CPAC05_2010

IN S ID E :

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CALMING THE WATERS Nestlé Waters Canada comes clean on sustainable packaging Page 17

PM40070230. Return Canadian undeliverable addresses to: Canadian Packaging Circulation Dept., 7th floor, 1 Mount Pleasant Rd., Toronto ON M4Y 2Y5

IN THIS ISSUE: PACKAGING FOR FRESHNESS • CASE-READY MEAT PACKAGING

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Free HACCP! Take this one minute survey and see if you qualify (If you hate surveys, simply go to the bottom and give us a call)

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As the first corrugated company in the world to obtain the PACsecure HACCP designation, Atlantic Packaging is the supplier of choice for Food, Beverage, and Pharmaceutical companies looking to ensure their product safety.

Sustainable packaging, food and pharmaceutical certifications, second to none recycled cartons and containers, who else takes your business more seriously?

Give us a call today and claim your free HACCP by purchasing your corrugated containers from us!

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Atlantic Packaging Products Ltd. Corrugated Division Scarborough-Progress Ave., Scarborough-Midwest Ave., Brampton, Mississauga and Ingersoll 416-298-8101 • 1-800-268-5620 • www.atlantic.ca Add Ink (Atlantic Decorated & Display) Toronto 416-421-3636 • www.addink.ca Mitchel-Lincoln Packaging Ltd. Montreal and Drummondville 514-332-3480 • 1-800-361-5727 • www.mlgroup.com FOR MORE INFORMATION CIRCLE

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UPFRONT

MISSING OUT M AY 2 0 1 0 VOL U ME 6 3 , NO. 5

EDITOR

George Guidoni • (416) 764-1505 george.guidoni@packaging.rogers.com F E AT U R E S E D I T O R

Andrew Joseph • (416) 764-1529 andrew.joseph@packaging.rogers.com ART DIRECTOR

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Celia Ramnarine • (416) 764-1451 deokie.ramnarine@rci.rogers.com

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Packaging and product innovation is often a hitand-miss affair and it’s only fair: if it was all so easy, it wouldn’t really be true innovation, would it?

Take the condiments king Heinz, for example.

After having literally turned the condiments business upside down all those years ago with the inverted Top-Down plastic Heinz Ketchup bottle, the company’s innovation credentials were severely tested in the early part of the last decade with high-profile, megahyped launches of green, and then purple (!?) variations of the iconic brand—arguably the worst marketing ideas since New Coke, which really takes some doing.

But with victory always being so much sweeter after tasting the ignominy of defeat, the company’s package design guys have every right to enjoy the fruits of their labor following this year’s introduction of the unidose Heinz Dip & Squeeze dual-function foodservice industry package (see picture)—the first foodservice ketchup packet makeover in 42 years and one that has winner written all over it, at least from the consumer-friendliness angle.

“From dipping nuggets and fries to squeezing ketchup on hamburgers or eggs, the Heinz Dip & Squeeze product gives consumers more flexibility, so they can have fun and enjoy eating Heinz Ketchup on whatever and wherever they want,” says company vice-president Dave Ciesinski.

Granted, ketchup on eggs may be an acquired taste—to put it mildly—but if that’s what it takes to see the company begin offering the Heinz Dip & Squeeze packets at Canadian fast-food outlets and eateries sooner rather than later, we’re willing to give it a go.

Ditto for the Kentucky Fried Chicken’s just-launched Double Down C O V E R S T O RY

COVER STORY

sandwich—at once a nutritionist’s worst nightmare and a carnivore’s piece of heaven—whose sheer audacity of being a breadless sandwich last month sparked off an Internet-driven consumer frenzy not seen since someone dropped a few Mentos mint candies into a bottle of Diet Coke.

Alright, so indulging in some bacon and melted cheese stuck between two pieces of fried chicken is not going to win you many brownie points from your family physician or personal trainer, but having seen Stephen Colbert, no less, gobbling the stuff up on his nightly broadcast a few weeks back suddenly makes the idea of a oneday shopping trip to the U.S. a tempting proposition, especially with the Canadian dollar trading where it’s at these days.

If only to get our hands on yet another masterstroke of product innovation that is, alas, only available in the U.S. so far—the smokeless Snus tobacco packs from Philip Morris USA, whose appearance on the Sixty Minutes news magazine last month was a fitting tribute to the power of innovation to enable industries given up for dead to reinvent themselves.

Packaged in slim little cartons smaller than most packs of chewing gum, the tiny pouches of chewing tobacco are a longoverdue answer to the prayers of nicotine addicts who appreciate the rights of the nonsmoking majority not to be exposed to second-hand tobacco, while also losing patience with being ostracized to the very margins of civil society.

Which is probably why Health Canada, in its eternal wisdom, will do everything in its power to prevent this smokeless and infinitely healthier alternative to cigarettes—undoubtedly Big Tobacco’s biggest triumph of pure product innovation this century so far—from reaching its intended target audience for as long as it possibly can. Pity, eh?

CASE STUDY

17 Calm Waters By George Guidoni The bottled-water industry may not exactly be everyone’s cup of tea, but Canada’s leading water-bottler is more than game for the critics with demonstrated deep commitment to environmental sustainability and cutting-edge packaging innovation.

COVER STORY

FEATURES PA C K A G I N G F O R F R E S H N E S S

14 The Sweetest Things By Andrew Joseph An up-and-coming popcorn producer works its way into the big leagues of the consession-stand business with relentless product innovation and thoughtful investment in automated packaging equipment.

COVER PHOTOGRAPHY BY SANDRA STRANGEMORE.

C A S E - R E A DY PA C K A G I N G

23 Cut Above the Rest By Andrew Joseph Ontario meat processor leverages high-performance MAP (modified-atmosphere packaging) equipment and technologies to extend its market reach and penetration.

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S U S TA I N A B I L I T Y

26 Settling Scores By George Guidoni Walmart execs use the fourth annual Walmart Sustainable Packaging Conference to put the retail giant’s supplier base on notice about looming deadlines for meeting its Packaging Scorecard goals and expectations.

30 Awash in Green By Andrew Joseph A timely paper industry seminar cuts through the fog of ambiguity surrounding third-party eco-labeling and environmental standards certification.

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U P F R O N T By George Guidoni

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N E W S PA C K

Ice-cream makers chill with cool packaging; ICE age arrives for package converters.

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FIRST GLANCE

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New technologies for packaging applications.

i m PA C t

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Latest career moves.

EVENTS

Upcoming industry shows and functions.

A monthly insight from the PAC. PEOPLE

ANNOUNCEMENTS

Industry briefs and updates.

All the latest on packaging sustainability.

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C H E C K O U T By Sarah Harper

Joe Public speaks out on packaging hits and misses.

NEXT ISSUE: Automate NOW, Packaging for Freshness, End-of-Line Packaging.

CA NA DI A N PAC K AG IN G • M AY 2 0 1 0

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MATERIAL HANDLING, ROBOTICS

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Pack Ice-cream producers jazz up their packaging in time for the busy summer season With the long-awaited summer finally just around the corner, a couple of Canada’s leading ice-cream producers have just put their finishing touches on some exciting new packages now making their way onto the freezer-shelves of the country’s leading grocery outlets.

• Produced at the Nestlé Canada Inc. plant in London, Ont., the 1.5-liter tubs of the company’s Real Dairy frozen treats—offered in the regular Ice Cream, low-fat Light Ice Cream, and Frozen Yogourt varieties—boast elegant packaging graphics designed by the Canadian office of Anthem Worldwide to convey Nestlé’s message of exclusively using real, natural ingredients to make the products, available in total of 15 different flavors ranging from Vanilla and Cappuccino to Butterscotch Ripple and Crème Brulee.

“The relaunch of Real Dairy was centered around what consumers are looking for—less processed products made with ‘real’ ingredients,” explains Erin Lazer, Nestlé Canada’s marketing manager for packaged ice-cream.

“After developing a more natural recipe, we turned to Anthem to bring the new concept to life at the shelf level, as well as help the brand truly differentiate itself.

“They’ve done an incredible job of accomplishing our objectives and creating the most attractive Real Dairy package design yet,” Lazer states, adding that the entire Real Dairy brand range—packaged with plastic tubs and lidding supplied by the Goderich, Ont.based Jokey Plastics North America, Inc.—is now available across Metro supermarket locations throughout Ontario and Quebec.

“Anthem’s clean color palette and simple design architecture solution communicates a compelling and consistent brand experience that allows for additional line extensions and future innovations,” adds Lazer. “As a result of this design success, the frozen yogourt and ice-cream lines have been able to expand distribution by approximately 50 and 15 per cent respectively.”

Gary Oakley, creative director of Anthem Worldwide’s Canadian office in Mississauga, Ont., says that his company, a subsidiary of the global branding consultancy Schawk, Inc., had evaluated three different “possible creative entry points” to arrive at the new packaging strategy for the brand, including: Wholesome, Real Ingredients; Rich & Creamy; and Pure, Simple Flavors.

“The territory of real ingredients ultimately became our focus to best support bringing the ‘real’ back into dairy,” he says.

“To visually support and communicate Nestlé Real Dairy, Anthem centered its design on the ‘real’

ingredients by providing easily identifiable flavor cues of a cream pitcher, a milk jug, sugar and eggs.”

• Meanwhile, the newlyexpanded Breyers Smooth & Dreamy brand of ice-cream from Unilever—featuring five new packaged icecream flavors—emphasizes the low-fat content of the tasty product, which the company says allows Canadian consumers to indulge in rich creamy taste without all the guilt of consuming excessive fat and calories, while using all-natural ingredients.

Produced and packaged at the Unilever Canada Inc. plant in Simcoe, Ont., the Smooth & Dreamy ice-cream is claimed to achieve its rich taste profile thanks to the plant’s proprietary Cream Press System process, which splits up the creaminess of ice-cream into tinier droplets and spreads them out to create a creamy taste and texture, according to the company.

“Most of us can remember a time when ice-cream was a treat that brought us pure joy without having to worry about fat and calories,” says brand manager Ben Crook.

“This Smooth & Dreamy brand is intended to help Canadians recapture that feeling of pure unconditional joy they used to have when eating ice-cream as a child.”

Packaged in 1.89-liter paperboard tubs supplied by a Rock-Tenn Co. packaging products plant in Joplin, Tenn.—with another Rock-Tenn facility in Claremont, N.C., supplying the lidding—the new ice-cream makes a strong sales pitch to consumers with high-impact packaging graphics designed by the New York Citybased Sterling Brands, according to Unilever, which is marketing the brand across Canada in all the major grocery stores, as well as in the frozen-food aisles of large drug and discount department stores.

“The recent Breyers Ice Cream redesign was a great example of how we leveraged shopper insights to build an emotional connection into its current key brand equities,” says Crook. “The comprehensive design exploratory resulted in a new and exciting visual identity that features the Breyers signature black pack, the iconic cursive Breyers script, and a mouth-watering scoop of delicious Breyers ice-cream, tumbling with fresh ingredients.

“In the end, we were able to capture that emotional connection the consumer has with Breyers right on the package, while greatly improving appetite appeal, shelf presence, and shopability.”

German design group has a kick with World Cup POS display With the marketing hype for next month’s World Cup soccer extravaganza in South A f r ica approaching fever pitch, German merchandising display specialists STI Group has developed a clever new POS (pointof-sale) display for the Choco Crossies and related snacking treats from Nestlé AS—neatly drawing a clear connection between the world’s “beautiful game,” the popular snack brand, and the World Cup 2010 host country.

After starting out with three conceptual ideas, the STI Group settled on the ‘jeep version’ (picture above) as the most attractive and attention-grabbing POS display that best managed to meld all the required themes into one display product, according to the STI Group’s head of corporate communications Claudia Rivinius.

“The display is intended to achieve high visibility and a sympathetic brand awareness at the point-of-sale— activating the shopper’s purchase impulse in an inviting way,” Rivinius explains. “Beyond the communicative aspects, logistics were also a key concern during the campaign development process.

“The result is a large-format island display delivered as a self-assembly kit for quick set-up by one person,” Rivinius adds.

“The kit fits into any standard passenger vehicle, and it also fits within the ‘safety belt dimensions’ expected by courier services, with an optimized printing layout to save on processing costs.

“All that’s left is to cross your fingers for your team!”

In addition to the Choco Crossies project, the STI Group has developed an extensive portfolio of other attractive World Cup merchandising solutions (picture on left), ranging from promotional packaging to modular display walls and imitation stadium stands.

MAY 2010 • CANADIAN PACKAGING

Pack

X45 ™

Debut show ushering in the new ICE age for converting industry If a successful, high-profile trade show is a true-tell sign of how the industry is doing, then next year’s debut of ICE USA in Orlando, Fla., is a welcome indication that things are finally looking up for North American package printers and converters after a fairly prolonged lean spell.

Scheduled to run at Orlando’s spanking new Orange County Convention Center (OCCC) on April 6-8, 2011, the inaugural U.S. edition of the highly successful ICE (International Converting Exhibition) exhibition series—originally launched several years ago in Munich, Germany—fills a notable void in the North American converting industry for a leading dedicated, comprehensive and focused converting technologies showcase, according to the ICE show organizers Mack Brooks Inc., Burlington, Mass.-based subsidiary of the U.K.-headquartered Mack Brooks Exhibition Group.

“The converting and package printing industry truly has become a global marketplace,” says ICE USA show director Michael Boyle. “More and more suppliers need to interact directly with their customers around the world, and many converters are increasingly seeking cost-effective solutions from their peers across the globe.

Michael Boyle “The ICE USA show will provide converters with new products, technologies and solutions they can’t find anywhere else,” states Boyle, saying it is the only converting-exclusive event in North America that covers all facets of the paper, film, foil and nonwovens converting industry.

“There is a void in the marketplace that is not being filled by niche events and smaller shows that are part of

Orange County Convention Center to host the inaugural ICE USA.

The biennial ICE Europe exhibition in Munich, Germany, routinely draws about 5,000 show visitors and over 350 exhibitors.

larger packaging-focused expos,” says Boyle, adding that the biennial show will feature many of the same leading exhibitors from the long-running CMM International show—bought out by Mack Brooks in 2009—which used to be held every two years in Chicago.

Set to feature an educational seminar component with sessions created by AIMCAL and other leading industry organizations, the inaugural ICE USA is hoping to attract about 250 exhibitors, according to Boyle, making it the second-largest ICE show after ICE Europe in Munich, which routinely draws over 350 exhibitors and about 5,000 show visitors. (Other ICE shows include ICE Asia in Shanghai, China, and ICE South America in Sao Paulo, Brazil).

Boyle says he is also counting on a first-time attendance “spike” that has benefitted many other trade shows that have moved to the state-of-the-art OCCC in recent years—making Orlando one of the hottest new U.S. destinations for leading exhibitions and conferences.

“The lower costs, simpler work rules, and more flexible logistics in Orange County will cut costs dramatically, as well as enable ICE USA to build a more dynamic show experience by attracting new participants and encouraging larger and better exhibits,” says Boyle, citing additional substantial savings on rigging, on-site transportation and services, lodging and accommodation, compared to holding the show in Chicago.

“The improved conditions will lead to more extensive displays of new technology and larger,and more numerous machines in full-scale operation,” Boyle states.

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

FOR THE RECORD RE: Don’t Get Greenwashed!

(Canadian Packaging, April 2010, Page 6)

X45 and X45e Compact and intelligent conveyors • • • • • •

Easy to integrate Plug and play modules Gentle product handling RFID prepared High uptime Low power consumption

Dear Sirs: Thank you for the plug for our group’s Cutting through the Greenwash II seminar on April 13th, but please correct the record.

The seminar is sponsored by the paper packaging industry’s environmental arm, called the Paper & Paperboard Packaging Environmental Council (PPEC), which has been around for 20 years and has an impressive track record of environmental leadership in Canada.

The council is funded and supported by industry as a whole—including containerboard, boxboard and kraft paper mills—as well as converters who turn these materials into boxes, bags and cartons.

The two industry associations who also support PPEC’s work include Paper Packaging Canada (PPC) and AICC Canada.

Yours sincerely, John Mullinder, Executive Director, Paper & Paperboard Packaging Environmental Council (PPEC) CANADIAN PACKAGING • MAY 2010

For immediate Release:

VInce cottone

F I R S T C H O I C E F O R PR O D U C T I O N LO G I S T I C S

NEWMAPAK LTD., Montreal, Quebec headquartered manufacturer of conveyor systems for the packaging Industry as well as distributor of packaging machinery for the packaging industry, with Sales and Service across Canada and the North East United States is pleased to announce the addition of Mr. Vince Cottone to its Sales team.

Mr. Cottone joins our sales team with over 20 years of related packaging industry sales experience. He will be responsible for sales within Ontario, Canada.

FOR MORE INFORMATION CIRCLE

www.flexlink.com FlexLink Systems Canada, Inc. · Canada +1 - 8 8 8 - 74 8 - 8 6 7 7 · i n f o . c a @ f l e x l i n k . c o m

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7 10-01-25 15.27.23

GLANCE available literally at the touch of a button. Making effective use of intuitive icons to allow operators to adjust and edit product codes—including time and date codes, expiration dates, and rollover hours—with a few simple keystrokes, the Videojet Unicorn II also features menu-driven programs to enable electronically accurate automatic date changes, clock functions and consecutive counts.

BUILDING CHARACTER

The new Videojet Unicorn II large-character inkjet printer from Videojet Technologies Inc. is designed as a complete, all-inclusive printing system for reliVideojet Technologies Inc. able and cost-effective F O R M O R E I N F O R M AT I O N C I R C L E 401 single- or dual-line coding on secondary packaging— such as corrugated shipping boxes and cases—in standard print heights of up to one inch, at print speeds of up to Q U A L I T Y F I R S T 200 feet per minute. Simple to set up and operate, accord- Bobst Group’s new iQ300 quality control system is a ing to the company, the highly flexible system comes with high-performance, high-precision quality assurance tool pre-loaded, selectable languages and printable characters designed and engineered to ensure 100-percent comto make it easy for operators to change the language re- pliance to customer-specified quality standards in flexoquired for coding on the interface, with all the key prod- graphic package printing and converting applications, RepakSealMeatAd9_Preserves_PillersSalami_CP_J:Reiser 3/16/10 10:38 its AMinnovative Page 1 ‘100-percent firewall’ technology uct names, identification numbers, automatic production optimizing counts and accurate, to-the-minute time-code capabilities to significantly cut setting times and reduce waste. Capable

of detecting even the tiniest defects (3-mm, 2-side) in corrugated board—ranging from microflute to doublewalled—on presses running up to 12,000 sheets per hour, the system’s advanced technology can precisely pinpoint the full range of possible repetitive defects in real time, including: sheet surface damage; ink trails; water stains and marks; poor ‘on-the-run’ adjustment; variations in color tonality; variations in the ‘washboard’ effect; and any sort of other repetitive defects. Once detected, all defective sheets are automatically ejected, signaled, or ignored by the press according to the settings defined for the detection zone, precisely at the quality levels chosen by press operators.

Bobst Group North America F O R M O R E I N F O R M AT I O N C I R C L E

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TO T H E N E X T L E V E L

Good seal.

Perfect seal.

The new PalletPal mobile leveler manufactured by the Southworth Products Corp. and distributed in Canada by Trans-Quip Inc., is designed to enable workers to lift, transport, and position up to 3,000-pound loads—whether used for loading or unloading of pallets, picking orders, or for positioning materials at workbenches or production machines— with optimal user-friendliness and safety, according to the company. Designed to handle any type of pallet or skid, the PalletPal levelers—available in two basic configurations and with a broad choice of optional features—boast dual-wheel steering to provide unobstructed operator view and optimal maneuverability, while eliminating repetitive bending, lifting, carrying and other physically stressful motions at a fraction of the cost of a driver-operated forklift truck.

Trans-Quip Inc. F O R M O R E I N F O R M AT I O N C I R C L E

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B U I LT F O R S P E E D

Repak horizontal form-fill-seal packaging machines from Reiser offer the best sealing integrity in the industry. Only Repak machines are constructed with two 4-point lifting stations, which can generate up to five metric tons of closing pressure for reliable sealing and more uniform forming. No matter how complicated your package, Repak will produce it perfectly. For more information, contact Reiser today at (905) 631-6611.

FOR MORE INFORMATION CIRCLE

1549 Yorkton Court, Unit #4 Burlington, Ontario L7P 5B7 Telephone: (905) 631-6611 www.reiser.com

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Leading the food industry in processing and packaging solutions.

The new Altivar 312 variable-speed AC drive from Schneider Electric—designed to make industrial and commercial machines more energy-efficient, while simplifying its integration into a single control system architecture—is claimed to feature the highest overtorque and be the only drive with a remote graphic keypad in its class.

Available in 1-10 HP horespower range and up to 600 V, the Altivar 312 comes standard with integrated communication ports for Modbus and CANopen networks and optional cards for CANopen Daisy Chain, DeviceNet and Profibus DP, accord-

GLANCE ing to the company, along with autotuning, multi-loaders, and 50 pre-loaded application functions to manage common facility processes with vastly simplified set-up and installation. Boasting a user-friendly interface built into the drive to provide intuitive navigation and speed control with the dial—as well as local start/stop—the drive can withstand temperatures ranging from -10°C to 50°C without derating, while its integrated EMC (electromagnetic compatibility) minimizes power disturbances and electrical interference.

specification storage, using an intuitive graphical user interface on a touchscreen 12-inch LCD monitor, the system is compatible with a wide range of pneumatic and mechanical automatic rejection mechanisms.

S+S Inspection Inc. F O R M O R E I N F O R M AT I O N C I R C L E

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I N T O TA L C O N T R O L

CombiScale Inc. has introduced the new 360 controls for the company’s Primo Weigher range of multihead filling machines—available in a standard stainless-steel Schneider Electric F O R M O R E I N F O R M AT I O N C I R C L E 404 control panel or the virtually indestructable IP-67 enclosures. Programmed to run with Windows XP, XP EmbedWEIGHT GAIN ded and Windows 7 operating software, the 360 controls The new KWE 5000 and KWI offer users unprecedented convenience in a combination scale system, according to the company, with perfor5000 checkweighers from L, BoErgoBloc Canadian Packaging, 200 x 273 mm, CC-en31-AZ068_04/10 sch Packaging Technolo- mance advantages including: remote production schedgy—distributed by Charles uling capabilities; direct email messaging right from the Downer & Co. Ltd.— panel; unlimited product set-up memory storage; selfare designed for efficient, high-accuracy weight and p ro d u c t - f i l l confirmation of pillow-bags, cartons and trays across a wide range of food and non-food packaging applications.The KWI 5000 model is offered as an integrated solution that easily interfaces with other Bosch packaging equipment to provide total control over the packaging line with one touchscreen, whereas the KWI 5000 model is designed as a stand-alone checkweighing solution that can be seamlessly integrated into existing packaging lines regardless of equipment make or model, with both checkweighers offering throughput speeds of up to 450 bags per minute when measuring weights of up to 20 kilograms— achieving accuracy within 0.1-gram.

diagnostics of all functions; Crystal Report software for custom reports; mixing and blending capabilities for up to four products; barcode input data capabilities; automatic self-trending for ‘hands off’ tuning. Engineered for optimal ease of cleaning, servicing and operating, the upgraded Primo Weigher comes fully-equipped with remote mounted controls, individual product slide-chutes, CanBus wiring architecture, and a swing-out hopper.

CombiScale Inc. F O R M O R E I N F O R M AT I O N C I R C L E

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Charles Downer & Co. Ltd. F O R M O R E I N F O R M AT I O N C I R C L E

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FULL INSPECTION

The new RAYCON inspection system from S+S Inspection Inc. incorporates advanced X-ray imaging and image recognition techniques to reliably detect both metallic and non-metallic contamination in packaged food products—including, glass, ceramics, stones, raw bones and some plastics—even in aluminum and other types of metallic packaging.

In addition to contamination detection, the RAYCON will also detect product defects ranging from flavor clumps and entrapped air to missing or broken components, according to the company, with the system’s processing software even allowing for the “desired’ contaminants, such as aluminum end-clips on sausages, to be masked out. Unlike most other X-ray detection systems, the RAYCON has its X-ray source mounted right under the conveyor to ensure that even the products approaching maximum height allowed are fully-scanned. Controlled by a built-in, high-performance PC running the QNX real-time operating system to provide ‘auto-train’ and multi-product

The machines of the ErgoBloc L have been awarded the enviro seal, by virtue of their minimised media consumption.

You want it? We build it!

No one knows your plant better than you yourself. That’s why we customise our lines to suit your visions – never the other way round. Just tell us your destination: we’ll find the route, supply the equipment, and stay with you until you arrive where you want to go. There’s only one thing you’ll never get from us: limitations. Because you are the sole arbiter of what’s possible. www.krones.com FOR MORE INFORMATION CIRCLE

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ECO-PACK

NOW

MAKING LIGHT OF STRETCHWRAP WASTE While strength and durability may be stretchwrap film’s two biggest virtues when it comes to securing loads of palletized shipments of boxes or other products, this essential functionality does not have to come at the price of a permanent environmental burden on the planet.

Recently developed by the Montreal-based Intertape Polymer Group (IPG), the new OXO-Biodegradable stretch film is a high-quality film, with comparable mechanical attributes to standard stretch films, containing a special additive that initiates and accelerates the breakdown of the film—but only when exposed to direct sunlight, which is very rare for most end-of-line packaging operations.

When kept out of direct sunlight, the used film is as recyclable as any other conventional stretchwrap, according to IPG, which produces a comprehensive range of specialty polyolefin, plastic and paper-based packaging products for a variety of retail and industrial applications, as well as woven and flexible intermediate bulk containers (FIBCs) and high-performance tapes and cloths.

But if recycling is not a readily-available option, for what-

ever reason, simply exposing the waste film to UV (ultraviolet) light and oxygen will set off a natural biodegradation process whereby the special OXO additives begin to break down the molecular bonds in the remaining pieces—thus allowing live organisms to convert the pieces into carbon-dioxide and trace elements, completing the entire biodegradation process in less than a year’s time.

Distributed by the Woodbridge, Ont.-based Canpaco, the OXO-Biodegradable stretch film is available in standard clear construction as well as in green-tinted color, which allows users of this film to make their own clear statement on their company’s commitment to sustainable packaging and manufacturing practices.

NEW CLEAR THINKING ON POLYPROPYLENE BENEFITS While the word polypropylene (PP) may not still not exactly roll off the tongue the moment someone mentions packaging sustainability, the recent development of ultratransparent PP by the RPC Group’s Dutch subsidiary RPC Bebo Nederland may soon change a lot of people’s minds about the various benefits that this versatile polymer brings to the table in terms of packaging aesthetics, convenience and sustainability.

According to RPC, the new material has been developed specifically to enhance the packaging of chilled convenience foods and microwavable, ready-made meals with high clarity and natural gloss to help such food brands stand out on crowded retail shelves or chill cabinets, while still providing all of its traditional functional benefits.

PUMA STEPPING UP ITS SUSTAINABILITY EFFORTS Global sportswear giant PUMA AG Rudolf Dassler Sport (PUMA) is putting its best foot forward in a concerted effort to reduce the company’s environmental footprint with an innovative footwear products packaging and distribution system that aims go reduce the amount of paper used for its shoeboxes by 65 per cent and carbon emissions by 10,000 tons per year.

Scheduled for rollout in the second half of 2011, the program will utilize the so-called Clever Little Bag—developed by designerYves Béhar, of San Francisco, Ca.-based fuseproject (see picture)—that will replace traditional cardboard shoeboxes with a reusable shoe bag to protect each pair of shoes from damage from the point it leaves the factory floor until the consumer takes it home.

Based on the company’s annual sales of about two million

pairs of shoes, PUMA expects to achieve remarkable environmental savings and benefits that include: • reduction of 8.5000 tons of paper consumed annually; • annual savings of about one million liters of fuel and one million liters of water; • electricity savings of 20 million Megajoules (5.56 million kWh); • daily savings of 500,000 liters of diesel used in transport; • annual savings of 275 tons of plastic, due to the replacement of traditional shopping bags with the lighter built-in bag.

“I was excited to partner with PUMA and contribute to such a game-changing project,” says Béhar. “The company’s initiative to look closely at one of the most challenging issues facing the retail industry in regards to sustainability and environmental harm was truly inspirational.

“In changing the packaging and distribution life-cycle from the ground up, we hope our new design and comprehensive solution encourages other retail companies to follow suit.”

In addition to introducing the Clever Little Bag, PUMA is also planning to replace the traditional plastic and paper shopping bags at its stores with biodegradable bags—saving another 192 tons of plastic and 293 tons of paper annually.

“Polypropylene is robust, watertight, microwaveable and extremely flexible in design,” explains Willem-Jan Van De Giessen, team leader for convenience food packaging at RPC Bebo Nederland. “In addition, research suggests that amongst the many plastic polymers available, PP has a favorable environmental profile.

“As well as being fully recyclable, the relatively low density of material required to create a durable pack means that less energy is consumed and the pack weight is lower—a crucial advantage when considering the carbon footprint incurred during production and the supply chain.”

According to RPC, the prototype packs thermoformed using the transparent PP have already drawn an overwhelmingly favorable response from food companies across Europe, while fresh-fruit supplier Chiquita has already commenced using PP pots from RPC Bebo Nederland in a joint project with McDonald’s Netherlands to provide a healthy dessert option for kids’ Happy Meals (see picture), or as healthy snack for older customers.

FOOD GIANT TARGETS BIG ECO-FOOTPRINT CUTS Leading North American foodmaker ConAgra Foods, Inc. says it will reduce its food packaging by 10 per cent per pound of food processed by 2015 as part of the company’s sweeping, five-pronged sustainability initiative targeting significant environmental improvements in the areas of product packaging, GHG (greenhouse gas) emissions, water usage, solid waste diversion and supply-chain engagement.

In addition to the 10-percent-per-pound packaging reduction, as compared to the 2008 levels, the Omaha, Neb.headquartered company—producer of the Chef Boyardee, Egg Beaters, Orville Redenbacher’s, PAM, Peter Pan and many other popular packaged-food brands—is also planning to increase the amount of product packaging made from

renewable resources from 45 per to more than 50 per cent by 2015, while boosting the use of recycled content in its packaging overall by 25 per cent during the same time.

“Because our food is part of the lives of millions of consumers each day, ConAgra Foods has a critical responsibility to create positive environmental change, and we can do that by making our food in the most sustainable and efficient way possible,” says ConAgra Foods chief executive Gary Rodkin.

“We’ve set these new transparent sustainability goals to ensure we are a leader in continuously improving the way we make food, and to continue to create more awareness for what others can do to improve as well.”

Other key sustainability goals announced by ConAgra

last month—to be tracked each year through the company’s online Corporate Responsibility Report—include: • A 20-pecent reduction in GHG emissions per pound of product produced, compared to 2008; • Using 15 per cent less water per pound of product produced than in 2008; • A 75-percent diversion of solid waste from landfills, compared to 2011 levels; • Encouraging continuous improvement of the company’s supply chain in the areas of energy, water, materials and waste, while working closely with growers to enhance sustainable farming practices that optimize yield and improve land stewardship.

WHOLE FOODS MARKET NOW A WHOLE LOT MORE ENERGY-EFFICIENT Leading U.S. organic and natural foods retailer Whole Foods Market has stepped up efforts to reduce energy consumption at its stores through a broad mix of energy-conservation measures—including greater use of wind energy, generation of more renewable energy on-site, and implementing more aggressive ‘green building,’ advanced refrigeration and transportation practices—targeting a 25-percent reduction per square foot of store floorspace by 2015.

The Austin,Tex.-headquartered company, which also operates six Canadian grocery outlets in British Columbia and Ontario, says the planned upgrades and retrofits at numerous store locations across North America—including installation of advanced refrigeration, state-of-the-art lighting and con10

trols, and high-efficiency motors for HVAC (heating, ventilation and air-conditioning) systems—will also result in significant GHG (greenhouse gas) emissions.

“Saving energy costs less than buying it, so we are reducing our appetite for energy from both traditional and renewable sources,” says Kathy Loftus,Whole Foods Market global leader of sustainable engineering and energy management.

According to Loftus, several new stores have already demonstrated significant improvements in energy efficiency, including: a new store in SouthGlenn, Colo., which uses 35 per cent less energy than the two other stores nearby; and a store in Santa Barbara, Ca., using 45 per cent less energy than a nearby store of comparable size.

The retailer currently operates 15 locations that already supplement traditional power with solar power, points out Loftus, with more scheduled to come onboard in the near future.

Meanwhile, the company’s store in San Jose, Ca., has recently announced plans to house a hydrogen fuelcell— making it the first supermarket in California that will generate enough electricity on-site to meet 90 per cent of its needs—joining the stores in Glastonbury, Conn., and Dedham, Mass.

Loftus adds that the retailer is also currently testing the feasibility of additional on-site clean energy projects utilizing wind turbines and waste-to-energy technologies.

MAY 2010 • CANADIAN PACKAGING

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Access the GlobAl PAckAGinG network

PAC & CCGD Unite A Global plan for Packaging for Sustainability and Food Safety

the PAckAGinG AssociAtion

Niagara-on-the-Lake Niagara-on-the-Lake

Packaging Summit September September 17, 17, 18 18 && 19, 19, 2010 2010

The Consumer Goods Forum – A Force on a Global Scale

Industry Thought Leaders

some of the more recognizable retail board members include: Us-based Mike Duke of walmart; kroger and wegmans; tesco and Alliance boots from the Uk; carrefour from France and bill Mcewan of sobeys, is the lone canadian representation. important manufacturing board members include Usbased chairman Muhtar kent, coca-cola; indra nooyi, Pepsico and irene rosenfeld, kraft Foods; Paul bulcke, nestlé, switzerland and Paul Polman, Unilever, the netherlands/U.k.

Platform & Mandates

the Forum provides a unique global platform for thought leadership, knowledge exchange and networking between retailers, manufacturers and their partners on collaborative, non-competitive issues. it has a mandate from its members to develop common positions on key strategic and practical issues affecting the consumer goods business and to focus on noncompetitive collaborative process improvement.

Sustainability & Food Safety

two critical areas of importance to tcGF are packaging for sustainability and food safety.

• The Global Packaging Project (GPP) is managing the development of a common set of metrics and language for packaging for sustainability. they will be brought before tcGF board in november 2010.

• Founded in 2000, the Global Food Safety Initiative (GFSI) is an independent non-profit foundation and managed by tcGF. These initiatives have significant implications for the global packaging community and the programs need to be further advanced at the north American level.

Pa c

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Pro ft

tin ova Inn

Although little has been written this side of the Atlantic about the consumer Goods Forum, tcGF as it is referred to, is quietly making their mark on a global scale in the retail and packaged goods community. tcGF is an independent global parity-based consumer Goods network that brings together executives of around 400 retailers, manufacturers, service providers and other stakeholders across 150 countries.

kag in

t ne a l g for People, P

People, Planet and Profit in harmony

canadian, American and international retail and packaging community executives will discuss these global initiatives under the theme “innovating Packaging for People, Planet and Profit”. Insights will be provided on the implications and take aways will include how to navigate through rough waters. the Queens landing Vintage hotel in the historic village of niagara-on-the-lake, ontario is the location. with close proximity to toronto and buffalo many north American industry leaders will be in attendance.

Please join us for this important industry summit. sincerely,

The Implications for North America

PAC and CCGD, two influential retail and packaging associations, have collaborated to advance the movement. From september 17 to 19, 2010, retailers and supply chain industry executives will assemble at the Niagara-on-the-Lake Packaging Summit. based on the guiding lights of tcGF and other important organizations, the Summit’s objective is to advance packaging for sustainability and food safety in north America.

James D Downham President & ceo PAc Leading Collaboration a PAC Value Driver

Featured Speakers to Date Packaging for Sustainability

Innovator

tom szaky

Founder of TerraCycle, the revolutionary leading company on how to Out Smart Waste will share his fascinating story.

terracycle enables consumers to collect waste which it then upcycles into thousands of various consumer products that are sold at the world’s biggest retailers from walmart to whole Foods. terracycle has been named the producer of most eco-friendly products in America, has won over 100 environmental and social awards, received the home Depot environmental stewardship award twice, been featured in walmart’s sustainability report and been repeatedly named the ultimate eco-friendly brand.

David Jeffs

President of Operations, Ontario Region, for Sobeys Inc., including sobeys, iGA, Foodland and Price chopper banners.

Marc Guay

President of PepsiCo Foods Canada.

Pepsico Foods canada includes the Frito lay canada and Quaker Foods and snacks businesses.

Packaging for Food Safety

Donna Garren

Vice President, Food Safety Programmes, The Consumer Goods Forum. Donna is also responsible for the Global Food safety initiative activities in the Americas.

sharon beals

Senior Vice President, Food Safety and Quality Assurance, Maple Leaf Consumer Foods. sharon is responsible for the continuous development and implementation of Food safety, regulatory and Quality Assurance initiatives.

Access the Full Agenda at www.pac.ca and Register online today!

12

MAY 2010 • CANADIAN PACKAGING

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PACKAGING FOR FRESHNESS

BY ANDREW JOSEPH, FEATURES EDITOR • PHOTOS BY SANDRA STRANGEMORE

Poppa Corn recently purchased a new Arty 80V form/fill/seal bagger, topped off with a Tornado 600 auger-filler, manufactured by Artypac Automation Inc.

Michel Cousineau, President, Poppa Corn Corp.

THE SWEETEST THINGS Canadian popcorn processor and distributor cooks up a winning recipe with automated bagging machinery

L

ike a kid in a candy store, there’s no such thing as having too much fun for Michel Cousineau. And who could possibly hold that against the owner of a thriving little supplier of popcorn and other fun snacks and treats that find their way into some of Canada’s largest stadiums and other host venues for leading sporting and entertainment events attended by thousands of funseeking Canadians?

“If you’ve ever been to a Blue Jays baseball game at the Rogers Centre, or a Maple Leafs or Senators hockey game, you’ve probably had some of the products we distribute,” the affable, high-energy president of Poppa Corn Corp. told Canadian Packaging on a recent visit to the company’s 22,000-square-foot facility in Mississauga, Ont., where the 14-year-old firm does its lion’s share of process-

ing and packaging popcorn, cotton candy, caramel corn, candy apples, all-day lollies, nachos and cheese, buttery flavor toppings and other treats enthusiastically gobbled up by countless sports fans, moviegoers, and visitors to major expo events such as the venerable CNE (Canadian National Exhibition) in Toronto.

“If it’s a fun food, we can provide it at a quality and price that will ensure our customers are successful entrepreneurs,” says Cousineau, explaining that besides the food itself, Poppa Corn also supplies concession-stand operators with all sorts of carry-out bags, boxes, cartons, trays and other such takeout packaging, as well as a comprehensive offering of related equipment ranging from popcorn carts and hot-dog grills to drink-freezers and waffle-makers.

MORE THAN THIS

The iconic Lucky Elephant Pink Candy Popcorn brand is packaged in 70-gram paperboard cartons supplied by Ellis Packaging Limited.

14

“Although the name of the company would suggest that we just sell popcorn,” he asserts, “we are now so much more than that.”

Employing 22 people in Mississauga and another eight full-time workers at a smaller, 3,000-square-foot operation in Ottawa, Poppa Corn processes and packages over 42,000 pounds of raw popcorn weekly, reveals Cousineau, who more or less stumbled into the popcorn business back in 1996 after deciding he had enough of selling office equipment in the Ottawa-Hull region.

“I wanted to find something simple to do, something fun, and so I started selling popcorn to retail businesses in the Ottawa area,” says Cousineau, recalling the early days of starting up Poppa Corn Ottawa and partnering up with the Mississauga-based Super-Pufft Snacks Corporation to distribute its products in the GTA (Greater

Toronto Area) region.

“Well, it might have been fun, but it sure wasn’t easy,” he recounts. “Everybody loves popcorn, but it’s just not one of those items that people tend to pick up regulary at a convenience store.

“You can have 20 or more people purchasing a bag of chips before even one person buys a bag of popcorn.

“That’s when I decided that I needed a change of plans,” relates Cousineau, citing his 1998 purchase of Canadian distribution rights to the long-enduring Lucky Elephant Pink Candy Popcorn brand as a defining moment in getting his business onto a new, more promising growth path.

Launched in Canada way back in the early 1940s, this iconic brand—a kid-friendly popcorn treat sweetened with a pink candy coating—became a perennial staple at Canadian neighborhood food outlets and mom-and-

A Markem-Imaje SmartDate 3i intermittent coder was integrated with the Arty 80V bagger to supply a complete turnkey system.

MAY 2010 • CANADIAN PACKAGING

PACKAGING FOR FRESHNESS

pop grocery stores, in large part thanks to giveaway prizes contained in each and every 70gram paperbox.

While the Lucky Elephant brand still enjoys widespread market penetration to this day—with the Pickering, Ont.-headquartered Ellis Packaging Limited nowadays supplying the folding cartons and Sandylion Sticker Designs of Markham, Ont., providing the colorful sheets of stickers inserted inside the boxes—the present-day Poppa Corn has vastly expanded the overall scope of its business since then.

“We now have well over 200 SKUs (stock-keeping units) that we handle as a distributor,” says Cousineau, citing the company’s hard-earned reputation for keen customer service and high product quality for its continued growth—even during the recent economic downturn.

“We focus our business mostly in Ontario, but we also have distributors for our products out in western Canada,” says Cousineau, adding that he still maintains close business ties with Super-Pufft Snacks.

“By 2000, my partners at Super-Pufft wanted to concentrate solely on manufacturing, so in 2002 I arranged to move the concession portion of Super-Pufft into another facility here in Mississauga just down the street from them, which I named Poppa Corn Corp.,” he explains.

competition,” chuckles Manuel, “but just as my jaw started to drop, he asked me how soon his new Artypac machine could be delivered.”

Installed this past January, the new Arty 80V machine— featuring a VECTROMOTION belt drive system—is a robust, high-performance, highly-automated bagging system capable of reaching throughput speed of 100 packages per minute when bagging items such as popcorn, coffee, spices, cereals, vegetables and assorted viscous products, always producing reliable leakproof seals to ensure optimal product integrity.

“The Arty 80V machine’s lever-operated film-sealing jaws work by the means of a pneumatic rotary cylinder,” explains Manuel,“and it also has a jaws-obstruction detection safeguard built into it to activate automatic release and instant machine-stop when required.

“It’s a very nice, fast and safe machine,” says Manuel, citing top-notch automation features that include an easily configurable SYSMAC CPM2A programmable logic controller (PLC) from Omron Electronics LLC; a model D700 Series inverter from Mitsubishi Electric; and high-precision pneumatic components supplied by Bimba Manufacturing Co. Prior to the Arty 80V machine springing into action, the processed popcorn is mixed with a selected coating inside the mixer—supplied by Patterson Industries (Canada) Limited—and dumped into an Artypac model Tornado 600 auger-filler, which utilizes the VECTROMOTION technology to drive the filling screw, which can be easily adjusted by operators for optimal speed selection to match the product type and fill size.

POWER PLAY

A reverse view of a Markem-Imaje SmartDate 3i intermittent coder applying lot and best-before data right onto clear film web.

“I still purchase popped popcorn from them, which I further process by adding coatings to flavor the popcorn, like the pink candy coating for Lucky Elephant, which we then package for sale throughout Canada.”

IN THE BAG

As Cousineau’s business continued to gather pace in the last couple of years and production volumes kept growing, he realized that time had arrived to invest into new, reliable packaging equipment to replace the company’s existing outdated bagging machinery.

“I needed something fast and reliable that could also perform product changeovers easily,” recalls Cousineau, who contacted Ken Manuel, a Toronto-based technical sales specialist with the Laval, Que-based packaging machine-builder Artypac Automation Inc., to come up with an automated, tailor-made packaging solution for his application needs.

After taking stock of Poppa Corn’s production requirements, Manual recommended Artypac’s model Arty 80V vertical form-fill-seal (V/F/F/S) machine, designed specifically for the type of pillow-pack packaging applications performed at the Mississauga plant.

Says Manuel: “The Arty 80V is very flexible, and it is one of the easiest machines to perform a changeover on—requiring no tools for adjustments, changeovers or cleaning.

“The addition of this new packaging system would enable Poppa Corn to automate the packaging of all the various popcorn seasonings they offer,” says Manuel, relating that Cousineau was quickly sold on the system’s potential productivity and other performance advantages over other competing systems, albeit at a cost of a little practical joke.

“On the day he bought the system he started the phone conversation by saying he decided to go with the CANADIAN PACKAGING • MAY 2010

“The compact but powerful Vacon X4 AC drive comes in a dust-proof enclosure with a programmable controller, with a user-friendly touchscreen interface mounted on a swivel-arm for optimal operator-friendly use,” explains Manuel, noting that the system is capable of automatically storing and retrieving up to 99 different product settings.

While Artypac doesn’t claim to build the fastest packaging machines on the market, Manuel says the company takes great pride in optimizing the user-friendliness of all of its machinery.

“Artypac recognizes that an important part of its success is to keep machine operators satisfied,” he says, “and if you do that, then everybody else up the ladder can’t be anything but satisfied with the end results.

“Moreover, our equipment is all Canadian-made,” adds Manuel,“and we take pride in looking after our customers in a prompt and satisfying manner.”

Cousineau concurs: “The Arty 80V has been a very nice addition to our production line, so much so that we mothballed the other bagger we had been using.

“Even in the short time we’ve utilized it, we have seen a huge increase in production capacity; it’s been unbelievable for us,” he adds.

“It enables Poppa Corn to be more efficient with our manpower allotment and also affords us the luxury to package different products— including many that we had previously packed by hand.

“But what I think separates Artypac from the rest is their customer service,” states Cousineau, The Artypac 80V bagger features an Omron PLC and a Mitsubishi inverter. praising Artypac for

The Tornado 600 auger-filler utilizes a Vacon X4 AC drive, featuring a programmable control encased within a dust-free enclosure.

supplying its bagging machine already integrated with a Markem-Imaje model SmartDate 3i intermittent coder, thus providing a complete turnkey bagging system.

“This coder has also been easy to utilize and it has been running problem-free—providing us with excellent readability while maximizing our uptime.”

Cousineau says the thermal-transfer SmartDate 3i printer has provided superior performance in the printing of barcodes, logos, and variable lot-and-date information on both the primary packaging and the corrugated shipping cartons, which are supplied by Atlantic Packaging Products Ltd. for the Lucky Elephant popcorn boxes, and by Smurfit-MBI for the other products.

Corrugated cartons used to ship the boxes of Lucky Elephant popcorn across Canada are supplied by Atlantic Packaging Products.

With his packaging and product coding requirements well taken care of for now, Cousineau says he’s been able to focus more on developing innovative new products, including one which he promises will take the ‘fun food’ market by storm in the near future.

“And although I can’t disclose the particulars at this time,” he says, “at least it’s nice to know that won’t need to purchase another piece of packaging equipment for it, because my Artypac 80V can do a fine job with it.”

F O R M O R E I N F O R M AT I O N O N :

Artypac Automation Inc. Patterson Industries (Canada) Limited Vacon Plc Omron Canada Inc. Mitsubishi Electric Sales Canada Inc. Bimba Manufacturing Co. Markem-Imaje Inc. Ellis Packaging Limited Atlantic Packaging Products Ltd. Smurfit-MBI

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SUSTAINABILITY

BY GEORGE GUIDONI, EDITOR • PHOTOS BY SANDRA STRANGEMORE

The Puslinch plant’s high-speed bottling lines reach throughput speeds of 1,200 bottles per minute to enable the facility turn out over 70 million cases of bottled water per year.

Nestlé Waters Canada supply chain director David Thorpe keeping a close watch on one of the eight highly-automated bottling lines housed at the company’s sprawling 400,000-square-foot facility in Puslinch, just outside of Guelph, Ont.

PURE INTENTIONS Canada’s leading water-bottler leveraging packaging innovation and sophistication to cement its market leadership

T

urning water into wine must have been a pretty spectacular accomplishment back in the biblical days.

But it also takes something of a minor miracle in modern times not only to make a decent return from bottling one of Mother Nature’s finest-ever gifts to mankind, but to do it in a socially responsible, environmentally-sensitive way that flies in the face of the notion amongst some that the water-bottling industry is one of the greediest and most shameless corporate villains of the 21st Century.

Or in other words, to do it like Nestlé Waters Canada (NWC) does its at its sprawling water-bottling facility in the quiet southwestern Ontario rural community of Puslinch, where the Canadian subsidiary of the world’s largest food-and-beverage company Nestlé SA produces an estimated 70 million cases of bottled water annually— marketing them across Atlantic and central Canada under the company’s flagship Nestlé Pure Life and historic Montclair brands, along with co-packing a significant part of its output for the private-label store-brands of some of the country’s leading grocers and retailers.

According to the company’s senior management team— headed by the recently-appointed NWC president John Zupo—the current public outcry over the David Thorpe poses in front of the plant’s towering Ryson spiral conveyors used for transporting freshly-packed cases of bottled water to the plant’s end-of-line packaging operations.

CA NA DI A N PAC K AG IN G • M AY 2 0 1 0

water-bottling industry’s alleged wastefulness of resources, unacceptable environmental footprint and questionable ethics is rooted in over-the-top misinformation and use of selective facts that, any way you look at it, do not stand up to serious scrutiny.

Especially when viewed in the context of what NWC has achieved on the sustainablilty front over the last few years, contends Zupo, a 14-year Nestlé North America veteran and a Salt Lake City native who joined NWC in 2008 as general manager and was appointed as president last month.

“The local water-bottling industry uses only 0.0014-percent of all the fresh water available in the province of Ontario, so we are not a significant user by any stretch,” Zupo told Canadian Packaging on a recent visit to the 350-employee, 400,000-squarefoot Puslinch operation that ranks as one of Nestlé’s five bigJohn Zupo, President, gest North American bottling Nestlé Waters Canada plants, and the biggest beverage bottling plant in Canada.

Says Zupo: “Nestlé is a company that is keenly focused on constantly improving and doing better what it does on a day-to-day basis.

foot warehouse in Puslinch two years ago, Zupo relates, “We have achieved significant savings in our trucking costs and the greenhouse emissions associated with those truckloads.

“We have also made significant investments on the energy and waste management sides of our business,” he adds. “When we put this new distribution centre in here, we put in sensor-controlled lights that automatically turn on and off based on movement in the facility, and that has produced significant energy savings for us.

“We’ve also put in more natural light, we’ve changed the main lights in our plant ceiling to more energy-efficient lamps, and we’ve also changed the blowmolding practices by utilizing new nozzles that use considerably less energy,” he relates, “while also putting in new measurements for how we use water in our cleaning processes.”

As for packaging, arguably the bottled-water industry’s biggest Achilles Heel and a public relations headache, Zupo cites NWC’s extensive recent investments in reducing the amount of plastic in its packaging, as well as deploying rPET (recycled polyethylene terephthalate) processing technologies, as proof of the company’s earnest commitment to the environmental cause.

Continues on page 18

LONG JOURNEY

“It’s a continuous journey for us—whether we’re talking about being more environmentally-responsible, or being more efficient with our plant operations, or being better at serving our customers,” he states.

“And the truth is that we’re improving in all those areas,” he stresses.“ We are making better use of our water, we are achieving better recycling rates for our packaging, and we are now far more energy-efficient than in the past.”

By moving its former distribution centre in Hamilton, Ont., into a new state-of-the-art, 125,000-square-

A Domino S300+ model scribing laser-coder is used to mark the passing water bottles with all the key variable product information.

17

SUSTAINABILITY

PURE INTENTIONS Continued from page 17

For example, the recently-launched PET Eco-Shape 500-ml containers—weighing a mere 9.16-gram apiece—are 60 per cent lighter than the plastic bottles used back in 2000.

“Right now, about 96 percent of the recyclable materials used in our Canadian operations, including the British Columbia plant in Hope and our B.C., Ontario and Quebec warehouses, are already diverted from the wastestream,” Zupo notes, “and we’ve been reducing our water and energy usage by five to 15 per cent over the last couple of years, and those continue to be our targets right now.

“It’s all about achieving a combination of better distribution efficiencies, more packaging investment, and better energy and water usage,” says Zupo, citing these environmental improvements as main reasons for the Puslinch operation achieving the coveted, internationally-recognized ISO 14001 standards series certification last year for environmental management.

BIG PAYOFF

“I believe that our packaging initiatives are really paying off for us,” asserts Zupo.

“When we do consumer surveys, we find that the most important things to Canadian consumers are taste, quality and price,” he expands, “but the next most important thing is for them to know that their favorite bottledwater brand is using environmentally-sensitive packaging, which is why we have reduced our packaging footprint so significantly over the last five years.

“I am also very confident that bringing out new rPET bottles to market is going to get a very positive response from the Canadian public,” he adds. “It is important to

us that Canadian consumers see Nestlé products as highquality, reliable brands produced by a brand-owner who is environmentally-progressive and doing all the right things for the environment.”

While Zupo acknowledges that the water-bottling industry has no shortage of vocal critics, “I really believe that there is all kinds of misinformation out there on the subject,” he argues.

“It’s been an interesting few years for us and the waterbottling industry in general,” he reflects.“When this business first started taking off in the 1980s, it was the consumers wanting to drink something healthy that fueled the growth of the business.

“But around 2006, many questions started to be raised—just due to the sheer volumes of the water being bottled—about what would happen to the packaging,” Zupo recalls.

“In survey after survey, that the single most consistent question that we get asked is:What are we doing about the packaging?

“Well, that fact is that Canada has a 64-percent recycling rate for beverage packages across the counThe recently-launched EcoShape 500-ml containers (left) used for the Nestlé Pure Life brand are one of the most lightweight water bottles in the world, while the new bottles for the company’s Montclair brand are made from 100-percent recycled PET plastic.

The Accuglide conveyors from Intelligrated are used for the lion’s share of conveying water bottles through their packaging and labeling stations throughout the Puslinch plant.

try, with some of the provinces achieving recycling rates of over 80 per cent,” Zupo points out, suggesting that those rates could be improved even further with a better recycling infrastructure in more public spaces like parks, arenas, entertainment venues, transit stop, streetscapes and gas bars.

“By now, most of us have learned to use Blue Box recycling in our homes,” he says, “and we want to do it for all of our packaging, wherever it is used.

“In Toronto, something like 88 per cent of singlefamily households recycle their beverage bottles,” Zupo notes, “but it’s when you’re out traveling in your car, or being out for a walk with your kids, or going to the shopping mall … that’s when recycling suffers, because you’re just happy to find a garbage can to get rid of the empty bottle.

“So our new focus has been on partnering with the

SUSTAINABILITY

municipalities to put recycling bins beside every single garbage can, so that when you see an opportunity to put your empty water bottles into the waste management stream, you will put it into the paper recycling part of that management stream.

“By doing this in Quebec, we’ve been able to achieve 85-percent capture of recyclable materials there,” Zupo

reveals,“and we have just finished a similar pilot project in Sarnia, Ont., achieving a 77-percent capture rate.

“The other thing that people often question is whether our water source are sustainable,” adds Zupo, “which is why we work closely with the Ontario Ministry of Environment and Natural Resources, Grand River Conservation Authority, County of Wellington and Township of Puslinch, sharing all our monitoring data with them.”

Zupo says the Puslinch plant collects key water-level data from more than 60 monitoring points located within one-kilometer radius of the facility, and is prepared to adjust its production levels accordingly in times of prolonged dry spells.

COMMUNAL SPIRIT

A Krones Sensometic rotary filler ensures precise fill levels and perfect capping on each passing, freshly-filled water container.

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“We always look at are stewardship responsibilities from a community perspective,” he declares. “We understand that we are not the only ones here; there are two aggreggate producers right next us who use roughly as much water as we take, and we always want to make sure that everyone has got enough, which is why we’re constantly monitoring the local water levels.”

Considering that Nestlé has only entered the Canadian bottled-water market a relatively short decade ago, already ranking as a runaway market leader—both in production volumes and a 38-percent market-share—is a fairly formidable accomplishment.

However, Zupo says he is not really all that surprised with NWC’s rapid ascent up the market ladder, citing the company’s enviable product portfolio, keen customer focus, and world-class manufacturing capabilities as equally important factors underpinning its success to date.

While its parent company’s venerable, world-renowned

A Krones Checkmat inspection system uses high-frequency measurements to ensure perfect fill level for all the passing water bottles at rates of up to 72,000 bottles per hour.

Perrier, San Pellegrino and Acqua Panna brands still account for nearly 30 per cent of NWC’s annual revenues, Zupo says that consolidating the production of Nestlé Pure Life and Montclair brands in Puslinch—where NWC currently produces over 60 different SKUs (stock-keeping units)—had the most profound impact in terms of transforming NWC from a distributor of co-packed products into a fully-fledged beverage producer.

“Buying this plant in 2000, along with its fantastic 100-foot-deep spring, has really been a defining moment for us,” Zupo reflects.

“Having great brands is really the primary reason for our market-share leadership, and Nestlé Pure Life really Continues on page 20

SUSTAINABILITY

PURE INTENTIONS Continued from page 19

points,” he relates.

“For smaller customers, on the other hand, it may be more about having the right brands for their consumer demographics or supplying those brands in more consumer-friendly packaging,” says Zupo, adding that recent installations of new batching tanks at the Puslinch plant has enabled NWC to expand its brand portfolio with innovative new flavored and vitamin-enhanced water products.

As for the plant’s manufacturing prowess, “This is the largest, most technologically-advanced and the most productive bottling plant of its kind in Canada,” Zupo declares.

BUSY SCHEDULE The Markem-Imaje 7000 Series laser-coders play an important role in fulfilling the plant’s product traceability compliance requirements.

is a great brand—currently being sold in more than 30 countries around the world—which is recognized in all our consumer surveys as the best-tasting spring water, as well as the most reliable from a safety perspective.

“The other key reason for our success is the great relationships and partnerships we cultivate with our customers to met their specific needs,” says Zupo, citing a Canadian customer base comprising over 145 leading retailers across the country.

“For large retailers, this may be about how we get their product to them, how we can help market and merchandise those products inside their stores, supplying the right SKUs for their locations and having the right price

A committed practitioner of advanced manufacturing quality methodologies such as Six Sigma and GMP (Good Manufacturing Practices), the Puslinch plant operates in 12-hour shifts on a flat-out, 24/7 schedule over the full year—with exceptions for Christmas Day and the occasional Canada Day off—using nothing but the most advanced, best-in-breed packaging technologies, materials and supplies available in the market.

Moreover, the plant employs a total of 10 Sidel blowmolders, as well as several Husky injection-molding machines, on its premises to make all of its containers right on-site—including the 330-, 500- and 750-ml bottles, as well as the larger one- and 1.5-liter sizes.

“It is very much a seasonal business: We sell far more water in the summer than we do in the winter,” says Zupo, explaining that the plant typically starts to shift its production schedule into overdrive mode around mid-March to make sure that doesn’t run into any unexpected supply shortages during the upcoming peak season, typically lasting from the Victoria Day long-weekend in May through the Labor Day long-weekend in early September.

Housing a total of eight highly-automated packaging lines achieving line speeds of up to 1,200-bpm (bottles per minute), the plant naturally boasts an extensive range of state-of-theart packaging machinery, including: • Descon and Sidel airveyors for overhead conveying

Save Space and Increase Throughput.

Heavy-duty industrial motors from SEW-Eurodrive (foreground) help ensure optimal performance for high-speed conveyor lines.

of empty plastic to the filling stations; • Krones fillers for filling and capping of empty bottles, as well as Krones labelers for the labeling of freshly-filled bottles; • Douglas Machine and Kister Packers (KHS Group) case-packing equipment for placing filled bottles into 12-, 24-, 30- and 35-bottle corrugated cases; • Alvey model palletizers from Intelligrated for forming layers of corrugated cases on top of the shipping pallets; • ITW Muller stretchwrapping machines for safely securing the palletized loads for shipping and distribution.

“We pride ourselves on our manufacturing and packaging capabilities and we do our best to use as many Canadian-based packaging suppliers as we can,” says NWC supply chain director David Thorpe, complimenting corrugated packaging suppliers Atlantic Packaging Products and Norampac, caps and closures manufacturer Bericap North America Inc., flexible packaging producer Transco Plastics, industrial chemicals distributors Brenntag and Univar, and plastic resins supplier Eastman Chemical Company for their superior customer service.

“The consumer and customer response to our packaging has been excellent to date,” says Thorpe, “and our packaging partners naturally deserve a large share of the credit for that.”

While the waterbottling business currently accounts for The Puslinch plant currently produces over 60 different SKUs of product. a relatively smallish, eight-percent share of Nestlé SA’s massive worldwide revenues of about $100 billion, Zupo maintains that the water business is very close to the heart of a company that markets itself around the globe as the world’s foremost supplier of “nutrition, wellness and hydration products.”

Says Zupo: “Nestlé today does water business on every continent, but it’s quite fascinating how it evolved historically in the different parts of the world.

“In Europe, for example, it traces back to the 1700s, focusing on the health benefits of spas and the health ben-

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A Nordson ProBlue 4 adhesive melter (right) is used to feed the nearby Krones labeling system with the glue used for attaching labels to the freshly-filled bottles of water.

C ANAD I AN PAC KAGI NG • MAY 2010

SUSTAINABILITY F O R M O R E I N F O R M AT I O N O N :

A machine operator selects the proper settings for the next run of bottle preforms to be blowmolded inside one of the plant’s several Sidel blowmolding machines.

without all those extra calories,” Zupo sums up.

“And as long as that continues to be the case, we’ll be happy to keep providing consumers with goodtasting, safe drinking water that is actually good and healthy for them.” efits of drinking water to maintain good health.

“In Third World countries, bottled water is consumed more for safety considerations, because the tap water there is just not as consistnetly portable as in the industrialized nations,” he observes.

Sidel Canada Husky Injection Molding Systems, Ltd. Descon Conveyor Systems & Consultants Inc. Krones Machinery Co. Ltd. Douglas Machine Inc. Intelligrated ITW Muller Atlantic Packaging Products Ltd. Norampac Bericap North America Inc. Transco Plastics Industries Brenntag Canada Inc. Univar Canada Ltd. Eastman Chemical Company Nordson Canada Limited SEW Eurodrive Co. of Canada Ltd. Markem-Imaje Inc. Domino Printing Solutions Inc. Ryson International

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Stacks of corrugated boxes from Atlantic Packaging Products await their turn on the case-packing line.

“But here in North America, the consumer emphasis is more about diet, fitness, and moving away from soft-drinks and other calorie-laden beverages to achieve optimal hydration,” Zupo states.

“People today understand that water is something they need to drink to keep their bodies hydrated, and they’re looking for good-quality, clean water to help them achieve that hydration safely,

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A close-up view of plastic bottle preforms taking shape inside a Sidel blowmolder.

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CASE-READY PACKAGING

BY ANDREW JOSEPH, FEATURES EDITOR • PHOTOS BY COLE GARSIDE

A Delft Blue plant employee placing pre-formed Cryovac trays beside a Ross Inpack S Series S45 tray-sealer from Reiser to package cuts of veal processed at the facility.

From left: Daphne Nuys-Hall, plant operations manager; Willem Vergeer, business development coordinator; Kim Chaves, case-ready supervisor.

CUT ABOVE THE REST Canadian veal processor optimizing advanced MAP technology to stake its turf in the case-ready meat market

A

Such respect for the environment is perfectly fitting for a company that has earned its bread-and-butter since opening up in 1978 by supplying Canadian consumers and households with a tasty, versatile and low-fat meat option packed with healthy proteins, amino acids, iron, zinc,Vitamin B12 and other key nutrients deemed essential to a healthy eating.

While veal is still the 45,000-square-foot manufacturing plant’s biggest meal ticket, the Hazard Analysis Critical Control Point (HACCP)-certified building—also housing the administrative offices and sharing space with a 10,000-square-foot right warehouse next to it—also processes other value-added meat products such as lamb, pork, poultry and rabbit, Nuys relates.

s one of Canada’s leading processors of fresh and value-added veal products, the Cambridge, Ont.headquartered Delft Blue, a division of agrifoods group Grober Inc., has long enjoyed being ahead of the curve when it came to product, process and packaging innovation—rightfully helping itself to all the due rewards strong industry leadership brings with it.

And while many of the company’s meat-processing competitors are only beginning to jump aboard the environmental sustainability bandwagon, for Delft Blue president Arie Nuys, operating a successful manufacturing enterprise without leaving a messy environmental footprint behind has alway been the right way to do business.

Continues on page 24

Positioned behind the Ross Inpack machine, a Safeline metal detection system provides an additional level of product safety assurance.

“Sustainability is the big buzzword today, but we can proudly say that we have been producing a sustainable product since the 1970s,” Nuys told Canadian Packaging on a recent visit to the company’s Cambridge operations, which have recently taken their environmental credentials to yet another level.

GREEN MILE

A Reiser Ross Inpack machine prepares to seal ground veal, using Cryovac LID1050 lidstock film to create attractive MAP packs.

CA NA DI A N PAC K AG IN G • M AY 2 0 1 0

“We have made a significant investment into a ‘green energy’ project, whereby we transform the manure waste from the calves on one of our farms into electricity,” explains Nuys, adding that the Delft Blue Farms BioGas project will start supplying 500 kW to the local electricity grid later this spring—enough to supply power to over 500 homes in the Cambridge area.

Sealed trays labeled and tagged at the Bizerba weigher/labeler station.

23

CASE-READY PACKAGING

CUT ABOVE THE REST Continued from page 23

Machine operator placing freshly-processed meat products into a single-chamber Multivac C-500 vacuum-packer.

Operating on a 12-hour-shift, five-days-per-week schedule, the 120-employee Cambridge plant is one of four meat-processing factories owned by Delft Blue, including the Proveal plant in Milton, Ont.; an Ecolait Ltee. facility in Terrebonne, Que,; and a U.S.-based sister plant in New York Mills, N.Y. At the height of its busy summer-time season, Nuys relates, the Cambridge operation boosts its workforce to about 200 people to keep up with soaring demand for many of its various barbecue-friendly products—marketed under the company’s own Provitello and Delft Blue flaghip brands and, increasingly, co-packed under private labels for growing ranks of customers in the retail, foodservice and butcher-shop trades.

According to Nuys, much of this expansion can be credited to the company’s decision to enter the case-ready and value-added segments of the meat market about 12 years ago.

CASE MADE

“That has certainly enabled us to become a leading supplier of fresh, case-ready, milk-fed and grain-fed veal for the majority of Canada’s top retailers, butchers and foodservice industries,” says Nuys, “and we also leveraged this innovation to create successful co-packing opportunities for us.”

The Cambridge plant today houses a total of seven packaging lines—including two vacuum-packing lines, three overwrapping lines, one for fresh meat with a layerwrap, and two for MAP (modified-atmospherepackaging) applications—with the MAP lines playing a key role in driving the plant’s business success in recent years, according to Cambridge plant manager Daphne Nuys-Hall.

“The MAP packaging format has reduced the need for further-processing of the meat at the supermarket level, and it allows us to deliver our product on a seven-daysper-week schedule,” states Nuys-Hall.

“It’s a great technology for ensuring the freshness and quality of our product, while reducing the cost for the supermarkets,” she says, citing the benefits of increased product shelf-life and enhanced consumer appeal achieved with an attractive, see-through package that informs consumers instantly exactly what they are purchasing.

A little less than two years ago, Nuys-Hall relates, the Cambridge plant decided to upgrade the case-ready side of its business with an installation of a new Ross Inpack S 24

“As a testament to that, we constantly seek out new ways to innovate—whether it’s through constantly upgrading the equipment on our production line, how our operators perform on the production line, or adding more value to the products we offer.”

Series S45 tray-sealer system manufactured by the Canton, Mass.-headquartered food packaging equipment specialists Reiser, purchased through its Canadian subsidiary Reiser (Canada) Ltd. of Burlington, Ont. Delivered to the Cambridge plant in July of 2008, the three-lane, automatic S45 machine—designed for highspeed production of MAP packages of fresh, refrigerated, retort or frozen meat products in a broad range of tray shapes and sizes—the new machine was a worthy replacement for the two-lane Ross Inpack 3180 system originally purchased back in 1997, relates Nuys-Hall.

“For us, the new S45 machine represents an opportunity to increase the MAP packaging output for our case-ready products,” says Nuys-Hall, praising the robust system’s welcome application flexibility in terms of programming, tooling, and the types of products it can package.

“Although the older 3180 model was a very good servant for us over the years,” she reflects, “we wanted a newer, faster machine that would help us further in achieving our production goals, which is exactly what the S45 has provided us.

“And because it is built completely from stainless steel, it is a very easy machine for us to clean during our daily washdowns,” adds Nuys-Hall, “so that we can maintain the high level of hygiene standards that our customers have come to expect from us.”

With fully-automated monitoring and control of sealing time, pressure and temperature to enable consistent production of high-quality seals, the S45 machine makes optimal use of the LID1050 Lidstock multilayer lidding— made by Sealed Air Corporation’s Cryovac division— to form hermetically-sealed, tamperevident, leakproof

A 3M 3-Matic case-sealing system and a Loma IQ2 metal detection system positioned near the Reiser Repak co-packing lines.

meat packages with extended shelf-life of eight to 10 days, thanks to an effective oxygen-barrier maintaining the desired gas mixture of 80-percent oxygen and 20-per cent carbon-dioxide, supplied by Praxair Inc., as well as two extra internal film layers inside the package.

“The S45 machine and the LID1050 film provide us with an attractive package that remains fog-free and sparkling in appearance even during refrigeration and display at the retail level—offering the consumers a full view of the meat product inside,” states Nuys-Hall.

“This is very important for Delft Blue because we know that how our product looks is very important—especially for all the first-time buyers.”

FIT TO PRINT

The S45 tray-sealer at Delft Blue works in conjunction with a newly-purchased GC-220 reciprocating ink imprinter from Greydon Inc.—a precision-built, wetink printer designed for generating high-quality prints of variable product information on the packages, while utilizing dual-flow controls and a large air cylinder to activate a repeatable, smooth stroke that remains immune to any sudden fluctuations in air pressure.

All the case-ready packages coming off the Reiser machines are immediately checked for quality assurance by a pair of Safeline model metal detection conveyor systems manufactured by Mettler-Toledo Safeline—distributed in eastern Ontario by Shawpak Systems Inc.—and then labeled by one of the two Herma label applicators, manufactured by Aesus Canada,

Three of four Reiser Repak lines at the Delft Blue facility in Cambridge are used to co-pack processed meat products for retail customers.

MAY 2010 • C ANAD I AN PAC KAGI NG

CASE-READY PACKAGING For its case-ready overwrap packages, Delft Blue utilizes three tray stretchwrappers—including an OMORI STC Series model from Omori Machinery Co. Ltd., an ULMA Super Chick machine, and one from Exact Equipment—along with an IQ2 metal detection system from Loma International Inc. to administer the final quality assurance test.

Other noteworthy packaging equipment employed at the Cambridge plant includes: • A Fresh Vac A-200 and two Fresh Vac A-600 snorkelstyle machines manufactured by CVP Systems Inc. of Downers Grove, Ill., to produce MAP pillow-packs; • A comprehensive range of Reiser meat-processing equipment, including a Holac dicer; two Vemag continuous stuffers; a GB 200 ground-meat portioner; a TM 203 Vemag cutting machine; and a TC700M Ross needle tenderizer.

According to Nuys-Hall, having the best processing and packaging equipment available is essential to a customerfocused company like Delft Blue.

“We are always looking for new ways to provide our customers with exactly what they want, when they want it, and to always remain flexible to their demands,” Nuys-Hall asserts.

years,” she concludes. “So looking at it from all these angles, I’m happy to say that the future does looks pretty bright for us.”

F O R M O R E I N F O R M AT I O N O N :

Corrugated packaging producer Krupack supplies the pre-printed cartons used for shipping sealed trays of veal liver to customers.

Reiser (Canada) Ltd. Sealed Air Cryovac Praxair Canada Inc. Greydon Inc. Shawpak Systems Inc. Mettler-Toledo Safeline Inc. Aesus Canada Bizerba Canada Inc. Omori Machinery Co. Ltd. ULMA Loma International Inc. CVP Systems Inc. Krupak (Div. of Kruger Inc.) Markem-Imaje Inc.

SOMETHING NEW

“As a testament to that, we constantly seek out new ways to innovate—whether it’s through constantly upgrading the equipment on our production line, how our operators perform on the production line, or adding more value to the products we offer.

“We simply cannot afford to remain static,” says Nuys-Hall, adding that this uncompromising mindset has a full buyin from the plant’s highly dedicated and loyal workforce, with an estimated 90 per cent of the staff having been with the company for 14 years or more.

“We trust our employees, which is why have asked them to aid us in our quality control process,” she sates.

“Along with our quality control department and a lab right here on the premises, our employees have full authority to reject any product and packaging they feel is not up to par— and they do.

“Thanks to our keen workers and our shared desire to constantly improve both our products and our operations, I am confident that Delft Blue will continue to improve its market share here in Canada and the U.S. in coming

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Markem-Image S8 continuous inkjet printers are employed across all Reiser Repak lines.

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SUSTAINABILITY

BY GEORGE GUIDONI, EDITOR • PHOTOS BY SANDRA STRANGEMORE

Over 700 consumer packaged goods (CPG) and packaging industry professionals attended the fourth annual Walmart Sustainable Packaging Conference of Walmart Canada Corp. on the 40th Earth Day anniversary on April 22, 2010, at the Toronto Congress Centre to take in the retailer’s progress report on its Packaging Scorecard implementation in Canada, as well as a number of informative presentations and panel discussions on how leading CPG companies are reducing their respective carbon footprints.

SETTLING SCORES Walmart Canada throws down the Earth Day gauntlet to get vendors to come up to speed with Packaging Scorecard progress

T

he notion of observing Earth Day with all the due solemn and thoughtful respect the occasion deserves has certainly come a long way in the 40 years of its existence.

And there was fittingly no shortage of expression of earnest commitment to the cause among more than 700 CPG (consumer packaged goods) and packaging industry professionals gathered last month at the Toronto Congress Centre on April 22 for the fourth annual Walmart Sustainable Packaging Conference, where Canada’s largest retailer reaffirmed its commitment to doing all in its power to fulfill the Big Three environmental pledges it vowed four years ago: • Be a zero-waste company; • Use only renewable energy; • Maintain a fully-sustainable supply chain.

But unlike at the previous three conferences—organized jointly with the Toronto-based PAC-The Packaging Association—last month’s get-together was far less of a communal green love-in than a pointed rallying cry for Walmart Canada’s supplier base to start getting its act together on packaging reduction and sustainability in a meaningful way.

Guy McGuffin, Vice-President, Supply Chain, Walmart Canada Corp.

“We want every package that comes into our stores entered into the Packaging Scorecard by July 1 of this year. And starting this year, we also want you to provide us with regular updates on what you’re doing with your packages to achieve your Packaging Scorecard targets and objectives.”

With the 2013 deadline for meeting Walmart’s Packaging Scorecard supplier evaluation system’s end-goal of a fivepercent global packaging reduction now in fast approach, senior Walmart Canada Corp. executives made no secret of their

impatience with the lack of pace and progress displayed by its vendors on that front to date.

The fact that only about 20 per cent of the products sold at Walmart’s Canadian stores have even been entered into the Packaging Scorecard system at all so far is clearly not sitting well with a company that has made enviornmental sustainability one of its very core corporate values and cause célèbres.

“We want every package that comes into our stores entered into the Packaging Scorecard by July 1 of this year,” Walmart Canada’s supply-chain vice-president Guy McGuffin told the attendees, stressing the company’s dramatically shifted focus from mere supplier engagement to demanding real demonstrated commitment and resolve.

“And starting this year, we also want you to provide us with regular updates on what you’re doing with your packages to achieve your Packaging Scorecard targets and objectives,” McGuffin added.

“The target year 2013 is starting to loom large, and we’re challenging you to be prepared to help us reach our goal,” McGuffin urged the audience, while citing the

10.3-per cent packaging weight reduction that Walmart itself achieved last year with the relaunch of its Great Value store brand product range.

Being able to channel these savings into lower prices for Walmart Canada’s estimated one million daily customers, McGuffin argued, makes a pefect business case for using packaging sustainability to fulfill the company’s open-ended corporate mission of offering consumers low prices for its products, along with a growing range of environmentally-friendly alternatives.

“It is very important to have sustainability align with your business objectives,” he stressed.“When you start realizing financial benefits from doing the right thing for the environment, you’re really on your way.”

For Walmart Canada’s recently-appointed chief merchandising officer Duncan MacNaughton, concerted packaging reduction goes hand-in-hand with the company’s aggressive pricing strategy that underpins its business model.

“Our business is all about being able to offer unbeatable prices,” he stated, “and we can only do that by achieving internal cost-savings, which we use to lower prices, which we then use to drive our sales.”

This page from left: Companies taking part in the tabletop exhibition at this year Walmart Sustainable Packaging Conference IV included: Cascades Enviropac; PearceWellwood; Metro Label; Ropack Packaging.

Next page from left: CPG Expal Inc.; Hood Packaging; Amcor Ltd.; Safety Seal Plastics Inc.

26

MAY 2010 • C ANAD I AN PAC KAGI NG

SUSTAINABILITY

feel when seeing my boss (Cheesewright) in the office wearing tight cycling shorts at 6:30 in the morning,” he chuckled.

“But that’s what it’s all about for us at Walmart,” MacNaughton proclaimed.“We employ about 2.2-million people globally, and the estimated 200,000 of our associates who have their own PSPs are making a tremendous difference in helping us become a zero-waste business.

“God help me if I should place any waste from my lunch into a wrong part of Duncan MacNaughton, our internal recycling bins at work—I will Chief Merchandise Officer, hear about it right away from any one of Walmart Canada Corp. my colleagues.

“I am challenging you to work together “We take waste reduction very seriouswith us to provide more sustainable, more ly,” he said, “because at the end of the day recyclable and more reusable packaging ... that’s savings that we can pass into lower and I am not going to be a nice guy about it. prices for our customers.”

We need you to do it because it is Citing Walmart’s own customer surveys, very important for our business model.”

MacNaughton said that Canadian consumers are perfectly willing to purchase The relentless drive to eliminate all in- environmentally-preferred products, such ternal waste throughout the company’s as Walmart’s own For the Greener Good outlets is spearheaded by Walmart Canada’s product range, but not if it entails paying headquarters operations in Mississauga, an extra price premium for them.

Ont., MacNaughton related, where hun“So it is our shared burden to figure out, dreds of the company’s “associates,” includ- as a team, how to delight our customers,” ing president and chief executive David MacNaughton said, “while at the same Cheesewright, are actively engaged in the time helping to save the planet.” so-called ‘Personal Sustainability Programs’ Stressing that Walmart has implement(PSPs) that encourage employees to set ed an extensive range of capital-intensive personal goals for themselves that can drive environmental upgrades across many of positive environmental change in their its Canadian retail, distribution and supdaily lives, both at work and home. ply-chain operations over the last year, For Cheesewright, for example, that MacNaughton strongly urged the Canadimeans cycling to work at least once a an CPG vendors to follow suit because the week, McNaughton revealed. retailer is starting to approach the limits of “Let me assure you that the stress of see- what it can do for the environment strictly ing sales numbers at the end of the work- through its own internal efforts. ing day does not even close to the stress I “The truth is that only eight per cent of Walmart’s environmental footprint comes from our own operations,” he pointed out, with the rest genPACKAGING SCORECARD METRICS erated by all other activities related to its suppliers and customers.

15% BASED ON GREENHOUSE GASES/ CO2 PER TON OF PRODUCTION “So no matter how big we are, how good we are, or how focused 15% BASED ON MATERIAL VALUE we are, we simply can’t do it alone because eight per cent of our en15% BASED ON PRODUCT/PACKAGE RATIO vironmental impact is all that we 15% BASED ON CUBE UTILIZATION can affect directly,” MacNaughton stated, explaining the company’s 10% BASED ON TRANSPORTATION growing emphasis on packaging 10% BASED ON RECYCLED CONTENT reduction for all the products entering its stores.

10% BASED ON RECOVERY VALUE “We won’t, and we can’t, do it 5% BASED ON RENEWABLE ENERGY alone,” asserted MacNaughton.

“We are very dependent on each 5% BASED ON INNOVATION other, specifically in the area of packaging, and our deadline for Source: Walmart Stores Inc.

reducing our packaging by five per cent is coming up pretty quickly.

“I am challenging you to work together with us to provide more sustainable, more recyclable and more reusable packaging,” stated MacNaughton, echoing McGuffin’s observation that the current rate for Packaging Scorecard metrics compliance among Canadian suppliers is simply nowhere near good enough.

“Of all the SKUs (stock-keeping) we currently sell in our stores, only 20 per cent are part of the Scorecard today,” he reiterated, “and I need you, our suppliers and packaging partners, to help us make it 100 per cent by July 1 of this year.

“And I am not going to be a nice guy about it,” he stressed. “We need you to do it because it is very important for our business model.”

Minimizing consumer packaging waste is also vitally important to the ultimate success of ambitious waste-diversion goals set out by the provincially-operated Waste Diversion Ontario (WDO) corporation, according to the provincial Minister of Environment John Gerretsen, who once again raised the prospect of imposing the highly controversial EPR (Extended Producer Responsibility) levies on CPG brand-owners sooner rather than later—

John Gerretsen, Minister of the Environment, Ontario, MPP, Kingston and The Islands

“If you make it, you take it after the product’s useful life is over. It’s producers who control how much packaging goes onto a product, so it’s only fair that we put the responsibility for diverting that packaging from landfill at the front end of the process.”

“There is a new awareness of a shared stewardship of the environment, where everyone has to do their part to leave the legacy of clean air and pure water for our children ... and the time has long passed for us to solve our problems simply by digging more and bigger holes in the ground to bury our waste.”

KEEPING SCORE

CA NA DI A N PAC K AG IN G • M AY 2 0 1 0

From left: PAC president Jim Downham,Walmart’s Guy McGuffin, Mohawk College students Kristin Hoover, Mike Virag and Kyla Tonkin, and S.C. Johnson and Son, Limited, president Beth Simermeyer celebrate the Mohawk student team’s winning entry in this year’s Student Sustainable Packaging Design Competition of PAC-The Packaging Association, featuring post-secondary schools from across Ontario designing new sustainable packaging concepts for S.C. Johnson’s popular Windex brand of household cleaners.

essentially requiring the industry to fund 100 per cent of the costs of administering the province’s Blue Box curbside recycling program, doubling its current 50-percent share of the burden.

“We have our own very aggressive waste diversion targets we want to achieve by 2013,” stated Gerretsen. “The people of Ontario are getting the sustainability message, and they want their government to move in the right direction.

With Ontario residents generating an estimated one tonne of waste per person each year, “Having 13 million tonnes of waste to haul off to the landfills is simply too much,” he declared.

“About one-third of that waste is from consumer packaging,” he asserted, arguing it’s unfair to expect the Ontario taxpayers to continue funding the full half of provContinues on page 28

27

SUSTAINABILITY

SETTLING SCORES Continued from page 27

Guy McGuffin presents this year’s Walmart Canada Sustainable Packaging Award to Lisa Bagshaw, director of sales with Henkel Consumer Goods Canada Inc., for the company’s innovative new Purex Complete 3-in-1 brand (inset) of laundry sheets.

ince’s growing recycling expenses indefinitely.

“The government of Ontario is very pleased with the growth of our recycling industry, which has already generated many new low-carbon, well-paying jobs,” he noted, “but we need to be able to find better ways to sustain the funding of our waste diversion programs.”

While Ontario residents have made remarkable progress in diverting their household waste through the Blue Box recycling program in recent years, Gerretsen acknowledged, “We are not doing so well in the commercial and construction sectors, where we’re stalled at about a

22-precent diversion rate.

“Our overall performance as a society is still unacceptable,” Gerretsen stated. “We are very serious about moving to become a strong, low-carbon economy, but we need to do a much better job on waste diversion, and packaging is a critical part of this transformation process.

“So if you make it, you take it after the product’s useful life is over: that’s what EPR is all about,” he summed up.

“It’s producers who control how much packaging goes onto a product, so it’s only fair that we put the responsibility for diverting that packaging from landfill at the front end of the process with EPR.” But while PAC is all for boosting re-

The exhibit of renewable energy supplier Bullfrog Power.

cycling rates and minimizing packaging waste, the group’s government affairs director Larry Dworkin maintains that EPR is the worst possible solution on offer, saying shifting the full burden of Blue Box collection onto the industry’s shoulders will lead to thousands of job losses across numerous CPG sectors in the province.

Fully automated. Totally integrated.

Best Packaging tabeltop exhibit.

“We are very concerned that the government has really not thought through the full economic impact of EPR very well,” Dworkin told Canadian Packaging, calling EPR a “sure job-killer.”

Said Dworkin: “This may be the proverbial straw breaking the camel’s back for many brand-owners with corporate headquarters and manufacturing operations in the U.S., who may well decide that if they’re going to absorb the new costs of packaging collection and recycling imposed by EPR, then it may be more costeffective for them to shift the production of goods they sell in Ontario to their U.S.based plants, and then simply ship their products to Ontario from there.

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The tabletop exhibit of Palletizing Systems Limited.

“We are talking about many wellpaying manufacturing jobs disappearing from the province for good if EPR, in its current from, comes into being,” Dworkin warned.

“However many new jobs the government thinks it will create in the recycling sector will mean nothing compared to the job losses that EPR will bring about in Ontario.”

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SUSTAINABILITY

BY ANDREW JOSEPH, FEATURES EDITOR

AWASH WITH GREEN Q

Timely seminar focuses on existing ambiguities and shortfalls in current approaches to packaging sustainability

uestioning environmental sustainability these days may well be perceived to be as crass as railing against motherhood, but that doesn’t mean that there is not a whole lot of misleading or erroneous information out there—wilfully or not—about what true packaging sustainability is all about, and how to go about achieving it in a meaningful, results-oriented way.

The challenge is getting through the fog of so-called “greenwash”—a mixed bag of half-truths, meaningless sloganeering and plain wishful thinking—without getting side-tracked or discouraged from following the righteous path of making a real difference in helping alleviate some very real environmental problems facing our modern society, including the carbon-footprint of packaging production, usage and disposal.

But thanks to the work of industry groups such as the Brampton, Ont.-based Paper & Paperboard Packaging Environmental Council (PPEC)—a national umbrella organization for companies involved in the production of paper-based packaging, there is really no valid excuse today for not being able to meet such a challenge, or at least to give it your best shot.

Held at the Mississauga Convention Centre last month, the council’s well-attended, half-day Cutting Through The Greenwash II seminar provided a lively discussion and exchange of ideas amongst about 100 paper industry professionals on avoiding the pitfalls of greenwashing—described as attempts by companies, industries and governments to mislead the public about their true environmental virtues and credentials—while also offering solid practical advice on effectively using tools such as third-party certifications, scorecard systems, and life-cycle analysis (LCA) methodologies.

THREE TAKES

Leading off the event, PPEC presented a trio of third-party certification specialists discussing the merits of utilizing wood products confirmed to have been produced from sustainable forest management, and what it can ultimately mean to the customer and consumer.

Lisa Beutel, a consultant and marketing manager with TerraChoice, a North American environmental consulting services provider, noted: “We have found that 90 per cent of consumers are concerned about the environment and how their purchasing behavior affects it.

“Therefore, greenwashing about the environment and product is an issue, because once a company is found out, consumer skepticism will remain, and it can seriously dilute your brand.”

Noting that 53 per cent of North American consumers instinctively mistrust what brand-owners tell them about their supposed moral and ethical superiority, Beutel said that companies who fail to back up their claims with clear facts risk long-lasting damage to their reputations, citing the still-lingering effects of child-labor allegations Lisa Beutel, from years ago plaguing the globConsultant and al sportswear giant Nike, Inc. Marketing Manager, TerraChoice Allison Welde, director of conservation partnerships and communications with Sustainable Forestry Initiative (SFI) Inc., warned audience members about the pitfalls of simply purchasing one of the many readily-available, seemingly credible certification eco-labels and slapping them on the products without first 30

taking time to ascertain the certifier’s credibility and bona fides, offering a helpful checklist: • Is the certification program sponsored by a credible non-profit organization?

• Does it have written criteria and standards that govern the application and certification process?

• Does it have a verification and validation process?

• Once your company is certified, is there an accountability step and a process of continual improvement?

• Does it have credibility in the marketplace?

“The Competition Bureau of Canada and the Canadian Standards Association (CSA) have issued a guide to help businesses make sure their green marketing is not misleading,” said Welde, citing her own SFI, CSA, Forest Stewardship Council Canada (FSC) and the Programme for the Endorsement of Forestry Certification (PEFC) as the foremost certification authorities for the Canadian forest products sector.

For FSC president and chief executive Antony Marcil, the pronounced rise in the global consumption of paper over the last 40 years is in itself a sigAllison Welde, nificant motivating factor for Director of Conservation forest product manufacturers Partnerships & to obtain credible third-party Communications, Sustainable Forestry certification.

Initiative Inc. “Don’t just say you use sustainable paper—prove you do so with specifics and get endorsements from ENGOs (environmental non-governmental organizations) like the FSC,” Marcil stated.

“The independent verification of fiber sources and responsible forest management is the best thing you can use to assure your customers that they are associating their brand with an [endorsement] that they can be proud of.”

Laura Rowell, director of sustainable packaging for global forestry giant MeadWestvaco Corporation, suggested that it may be time for various legislators to get more involved in overseeing the multitude of sustainability-oriented initiatives unfolding across various manufac-

turing and goods-producing industries—at the moment led primarily by retailers and CPG (consumer packaged good) brand-owners who feel they can address environmental concerns quicker and more effectively than governments— as a means to prevent excessive Antony Marcil, greenwashing in the marketPresident and CEO, place.

Forest Stewardship “While becoming more Council Canada green-compliant is still largely a voluntary act, it is becoming to be expected by more and more brand-owners as a way of showing proof of environmental goodwill,” said Roswell, complimenting the efforts of several international, multistakeholder ENGOs for their commendable levels of objectivity, including the Sustainable Packaging Coalition (SPC), European Organization for Packaging and the Environment (EUROPEN), The Keystone Center, and the Global Packaging Project initiative of The Consumer Good Forum.

KEEPING SCORE

Even the environmental systems widely acknowledged to be the most authoritative in the industry—such as the Packaging Scorecard suppler evaluation metrics developed

by Walmart Stores—are not necessarily the last word on true packaging sustainability, Roswell pointed out.

“We had a forestry company utilizing economic-impact calculators from six different standard organizations to estimate the carbon-dioxide output resulting from producing one metric tonne of unbleached board packaging, and they produced a range of scores from a low of 773.62 kilograms to a high of 3,538 kilograms,” she related. “The data was incredibly varied.”

Francois Charron-Doucet, an engineer with the Montreal-based Interuniversity Research Centre for the Life Cycle of Products, Processes and Services (CIRAIG), took it one step further in declaring,“There is no such thing as a perfectly green product; every product impacts the environment in some way.”

Forest Certification Start Originator

C Coverage Main differences

1993 eNGOs, NGO First Nations, Retailers, Foresters

W ld World

1994

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Industry

Landowners

N ti National l

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E European

Process vs. Performance; Independence; Transparency; Verification and auditing (1st, 2nd, 3rd party); Support from all society; and Market Demand.

MAY 2010 • C ANAD I AN PAC KAGI NG

SUSTAINABILITY

“It is quite possible that a winter greenhouse could be more damaging to the environment than just having the tomatoes shipped up from Mexico” Offering up examples of local production of greenhouse tomatoes in the winter, and marketing wool as a renewable material, he observed:“I think we can all agree that they are both very noble things—but what about the methane from sheep and its effect on climate change?

“And what about all that fuel required to heat the greenhouse? It is quite possible that a winter greenhouse could be more damaging to the environment than just having the tomatoes shipped up from Mexico.”

Not only do companies today need to analyze all the cradle-to-grave aspects of their product, Carron-Doucet stressed, they should also do so from a truly global perspective.

Carron-Doucet pointed to the common practice of using of product receipts in France not just for pricing purposes, but also for breaking down the products’ ecological costs.

ration, and we need industrywide packaging standards that we can use to make informed sustainable packaging decisions,” Bellizzi stated.

“When it comes greenwashing, we all need to be aware of all the possibilities and to do all the due diligence.”

FISH IN THE SEA

CA NA DI A N PAC K AG IN G • M AY 2 0 1 0

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“For a 26-gram package used for cod filets, for example, such a receipt offers an approximation of the environmental cost of the product, focusing on transportation, waste and packaging: like the 37 grams of greenhouse gas produced to manufacture the packaging; or noting that based on current recycling habits, only 38 per cent of the package will be recycled; or the transportation costs of traveling 3,000 kilometers to bring the product to the consumer,” Carron-Doucet explained.

“The idea is to inform the consumer that there is more to the cost of a fish dinner than just money.”

In a fitting conclusion to the seminar, Mario Bellizzi, senior director of environment and sustainability at Sobeys Inc., and Greta Najcler, environmental scientist with Tim Hortons Inc., gave their takes on what they expect from packaging suppliers.

“We are generally cautious of using the word ‘green’—we want something that has real meaning,” Najcler stated, explaining Tim Hortons’ general reluctance to wrap itself in a green flag for public consumption despite having strict environmental guidelines in place, such as requesting valid third-party, sustainable forest management certification for all the paper products it purchases.

“Sometimes it’s almost easier not to have a label,” she added. “We may in the future, if our customers want to see it, but for now we don’t have a compelling case to do that.”

Added Bellizzi: “We consistently challenge our suppliers to either come up with sustainable packaging, or to use less packaging for their products.”

While there is no escaping the reality that many food products necessitate the use of virgin materials to make proper packaging, Bellizzi said it would be highly beneficial if there were a more harmonized evaluation system in place, rather than having to evaluate the different merits of score-card systems—resulting in a lot of unnecessary guesswork.

“There is a need for multilevel collabo-

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announcements

people

ann o u nc e m e n t s

People

l Montreal-based robotic systems integrator and supplier Axium Inc. has been appointed as North American distributor and “strategic channel partner” for mixed-load palletizing solutions incorporating palletizing robots from ABB Robotics and Axium’s proprietary Cube-IQ project planning software. “We are very excited to be partnering with ABB to help manufacturers streamline their supply chains,” says Axium president Robert Jodoin.

“Manufacturers are increasingly challenged to adapt as their customers product mix gravitates more and more to multiple product mixed-load requirements, and we believe that our solution offers customers a method to not only satisfy this need, but also to optimize their efficiency and reduce costs.” According to Joe Campbell, vice-president of sales and marketing for ABB Robotics for North America: “Axium has been providing its customers with unparalleled robotic solutions and service for over 18 years and we are delighted to be partnering with them to offer manufacturers a significant advantage to meeting our mutual customer’s demands for custom-mixed pallets.”

l Newmapak Ltd., Montreal-headquartered manufacturer of conveyor systems for packaging industry applications and a distributor of other packaging machinery, has added Vince Cottone to the company’s sales team, with responsibilities for sales in the province of Ontario.

Cottone

l Norwegian-based beverage and liquid foods packaging technologies

Ross

group Elopak AS has appointed Brad Ross as executive vice-president for the Americas region at the company’s New Hudson, Mich.-headquartered Elopak, Inc. subsidiary, with responsibilities of all its activities in the North American, Latin America and South American markets.

l GS1 Canada,Toronto-based supply-chain standards association, has appointed four new members to Strategic Governance Board, including: Ronnie Miller, president and chief executive officer (CEO), Hoffmann-La Roche Limited; Javier San Juan, president & CEO, L’Oreal Canada Inc.; Calvin McDonald, executive vice-president of marketing, Loblaw Companies Limited; and Andrew Ellis, senior vice-president of supply chain and logistics, Walmart Canada.

l MACtac, Stow, Ohio-based manufacturer of pressure-sensitive adhesive products for labeling and packaging applications, has appointed Paul LeMay as director of operations services

l Document Security Systems, Inc. (DSS), manufacturer of tamperproof, anticounterfeiting and product authentication technologies based in Rochester, N.Y., has acquired the assets ofVictor, N.Y.-based paperboard packaging producer Premier Packaging Corporation for an undisclosed amount. “Based on our market research, this acquisition gives DSS the ability to give a whole new meaning to ‘packaging security’ by creating the world’s first and largest packaging manufacturing company to utilize DSS anti-counterfeiting optical deterrent technologies,” says DSS chief executive Pat White.

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l Berlin Packaging, Chicago-based manufacturer of glass, plastic, and metal containers and closures for packaging applications, has reached a definitive agreement to acquire the assets of Pittsburgh, Pa.-based rigid packaging products supplier All-Pak, Inc. in a merger that will create a leading, globally-operating packaging products company with combined annual sales of over US$500 million.“This exciting transaction unites two highly complementary businesses and will enable us to continue to unlock value for our customers, supplies and employees,” says Berlin Packaging chief executive Andrew Berlin.

Select Applications: • Abattoirs • High temperature applications such as bakeries and food processing plants • Pharmaceuticals • Electronic equipment conveyors • Transmissions through water or high humidity

l U.K.-headquartered food-packaging machinery and equipment manufacturer Bradman Lake Group has announced the relocation of the manufacturing operations of its U.S. subsidiary Bradman Lake, Inc. to a new 40,000-square-foot facility in Rock Hill, S.C. “Due to our company’s success, we have outgrown our current facility in Charlotte and this new ‘purpose-built’ factory will allow us to meet growing customer demand for our products,” explains Bradman Lake Inc. president Gary Pickett. “The new space is much more efficient and it will allow us to service our customers better—from order placement to full after-sales support—while also giving us a 30-percent increase in the production area, with an opportunity for future expansion to double of the current space.”

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416-247-7878 may 2010 • CANADIAN PACKAGING

events

Multivac Announces Canadian Sales Team

E V EN T S

May 19-20 NewYork City: Luxe Pack NewYork, luxury packaging exhibition by Luxe Pack Monaco. At Metropolitan Pavilion.To register, go to: www luxepacknewyork.com

Multivac Canada Sales Team includes: (from left) Dale Patterson, Ontario Regional Sales Manager; Wade Meunier, Western Regional Sales Manager; Denis Poulin, Quebec Regional Sales Manager, Paul Marsden, Ontario & Manitoba Regional Sales Manager; Ken Poxon, Director of Sales

May 25-26 NewYork City: 2010 Beverage Forum, by Beverage Marketing & Beverage World.

At Grand Hyatt. Contact Beverage Forum Registration Desk at (740) 598-4133, ext. 251.

May 25-27 Boston, Mass.: The Vision Show, machine vision technologies exhibition and conference by Automated Imaging Association (AIA). At Hynes Convention Center. Contact AIA at (734) 994-6088.

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Toll Free: 1-877-264-1170

May 29 - June 2 Istanbul,Turkey: IPT Istanbul 2010, annual paper/carton/corrugated production and processing machinery and paper-based packaging technologies exhibition by TUYAP Fairs Inc. At TUYAP Fair, Convention and Congress Center.To register, go to: www.iptistanbulfair.com

®

June 7-8 Chicago: M&A Executive Forum, a specialist summit on merger-andacquisition activity in the packaging and converting industries by AWA Alexander Watson Associates. At Hyatt Regency O’Hare Hotel.To register, go to: www.awa-bv.com June 8-10 NewYork City: EastPack 2010, packaging technologies exhibition

by Canon Communications LLC. Concurrently with the Atlantic Design & Manufacturing Show, ATX (Automation Technology Expo) East, Green Manufacturing Expo, Medical Design & Manufacturing (MD&M) East, and PlasTec East. All at the Jacob K. Javits Convention Center.To register, go to: www.EastPackShow.com June 9-11 Orlando, Fla.: Digital Printing Presses:The Next Era, conference by Information Management Institute, Inc. (IMI) At Radisson Resort OrlandoCelebration. Contact IMI at (207) 235-2225; or go to: www.imiconf.com June 9-12 Valencia, Spain: FINAT Congress 2010, self-adhesive labeling technologies summit by Féderation INternationale des fabricants et transformateurs d’Adhésifs et Thermocollants (FINAT). At Hilton Valencia.To register, go to: www.finat.com June 13-15 Chicago: 2010 Paper Recycling Conference & Trade Show, by GIE Medica, Inc. At Marriott Chicago Downtown.To register, go to: www.PaperRecyclingConference.com

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June 15-18 Moscow, Russia: Rosupak 2010, international packaging exhibition by MVK International. At Crocus Expo.

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C H E C KO U T

BY SARAH HARPER

Turning up the heat on lackluster seasonal packaging

••• This certainly applies to the Master Chef Cast Iron Fajita Platter—sold in these parts by Toronto-based Trileaf Distribution— whose fairly flimsy blister-packs feature pegholes at the top of the package, presumably so that these fairly heavyweight iron pans can be hung up on hooks at the store for maximum exposure. Whoever thought of this must have been expecting these pans to become instant sellouts, as I can’t see these pieces of iron just blissfully hanging around forever. Sooner or later, their sheer weight is bound to cause them to come crashing down from their pegs—with the real risk of nailing a store worker or customer right on the toes, ouch! Also, the lack of any care and maintenance instructions, or some cooking suggestions, is a serious oversight, to put it mildly. Surely providing a few tips on keeping this iron pan rust-free for as long a possible would be the bare minimum a consumer could expect. And while many of us may have seen these pans being used at Mex-Tex food restaurants to make sizzling-hot fajitas, both the dish and

the iron pans are still not exactly the sort of mainstream everyday items, at least in Canada, that can take consumer familiarity so very much for granted.

••• This packaging flimsiness also extends to the Master Chef BBQ Tool Set utensils ensemble, with the half-clamshell packaging providing neither a good fit for the individual utensils— a simple light tug prompts the BBQ fork to slide right out of the plastic casing—nor anything significant in terms of reuse possibilities. While I can appreciate the need to keep packaging costs low, and the environmental impact of packaging minimal, I suspect that many consumers out there would be willing to spend a little more money to purchase a similar item that provides the convenience of its own storage case or compartment—saving the grief and inconvenience of finding adequate cupboard space for such oversized utensils.

••• On the other hand, the Master Chef Hot Dog Roller kit offers a compelling example of how seasonal products like this one should be packaged—inside a sturdy, distinctly-decorated cardboard box that makes it a snap to “retire” the product inside a cupboard for duration of the next winter season, without collecting dust somewhere in the basement or garden shed, or getting lost among a pile of other household stuff. Nice and simple, with clear and easy-to-read instructions on the back—another serving of that, please.

••• Cleaning supplies seem to be one product category where grilling-season items largely fall in line with their yearround mainstream counterparts. Case in point: the 6 Disposable Grill Wipes pack from Grate Chef, using just the sort of a packaging format one would expect to keep these moistened towelettes clean and ready-to-go at any time—the good old resealable pouch. Jazzed up with

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R.S. NO. 101 102 103 104 105 106 107 108 109 110 111 112, 113 114 115 116-121 122 123 124 125 126 127 128 129, 130 131 132, 133

PAgE Advance Gas Technology 32 Atlantic Packaging Products Ltd. 4 Canpaco Inc. 18 32 Deco Labels & Tags Flexlink Systems Canada 7 Fortress Technolgy Inc. 31 J.W. Winco Co. Inc. 32 Kinecor 21 9 Krones Machinery Co. Ltd. Markem-Imaje 13 Metro Label Co. Ltd. 16 Multivac Inc. 28, 33 Newmapak Ltd. 7 Packaging Machinery 29 Manufacturers Institute QuickLabel Systems, An Astro-Med Product Group 11 Robert Reiser & Co. Inc. 8 Ryson International 20 SEW Eurodrive Co. of Canada 35 Schneider Electric 31 Scotiabank 33 Sidel Solutions 2 StrongPoint Automation 6 Tsubaki of Canada Ltd. 22, 32 Videojet Technolgies Canada 3 WeighPack Systems Inc. 25, 36

fiery red-and-yellow graphics, the foillined pouch also makes this handy six-pack a perfect companion for camping trips and countless other outdoor activities where water and cleaning aids can be in short supply.

••• Such resealability is notable by its absence on the bags of Wood Smoking Chips from the Grill Care Company, which lets an otherwise wonderful product down with a substandard package that is virtually guaranteed to cause an accidental spill or two at some point during its lifecycle. Not only could the bag itself be a little thicker, and hence more puncture-resistant, but it is also one of those products that could really benefit from having some handy instructions and recipe suggestions included on the packaging, as simple photographs of a finished dish are really not that helpful in themselves for the less-experienced BBQ aficionados in our midst.

••• Conversely, the Charcoal Companion Kabob Baskets from The Companion Group— ingeniously designed for cooking kabobs without having to use skewers—provide an excellent example of using packaging to clearly illustrate how to use these clever contraptions with simple food images right on the cardboard strips underneath the elongated grilling baskets. Moverover, the packaging back-panel provides both a recipe and care instructions, although be prepared to commit those to memory after your first use—there’s really not much packaging afterlife potential there. Sometimes, creativity and practicality just do not make for a happy co-existence.

Sarah Harper, an assistant category manager for frozen foods at a leading national grocery chain, lives in Milton, Ont.

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MAY 2010 • C ANAD I AN PAC KAGI NG

PHOTOS BY SARAH HARPER

Year after year, the arrival of spring is warmly embraced by department stores across the land with an exuberant display of shiny patio furniture and barbecues in the stores’ showrooms, with their storeshelves suddenly restocked with a vast array of grilling gadgets, cookbooks, cleaning supplies and anything else that may pass for being an essential accessory to the impending BBQ season. And why not? According to one recent consumer report, more than half of Canadian households own a BBQ or an outdoor grill set and, I presume, most of the other half wish they did, but simply can’t because they’re not permitted to use them where they live for fire safety and other reasons. Either way, there’s a very healthy market niche out there for manufacturers of all the different BBQ supplies and trinkets, but while the evolution and development of fancy new grilling tools and gadgets in recent years has been very impressive, the packaging for these products has not really kept pace in that time—often coming across as a last-minute afterthought, and not always a very good one.

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