higher volume part of the WaveGrip range of apdard six-pack, and according to the packing. plicators, which also includes the company, using less material than G1, an entry level machine capable of speeds of 80 cpm, and the larger any other multipacking solution, WaveGrip says it’s the lightest carrier G3 model, which can handle higher volume packing over 2,000 cpm. on the market. Additionally, all WaveGrip carriers are fully recyclable in “Overall, we have been extremely happy with our choice of WavePE film collection streams and meet current U.S. Packaging regulations.

Grip,” Kamil says. “From the build-quality of the machine through to its “Knowing that WaveGrip was a part of Berry Global was another imconsistent 24/7 performance, we would highly recommend the G2 to portant factor in our selection of the G2 applicator,” Kamil says. “We felt others looking to automate their multipacking for cans.” PW reassured that the supply of carriers would grow with our business and

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‘Quality Conscious’ Canning This Portland, Maine, brewery decided to “dip our toes in the can market” by installing a small filler/seamer. It quickly became clear that a 300 can/minute line was going to be required.

WHAT YOU’LL LEARN

Minimize dissolved oxygen in cans

Parallel packaging lines

By Pat Reynolds, VP Editor Emeritus Like plenty of other craft brewers, the folks at Allagash Brewing Co. watched with interest over the past few years as aluminum cans grew in popularity across the country. Wondering if it was a container format that they, too, should have in their portfolio, the Portland, Maine, firm invested in a small, in-line, five-head filler and seamer to “dip our toes in the market,” as Engineering Director Sean Diffley puts it. He continues.

“We’re very quality conscious here at Allagash, and we wanted to make sure we could produce a quality product in a can before investing heavily in canning operations.

Total dissolved oxygen remaining in the can, that was the measurement we were focused on. We wanted some prior knowledge of canning before adding on to the building and putting a highvolume can line in.”

What happened? Predictably enough, cans took off. Consumers, retailers, and wholesalers all responded enthusiastically, to the point where the five-head filler just wasn’t able to cut it anymore. “So we pulled the trigger on a can line that runs 300 cans/min,” says Diffley.

“It handles 12-, 16-, and 19.2-oz cans. It’s in an 8,000-sq-ft expansion to our bottling hall. That allowed us to reposition the secondary packaging equipment of the existing bottling line so that both canning and bottling lines run parallel and they merge at the full case conveyors. Due

Automatic full-pallet infeed capability ahead of the empty-can depalletizer is a recent addition to the range of equipment made by Ska Fabricating. Allagash was the first to install it. Shown below is the brewery’s flagship beer in both 12- and 16-oz formats.

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to labor restrictions we don’t run both lines simultaneously—not yet, at least. But there’s room to split the end-of-line equipment eventually.

“We installed the new line ourselves and provided our own integration services. But Ska Fabricating Products provided a lot of help in terms of line design. We also bought our conveyors through them, including the ionized air twist-rinser.”

Also in place is an automatic can-end feeding system from CSW. “It holds something like 15,000 ends and feeds them to the seamer automatically,” says Diffley. “Otherwise an operator has to put a sleeve of ends into the seamer every two minutes or so.”

Full cans are inspected by a Heuft Prime X-ray system and date coding on the bottom of the cans is done by a Markem-Imaje ink-jet coder.

“We have their ink-jet coder on our bottling line as well as on the low-speed canning line we installed, and we’ve been very pleased with both,” says Diffley. “The Markem-Imaje coders seem able to operate efficiently in the slightly wetter environment that you’ll find in our brewery. Our cans are a little wetter because we actually warm our beer in a double heat exchanger and add yeast and sugar before filling so that the beer is conditioned in the can as opposed to force-carbonating the beer. It’s a way of carbonating naturally in the can, which gives you a better mouth feel to the beer.”

The 27-valve filler (below) plays a key role in permitting Allagash to reach its 300 cans/min operating speed. An automated end feeder (left) frees up operators to perform more meaningful tasks than putting a sleeve of ends into the seamer every few minutes.

Both the conveyors and the rinser were made by A&E Conveyor Systems. The can depalletizer is from Ska, and just ahead of that is a piece of equipment from Ska that bears serial number one.

Pallet infeed system “It’s a pallet loader,” says Diffley, “that lets us queue up a full pallet of empty cans in an infeed system that will then automatically index that next pallet into the depalletizer rather than waiting for a fork lift driver to do it. It’s one more way of making sure we keep the filler running and don’t starve it of cans somehow. We were the first to install one of these systems from Ska.” The KHS Innofill Can C filler was selected, says Diffley, for several reasons. First, both the filler and the seamer are made by KHS in Wisconsin. That made it easy enough for Diffley and colleagues to reach mechanical, electrical, and controls technicians at KHS to absorb information from them first-hand, something they greatly appreciated being able to do. There was also considerable flexibility on the part of KHS to build equipment having whatever footprint and number of filling and seaming stations that Allagash wanted. It was a KHS 27-6 system that Allagash selected—27 filling nozzles and a six-head seamer.

Allagash_PW.indd 184

Borrowed from Belgium Allagash is one of a handful of breweries that carbonate this way.

“It’s a traditional Belgian way of bottling that we just moved across to canning,” says Diffley. “When I mentioned to most of the companies whose filling systems we were considering that we fill at upwards of

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The QuickFlex 300 System is used frequently for cartoning of 12- and 19.2-oz cans.

24 degrees Celsius--when most beer is filled at three to four degrees Celsius—some balked. But fortunately the KHS engineers were willing to work with us on it.”

Most of the cans Allagash fills are printed by the supplier. But for smaller-batch beers, unprinted bright stock is ordered and those cans go through a Model Pro-516 high-speed wraparound pressure-sensitive labeler from Pack Leader.

At this point cans are multipacked in one of two ways. Most of the 16-oz cans run through a PakTech system for application of a plastic

handle that groups the cans into four-packs. The four-packs then are conveyed into a tray packer from Design Machine & Manufacturing that puts six four-packs into a corrugated tray.

The 12- and 19.2-oz cans, on the other hand, usually are multipacked in 12-count paperboard cartons on a QuickFlex 300 System from Graphic Packaging. Two cartons are then put into corrugated trays on the DMM traypacker.

“The cost of the DMM machine was attractive,” says Diffley when asked what led to that firm’s equipment being selected. “But a lot of their competitors at the same price point were only able to do 15 trays per minute. We needed 21 trays per minute, so that made DMM even more attractive.”

Hytrol case conveyors after the DMM machine link up with an existing spiral conveyor that leads to the overhead case conveyance system.

Eventually the filled cases wind up back in the vicinity of the depalletizer and move into a Top Tier palletizer with an integrated stretch wrapper. Diffley arranged this end-of-line section in such a way that both the bottling line and the canning line feed into the same palletizer/ stretch wrapper, depending on which package format is in production.

The top Tier system, he adds, is a concurrent palletizer/stretch wrapper.

“It applies stretch wrap as it builds layers,” says Diffley. “It’s a pretty slick system.”

In looking back at the brewery’s entry into cans, Diffley sums it all up this way. “There was good planning and we had good vendors to work with. It’s paying off well.” PW

A world of knowledge

Visit Pack Expo 2020 website and discover our innovative solutions for Confectionery, Tea&Coffee and Home&Personal Care markets.

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9/22/20 1:13 PM

One Voice: Virtual Factory Acceptance Tests

PLANNING SET-UP CURRENT SOLUTIONS

CRITERIA

LAST UPDATE: JUNE 2020

SUMMER 2020

Performing Virtual Factory Acceptance Tests Addendum

SUMMER 2020

Protocols for Capital Equipment in the CPG industry

SUMMER 2020

SUMMER 2020

One Voice Factory Acceptance Tests

EXECUTION TOOLS

Following are the common tools suggested for an OEM to have on-hand when performing a vFAT.

CRITERIA

EXECUTION TOOLS

The specific tools necessary to execute the vFAT need to be agree agreed upon. These tools may include physical

1.

CAMERA

test devices, ancillary equipment, software and tracking systems. tems. Proper utilization of these tools needs to be 7. MICROMETER DESCRIPTION FAT.

LEADERSHIP GUIDANCE

CURRENT SOLUTIONS 1. Logitech PTZ Pro Camera Video Conference System meets the abov above guidance criteria #1.

2.

INFRARED CAMERA

3.

TACHOMETER

4.

MOISTURE METER

5.

TEMPERATURE / WIND METER

6.

CALIPERS

1. Need to have a solid webcam with remote control that enables userthat to zoom and panzoom feature a. The AVER 520 the camera has ain/out high-quality re that th can access more details of the 8. DECIBLE METER machine.

It allows get two perspectives zoomed in and out. sideways (controlled by the OEM). Camera system should work PC to and Mac computers/ k withyou laptops.

2. A suitable gimble (criteria #6) can be found at 2. Provide a tripod so the webcam can be mounted at the correct heig height for a variety of systems. May https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07R9XZSGL/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o00_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1. t_b_a also benefit from a gimble to improve camera movement.

3. VideoPoint meets the above criteria #8. See 9. screen VACUUM GAUGEfor the OEM so the 3. Large TV/monitor presenter can see what the other participants can see https://www.presentationpoint.com/software/videopoint/ forr det details. (if using a second laptop as a participant) or mirror what is being on the camera output to ng shown sh choose the best output device to show.

4. The Open Broadcaster System in criteria 9 is found at https://obsproject.com/. bspr 4. Wireless headsets (x2) for the OEMs – one for the presenter, and d one on to plug into a second laptop VideoPoint similar) software app that enables the user to monitor monit and show multiple web cam, if present, to stop any sound interference5. and feedback (or occurring the audio output; noise ng ffrom video, IP camera and streaming video feeds in PowerPoint. Open System (OBS) manages n Broadcaster Br 10. VIBRATION cancellation headsetsMETER are best. multiple cameras/images for simultaneous display.

5. PowerPoint (or similar) tool to show the slides containing the agenda gend and series of checklist items to work through during the vFAT. 6. VideoPoint (or similar) software app that enables the user to monitor onit and show multiple web cam,11. video, IP camera and streaming video feeds in PowerPoint. t. Open Op Broadcaster System (OBS) MULTIMETER manages multiple cameras/images for simultaneous display.

CURRENT SOLUTIONS 7. Optional equipment may include: a.

Wireless keyboard and mouse

b.

Wireless clicker if using PowerPoint

c.

Docking station to enable multiple USB devices to be connected, necte as many laptops are limited in the number of ports they provide

d.

Photography lighting/background kit to block out unnecessary 11 essar or sensitive backgrounds that ©2020 PMMI are not relevant to the vFAT, such as projects for other clients. nts.

14 ©2020 PMMI

15 ©2020 PMMI

brought to you by:

Best Practices for Conducting Virtual FATs

In a changing world, many companies are turning to technology to effectively complete the Factory Acceptance Test (FAT) process virtually.

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Allagash_PW.indd 187

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188 PW OCT2020

By Anne Marie Mohan, Editor, Shelf Impact!

Boombox-Inspired Shippers Reinforce ‘Soda with Soul’ Proposition With the COVID-19 lockdown, U.K. craft soda company Dalston’s unveiled new shippers for its growing online sales that pay homage to its music roots, while introducing new consumers to the brands’ values and personality.

Dalston’s, a London-based company that first launched its craft soda products in a culturally-rich music venue called Passing Clouds near trendy Kingsland Road, Dalston in East London, has positioned itself as “Soda with Soul.” While the tagline reinforces the brand’s musical roots, it also taps into Dalston’s community-focused ethos and its products’ real ingredients, which it says are at the heart of its soft drinks.

Says Dalston’s of the drinks, “…they’re refreshingly responsible—out to do the right thing for our planet and people. Because ours is soda with soul. And it does more than just sparkle.”

In March 2020, in response to the coronavirus The three shippers include a 24-ct, a 12-ct, and a four-count case illustrated to lockdown, Dalston’s developed new e-commerce resemble vintage turntables and a boombox. A booklet designed to look like a shippers that incorporate all the various cassette tape provides an introduction to the brand and its varieties. interpretations of soul: community, health and sustainability, and music. The unique design facilitates the social distancing demanded by the virus through online provenance, and a clear point of difference from the brands they shopping while at the same time bringing consumers together with buy into,” he says. “Creating an emotional connection with this fickle Instagram-friendly graphics that celebrate its heritage. The sharable consumer group has been key to the brand’s success.” designs include two recyclable shippers illustrated to look like According to Bowen, the rise of crafted adult soft drinks is having turntables and one that looks like a boombox, in Dalston’s bright a marked effect on traditional category conventions and the brands brand colors. within them, where once-distinct sectors like soft drinks, mixers, or alcohol are now starting to merge. “It is a market full of opportunity, but brands need to have clearly defined values in order to take advantage of these opportunities in a way that is true to them,” Dalston’s was founded in mid-2012, but the current graphic design Bowen says. for its canned craft sodas was done in 2017 by brand design firm B&B With this in mind, B&B studio designed Dalston’s brand identity studio. Since then, B&B studio has extended the brand look beyond with the soda maker’s community-focused ethos at the forefront. The Dalston’s six soda varieties to three seltzers and two alcohol-free G&T brand logo is a “big D,” with the stem of the letter illustrated at the products, as well as to the new e-commerce shippers. top with a hand squeezing the main ingredient of the variety into As Shaun Bowen, Creative Partner for B&B studio relates, the a cup or other vessel, which is held by a hand at the bottom of the agency approaches every project with a clear understanding of the stem. “The ‘big D’ identity provides an iconic mark while highlighting consumer, category, competitors, and cultural context. “Through the handmade craft and ingredients that make up each variant,” our ongoing partnership with Dalston’s, we are aware that theirs Bowen explains. is a switched-on consumer who demands authentic personality,

Focus on community ethos

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190 PW OCT2020

Vintage nostalgia combines with modern utility

The new corrugated shipping cases, including this 24-ct case with turntable artwork, pay homage to Dalston’s original launch pad—a music club in Hackney, East London.

Bold background colors, matched to each flavor variety—e.g., pink for Fizzy Rhubarb, orange for Orangeade, etc.—evoke flavor and taste and stand out on shelf. Crucial to the visual identity, Bowen adds, is “the development of the broader graphic and illustrative style, brand personality, and tone of voice that touches every aspect of the brand, from packaging to social media and digital campaigns.”

With the advent of the coronavirus lockdown in the U.K., Dalston’s became began selling more of its product online, so it turned to B&B studio to develop a shipper that would not only be utilitarian, but that would also encourage consumer engagement. “Dalston’s wanted to use the shipper as a way to playfully build the brand story while also creating something people might want to keep and reuse,” Bowen shares.

All three boxes are made from corrugated board, which was important to Dalston’s, as it aligns with the brand’s sustainable values and its commitment to A Plastic Planet, a charity that’s working toward a plastic-free supermarket aisle. Dalston’s has also set a goal of going carbon neutral by 2021.

There are three flavor-generic sizes: a 24-ct, a 12-ct, and a fourcount. The 24- and 12-ct sizes, colored bright pink and yellow, respectively, are illustrated with line art to look like vintage turntable systems. On the top (when the box is positioned flat) is a drawing of a spinning record with tonearm, along with various dials. On the side of the case are more switches, dials, and meters, and the “Soda with Soul” tagline. The Dalston’s logo appears on the top and sides.

The four-count shipper, in bright powder blue, uses line art to replicate a boombox, complete with speakers and a cassette deck on the front (when the box is positioned on its side). On the top is an illustration of a foldable carry handle, along with the Dalston’s logo and a heart bearing the words, “Devoted Drinks.”

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ENABLING PET PACKAGING RECYCLABILITY Sign up for this live demo during PACK EXPO Connects This simulation of the industrial washing process will illustrate how your label choice can contaminate the recycling stream, versus how it can yield clear PET flakes. You will also learn your role in ensuring your productsâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; PET packaging is cleanly recycled.

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Extending the vintage boombox theme, B&B studio also developed a booklet designed to look like a cassette tape. Included in the four-count shipper, the booklet acts as a sales brochure, introducing the brand and the rest of the craft cola portfolio.

“As we [consumers] are currently much more reliant on online sales and delivery, Dalston’s wanted to create some delivery packaging that would help facilitate our social isolation, while also being able to bring people together,” says Bowen. “The delivery boxes are clearly Insta-friendly, especially stacked into your own at-home DJ booth, and they’ve also helped reinforce Dalston’s collaboration with Deviate Music—a weekly live-streamed lockdown session every Saturday at noon on Twitch and Facebook.”

The shipper is being used primarily for online sales, but as Bowen explains, it has been designed with a versatility that encourages other forms of use, for example, for storage or for use in tradeshow marketing.

Engagement facilitates brand marketing As Dalston’s works to grow from a niche startup to an international scale-up, its new shippers are helping create and foster a community of brand advocates that are assisting the handcraftedsoda maker market its brand and reinforce its values of community, authenticity, and provenance.

Says Dan Broughton, co-founder and Managing Director of Dalston’s, “Being able to add fun and joy to our consumers’ lives is very important to us, especially as people are at home and needing tasty, healthier, and refreshing treats from time to time.

“The record player and boombox packaging brilliantly reflects Dalston’s ‘Soda with Soul’ positioning and musical roots. It is also a shipper that people want to reuse, as storage or even stacked into an at-home DJ booth.”

As Bowen reports, in early May, as Dalston’s foodservice sales declined, its online sales tripled, with the shippers receiving “fantastic feedback—all commenting on the packaging design.” PW

9/25/20 8:25 AM

LIP2020_A

Each of the following market-leading companies* participating in Packaging World’s 2020 Leaders in Packaging Program are named sponsors of PW’s Future Leaders in Packaging scholarship.

This year’s recipient is the University of Florida Packaging Engineering Program.

We appreciate the support of all participants on behalf of packaging education.

More Information: packworld.com/leaders *These logos represent some of the recent Leaders in Packaging Participants. Sponsor recognition will alternate every other month. ©2020 PMMI Media Group

LIP2020_Ad_EVEN.indd 193 ShelfImpact_1020.indd 1

2/27/20 9/24/20 10:07 5:23 PM AM

With the QuikDot™ Pro Glue Dots® applicator

STICK HAPPENS

194 PW OCT2020

INDUSTRY WATCH

Companies ePac installed 26 HP Indigo digital presses at its new site in Sacramento, Calif.

Amcor joined the U.S. Plastics Pact to advance circular economy goals in the U.S. TricorBraun acquired Price Container and Packaging.

KHS GmbH announced it will be acquiring a stake in Ferrum Packaging AG. JLS celebrated its 65th anniversary with a virtual Founder’s Day event on August 19, 2020.

Markem-Imaje acquired Solaris Laser.

ABB offers an Augmented Reality app for smartphones to simplify robot installations.

forr food & beverage beverage, post-press post-press, mail and printing applications.

Columbia/Okura LLC’s miniPAL collaborative palletizer, featuring the UR10e robot, has been certified and added to the Universal Robots UR+ Applications Program.

The Massman Companies launched www.themassmancompanies.com, a new website that describes the capabilities of the multiple companies that make up the business.

For cleaner packaging repairs and faster application of promotional items, call 262-814-8500 or visit www.GlueDots.com/StickHappensQuik Scan for informational pdf.

Allied Electronics & Automation and Schneider Electric partnered to deploy a suite of digital resources to help customers design, build, and maintain industrial control panels.

Motion Industries, Inc. acquired Applied Machine and Motion Control.

Ryson International, Inc. is celebrating its 25th anniversary.

DataLase announced a distribution agreement with Macsa ID where both companies will offer a complete solution to brands and converters utilizing DataLase’s coding and marking technologies and Macsa’s global distribution network.

People Kyle Chapman was promoted to President of Barry-Wehmiller, and Michael Monarchi joined the company as Chief Financial Officer.

Paul Cooke, President and CEO of Bosch Rexroth North America, will retire on December 31, 2020. His successor as of December 1, 2020, will be Greg Gumbs.

Ana Pryor was appointed Director of Finance for Schubert North America.

Standard Parts.

Winco.

800-877-8351 sales@jwwinco.com

www.jwwinco.com Inch and metric sizes available — Explore our full product range online

IW_1020.indd 194

Patrick Kivits was appointed President of WestRock’s Multi Packaging Solutions (MPS) business.

Johan Nilsson joined Syntegon Technology’s executive board. He will head the newly created Service and Digital Solutions business unit.

Jeffrey Schuch was hired as Regional Sales Manager—Southeast Region for Triangle Package Machinery Co. Lloyd Kent joined Domino as Senior Sales Manager for Corrugated, Digital Printing North America.

Steve Lynn, Director and GM, New Markets, at Durst North America will lead its label and packaging division.

9/22/20 6:05 AM

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Visit the link below each item for more info.

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TECHNOLOGY

Modular Labeler The Innoket Neo Flex from KHS is designed to label plastic and glass containers and cans in all standard sizes at speeds to 74,000 containers/hr.

KHS pwgo.to/5695

Flow Wrapper Syntegon Technology launches the Pack 202 horizontal flow-wrapping machine for low to medium speeds. It is designed to produce up to 350 packs/min with a film speed of 50 m/min.

Embossed Induction Seal Closure Liners Tri-Seal, a Tekni-Plex business launches Luxe® seal two-piece, embossed induction seal closure liners, which provide an embossed alternative to traditional printed liners.

Syntegon Technology pwgo.to/5724

Tri-Seal pwgo.to/5404

Gummy Filling System SpeeDee’s sanitary gummy filling system features multiple proprietary steaming mechanisms to ensure accurate filling at speeds up to 180 bottles/min.

SpeeDee Packaging pwgo.to/5723

DS Smith developed a 100% recyclable cooler, using its Greencoat corrugated moisture-resistant and food-contact safe material, as a replacement for EPS.

DS Smith Packaging pwgo.to/5733

SCARA Robots Recycled PET Bottle Krones’ 3 Circles bottle is made of 100% rPET and in turn can be recycled into food packaging after use. Instead of having a label, which may be unable to be recycled, the bottle can be decorated using digital direct printing.

Krones pwgo.to/5730

Technology_1020.indd 196

Recyclable Disposable Cooler

Epson Robots launches the LS3-B SCARA robot featuring a payload of 3 kg and a 400-mm reach and the LS20-B SCARA robot featuring a 20-kg payload and available reach of 800 mm and 1000 mm.

Epson Robots pwgo.to/5725

Stock Creamer Closure Creamer closure from Silgan Closures is a stock cap that incorporates features usually found only in custom closures, such as custom-matched colors and customer logos molded into the cap.

Silgan Closures pwgo.to/5639

9/24/20 5:15 PM

197

SCARA Robots Yaskawa Motoman’s SG-series SCARA robots are suitable for assembly and sortation, as well as multi-process systems requiring pick-and-place capability.

Yaskawa Motoman pwgo.to/5727

Food Packaging-Compliant Black Ink

Renewable-Fiber Food Tray Harpak-ULMA’s new PaperSeal food trays are made from 80% to 90% renewable fiber sourced from sustainably managed forests and 10% to 20% film, depending on tray dimensions.

Harpak-ULMA pwgo.to/5729

Domino launches UV97BK, a food packaging-compliant, UV-curable black ink available for use with its K600i high resolution digital ink-jet printer.

Domino pwgo.to/5697

Filler/Capper for Vials and Small Bottles ESS announces the FC Series filler/capper for vials and small bottles. Model FC60 handles up to 60 vials/min, and Model FC120 fills 120 vials/min.

ESS Technologies pwgo.to/5633

Portable Oxygen Analyzer for MAP GasLab’s Tecpen oxygen analyzer for modified atmosphere packaging is designed to provide oxygen level measurements between 0.01% and 5% by volume.

GasLab pwgo.to/5726

Thermoplastic Elastomer Valve Aptar’s SimpliCycle valve is made from a thermoplastic elastomer material with a low density that allows the valve to float, so it is easily separated from the PET stream, then recycled within the PP/PE olefin stream.

Aptar Food + Beverage pwgo.to/5728

Security Printing Solutions Nanografix offers security printing solutions, such as color shifting ink, invisible ink guilloche, and invisible ink QR codes, that integrate with its custom anti-counterfeiting products for pharmaceutical, food and beverage, and personal care applications.

Nanografix pwgo.to/5731

Technology_1020.indd 197

Rainbow Holographic Overlaminate Film Nobelus launches Rainbow Holografik overlaminate film designed with a seamless luminous rainbow holographic pattern so the eye cannot detect any repeat in the design.

Nobelus pwgo.to/5732

9/24/20 5:15 PM

198 PW OCT2020

AD INDEX

Search Packworld.com for additional information on any of the advertisers listed or visit their website directly ADVERTISER WEBSITE

PAGE

Aagard www.aagard.com

31

ABB Motors & Mechanical www.baldor.com

OBC

ABB Robotics www.abb.com/robotics

85

ACMA S.p.A. www.acma.it

186

ADVERTISER WEBSITE

PAGE

DS Smith www.dssmith.com/

69

Eastey Enterprises www.eastey.com

37

EBS Inkjet Systems www.ebs-inkjet.com

33

Econocorp Inc. www.econocorp.com

66

ADCO Manufacturing www.adcomfg.com

74

Emerson Industrial Automation www.emerson.com/packaging

129

Advanced Poly Packaging, Inc. www.advancedpoly.com

50

Encoder Products Company www.encoder.com

120

AFA Systems Inc www.afasystemsinc.com/

77

Enercon Industries www.enerconind.com

AirTAC USA Corporation www.airtac.com

47

Eriez Magnetics www.eriez.com

All Packaging Machinery www.allpackagingmachinery.com

79

Fallas Automation Inc. www.fallasautomation.com

71

FlexLink Systems www.flexlink.com

81

All-Fill Inc. www.all-fill.com

7

ALLIEDFLEX Technologies, Inc. www.alliedflex.com/

25

AmbaFlex Inc. www.ambaflex.com

176

130

Fortress Technology Inc. www.fortresstechnology.com

58

American Packaging Corporation www.ampkcorp.com/ Targeted Cover

FoxJet, An ITW Company www.foxjet.com

51

ANRITSU INFIVIS, INC. www.anritsu.com

67

Frain Group www.fraingroup.com

121

Arrowhead Systems Inc. www.arrowheadsystems.com

53

Garvey Corporation www.garvey.com

138

Automation24 www.automation24.com

43

GLUE DOTS International www.gluedots.com

194

Batching Systems, Inc. www.batchingsystems.com

73

Graphic Packaging International www.graphicpkg.com

93

Harpak-ULMA www.harpak-ulma.com

75 49

Beckhoff Automation www.beckhoffautomation.cwo

8

Focke Packaging Solutions GmbH www.focke.com

72

26, Targeted Cover

Bell-Mark Sales Company www.bell-mark.com

90

Heat and Control, Inc. www.heatandcontrol.com

Bevcorp www.bevcorp.com

76

Hitachi America www.hitachi-america.us

117

Blueprint Automation, Inc. www.blueprintautomation.com

88

Honeywell Intelligrated www.intelligrated.com

113

Bradman-Lake Inc. www.bradmanlake.com

87

IASE Co., Inc. www.iase.net

Brenton www.brentonengineering.com

84

ID Technology www.idtechnology.com

Brother USA Machinery www.usabrother.com/

133

Busch Vacuum Solutions www.buschusa.com

95 5

Independent Can www.independentcan.com

189

55

INSITE Packaging Automation www.insitepackaging.com

119

BW Integrated Systems www.bwintegratedsystems.com

99

Institue of Packaging Professionals www.iopp.org

192

BW Packaging Systems www.bwpackagingsystems.com

103

Intralox, Inc. www.intralox.com

CAMA Group www.camagroup.com

21

Intertape Polymer Group www.itape.com

Cloud Packaging Solutions www.cloudeg.com

65

ITW Hartness www.hartness.com

Cognex www.cognex.com Columbia Machine, Inc. www.palletizing.com

131 92

J.W. Winco www.jwwinco.com JLS Automation www.jlsautomation.com

1 136 82 194 9

Columbia/Okura LLC. www.columbiaokura.com

174

Kawasaki Robotics robotics.kawasaki.com

39

Container Handling Systems www.containerhandlingsystems

100

KHS AG www.khs.com

59

CTM Labeling Systems, Inc. www.ctmlabelingsystems.com

128

King Plastic Corporation www.kingplastic.com/

162 IFC

Delkor www.delkor.com

57

Klรถckner Pentaplast Food & Consumer www.kpfilms.com

Diagraph Corporation, An ITW Company www.diagraph.com

63

Label-Aire, Inc. www.label-aire.com

Domino www.domino-na.com

45

LEIBINGER Coding and Marking Systems www.leibinger-group.com/en 83

40, 41

Dorner Manufacturing www.dornerconveyors.com

170

Mamata Enterprises, Inc. www.mamatausa.com

140

Douglas Machine Inc. www.douglas-machine.com

111

Markem-Imaje www.markem-imaje.us

127

Oct_adindex_draft.indd 198

9/23/20 10:26 AM

199

Connect with a Leaders in Packaging supplier and support packaging education!

www.packworld.com/leaders

ADVERTISER WEBSITE

PAGE

ADVERTISER WEBSITE

Material Transfer & Storage www.materialtransfer.com

52

Serpa Packaging Solutions www.serpapackaging.com

Matrix Packaging www.matrixpm.com

89

SEW Eurodrive, Inc. www.seweurodrive.com

Mettler-Toledo Product Inspection www.mt.com/pi

142

Morrison Container Handling Solutions www.morrison-chs.com

44

PAGE

122 11

Shorr Packaging Corporation www.shorr.com

135

Shred-Tech www.shred-tech.com

163

Mpac Langen www.mpac-group.com

156

Shurtape Technologies www.shursealsecure.com

179

Multi-Conveyor www.multi-conveyor.com

146

Sick Inc. www.sick.com/packaging

149

Multivac Inc. us.multivac.com

141

Sidel Group Americas www.sidel.com

158

Nalbach Engineering Company, Inc. www.nalbach.com

154

Siko www.siko-global.com

64

Nercon www.nerconconveyors.com

28

Sleeve Seal www.sleeveseal.com

167

New England Machinery, Inc. www.neminc.com

94

SMC Corporation of America www.smcusa.com

183

Nita Labeling Equipment www.nitalabeling.com

35

Somic America, Inc. www.somic.us

155

Nordson Corporation www.nordsonadhesive.com

27

Sonoco Products Co. www.sonoco.com

157

Nuspark Inc. www.nuspark.com

123

Span Tech www.spantechconveyors.com

169

P.E. North America www.penorthamerica.com

180

Specialty Equipment www.specialtyequipment.com

Packaging World www.packworld.com

107, 193

PDC International Corp. www.pdc-corp.com

105

18

SPECRIGHT www.specright.com

164

Squid Ink Manufacturing www.squidink.com

181 147

PDI Packaging Distributors, Inc. www.pdimachinery.com

98

Standard-Knapp, Inc. www.standard-knapp.com

Pepperl + Fuchs, Inc www.pepperl-fuchs.com

96

Starview Packaging Machinery www.starview.net

23

PFlow Industries www.pflow.com

122

Suedpack Oak Creek Corporation www.suedpack.com/en/

185

PIAB www.piab.com

143

TDI Packsys LLC www.tdipacksys.com

177

PMMI, The Association for Packaging and Processing Technologies www.pmmi.org

145, 187, 195

Pneumatic Scale Angelus www.psangelus.com

144

Precision Automation Inc www.precisionautomationinc.com/

151

Pregis Corporation www.pregis.com

124

Printpack Inc. www.printpack.com

101

Propack Processing & Packaging Systems www.propack.ca

175

Quad Graphics, Inc. www.quad.com

165

R.A Jones & Co. www.rajones.com

159

Regal Beloit Corporation www.regalbeloit.com

172

Rennco LLC www.rennco.com

147

Roberts PolyPro Inc. www.robertspolypro.com

190

Ryson International, Inc. www.ryson.com

153

SACMI Packaging & Chocolate www.sacmi.com/

137

SATO America www.satoamerica.com

171

Schneider Packaging www.schneiderpackaging.com 148, Targeted Cover Schubert North America www.schubert-na.com Sealed Air Product Care www.sealedair.com Serac Inc. www.serac-inc.com

Oct_adindex.indd 199

29

Tetra Pak Inc. www.tetrapakusa.com

19

Triangle Package Machinery Company www.trianglepackage.com

3

TRIpack www.tripack.net

78

U.S. Tsubaki, Inc. www.ustsubaki.com

86

Universal Labeling Systems, Inc. www.universal1.com

48

UPM Raflatac www.upmraflatac.com/

191

UVA Packaging www.uvapackaging.com

152

Van der Graaf www.vandergraaf.com

Targeted Cover

Verst Logistics Packaging www.verstlogistics.com

173

Videojet Technologies Inc. www.videojet.com

161

Volpak, S.A.U www.volpak.com

166

Weber Packaging Solutions www.weberpackaging.com

125

WestRock www.westrock.com

13, 15, 17, IBC

Wexxar Bel www.wexxar.com

62

WIPOTEC-OCS, Inc. www.wipotec-ocs.com

91

Yamato Corporation www.yamatoamericas.com

70

139 97

9/23/20 10:41 AM

200 PW OCT2020

LOOKING FORWARD

By Tim Brown, principal at PTIS

Holy Grail 2.0 Initiative Relies on ‘IoP’ The packaging industry is beginning to realize a significant transformation as companies increasingly implement manufacturing advances offered by digitization and the Internet of Things (IoT). In fact, the changes are so profound that we are justified in saying that an Internet of Packaging (IoP) now exists.

The IoP creates the ability to connect the entire value chain up and through the consumer with packaging. The most obvious benefits may be the ways in which packaging is being made more attractive to consumers. Through the use of internet-related tools such as QR codes and augmented reality, brands are able to engage consumers by sharing further information about the product beyond what is printed on the label—often in entertaining ways, such as the storytelling buyers can see when they point their smart phones at a bottle of 19 Crimes wine (read more on this smart packaging application at pwgo.to/5759). At the same time, brands can use this engagement to gather data about customer preferences.

While this is beneficial in attracting potential consumers, perhaps even greater benefits might be available throughout the production and packaging process. This new wave of advances can make package manufacturing safer and more efficient, allow the production of unique products through flexible automation, and create intelligent packaging through the use of codes, printed electronics, or near-field communications (NFC).

Networking machines, vehicles, buildings, and the packaging itself, through the use of electronics, software, and sensors, allows the collection and exchange of data across networks. These data can be sensed and controlled remotely, creating opportunities to improve productivity, eliminate waste, provide authenticity, and allow traceability that creates transparency and safety across the value chain.

A prime example is the use of imperceptible identities developed

by Digimarc. These unique identifiers—known as Digimarc Barcodes—can be added to printed images or integrated into threedimensional objects, such as plastic packaging. These codes can be repeated across the package or label without affecting the aesthetics of the packaging or taking up valuable space for messaging. The data in the Digimarc can be reliably detected by enabled devices, such as phones, computers, barcode scanners, and inspection systems.

These data can link to online content, provide serialized identities for traceability, verify authenticity, or even identify packaging materials to improve plastic sortation and recycling.

For instance, Walmart and Digimarc are working together to use the Digimarc codes on packaged fresh foods. Labels on the products can be easily damaged, but having the codes repeated across the label

makes checkout scanning more reliable. It can also reduce food waste and feed data to online systems for improved control and up-tothe minute inventory levels. By using labels printed on inkjet label printers and registered to a database in the cloud, they can also track food from the exact farm field to the table, enhancing food safety and speeding any recall efforts.

In Europe, the Digimarc Platform has been selected to participate in the cross-chain initiative “Holy Grail 2.0,” to improve sortation and improve recycling rates for packaging in the European Union. The Holy Grail initiative includes companies such as Procter & Gamble, Nestlé, PepsiCo, and Danone. Global recycling firm TOMRA plans to use cameras and lighting to identify Digimarc codes on packaging and sort the different materials at speeds up to three to five meters per second.

While visiting many fast-moving consumer goods manufacturing sites around the globe, many companies invest significantly more in the process of manufacturing the product than they do in the packaging process. However, slowdowns, inefficiencies, or breakdowns in packaging often create bottlenecks in processing that can be costly over time. Having real-time data that shows how a plant’s integrated systems are performing is paramount to ensuring that the processing and packaging lines are properly balanced and the collective operation is running efficiently. The IoP allows automated data collection in real time. Dashboards based on this information enable quick corrective action. Companies must learn how to harvest the value of the data and learn to use it create value for their stakeholders.

A simple yet powerful example is Worximity’s discreet Wi-Fi enabled sensors and mobile dashboard. Regardless of the age of a company’s manufacturing assets—whether it’s a new or 25-year-old machine—sensors are connected to the Input/Output of specific machines, data is filtered by smart algorithms, and the analytics are provided in real time to hand-held or desk-top devices via intuitive dashboards. Basically, you need to have WiFi connectivity in the plant, sensors that pull I/O information from the machines, and a mobile device or computer.

There are elements of the IoP that are available now. It may seem more of a novelty, but it is moving into the mainstream. This approach must overcome obstacles such as breaking down ingrained structures and processes, selecting the right technologies, and securing financial and machine data. However, as more companies adopt the necessary tools such as software and sensors, the cost of utilizing the IoP is coming down. There is tremendous value and efficiency to be harnessed in the supply chain by advancing connectivity within packaging operations. PW

PTIS, LLC is a leading business and technology management company focused on Creating Value Through Packaging©.

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9/23/20 9:26 AM

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