Packaging World October 2024

You make it. We pack it. BPA loads your packaged and naked products into cases, master bags and various secondary containers including your hffs machines, wrapper chain in-feeds and indexing thermoform machines.

FEATURES

44

Timing Screws are Key to Ice Cream Multipacking

From mass conveying to single- ling to stacking to a short ride down an elevator and nally to controlled indexing of six-high stacks into a sleever, this system is a wrap for Blue Bell.

56

Westrock Coffee Poised for Growth in RTD Coffees

Launched originally as a means of aiding Rwandan coffee farmers, Westrock Coffee just opened an Arkansas manufacturing plant that includes three sophisticated packaging lines.

68

Mary Kay Hits the Sweet Spot on Speed with Mascara Packaging Line

To boost mascara and other tube production at Mary Kay’s Lewisville, Texas facility, it turned out that intermediate speeds and intermittent motion were the right mix of speed, sophistication, and throughput.

86

Summit Convenes Supply Chain to Close the Recycling Loop

Packaging World’s second annual Packaging Recycling Summit brings together brand owners, recyclers, reclaimers, and material and equipment suppliers to drive package recycling rates.

104

Twig’s Beverage Blends

Tradition with Modern Ef ciency

Family-run Twig’s, a longtime contract packager for Keurig Dr Pepper’s Sun Drop, updates its old conveyors and installs modern bottling for its retro sodas.

112

Cristalia Implements PET Bottle with Integral Handle

This bottled water producer says it differentiated itself on the shelf, improved its appearance, added supply chain-friendly robustness, and upgraded its sustainability pro le, all without sacri cing the integral handle consumers love. Here’s how they did it.

124 PACK EXPO International 2024

Quick Facts

Witness an unparallelled range of solutions and engage with industry thought leaders at the largest international packaging and processing show of 2024.

130 AUTOMATION

Building a Modular MachineVisualization Solution

Mespack innovated and modularized to best meet its customers’ needs, including a exible Emerson Movicon.NExT HMI/SCADA to standardize its products and support future advancements.

136

Estée Lauder Closes in on Sustainable Packaging Goals

Luxury cosmetics company Estée Lauder shares how internal design guidelines and innovative packaging strategies have allowed it to come within four percentage points of its 2025 sustainability goals.

152 SPECIAL REPORT Rethinking Robotics in Modern Manufacturing

Twenty- ve automation experts share their thoughts on overcoming ‘brittle’ automation, ensuring process exibility, and strategies for nancial justi cation of robotics.

172 SPECIAL PRODUCTS SECTION

Packaging Robotics Technologies

A compilation of robotic packaging technologies, organized by category.

200

Advanced Recycling: A Pivotal Tool for Circularity

Advanced recycling technology can provide an additional avenue to meet society’s increasing demand for more PCR plastic, but challenges around feedstock, legislation, and misconceptions may slow growth.

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DEPARTMENTS

EDITORIAL ADVISORY BOARD

Aladin Alkhawam Supply Chain Security Director, Endo International plc

Jan Brücklmeier Technical Application Group Packaging Technology Expert, Nestlé

M. Shawn French Director – Innovation & Packaging Engineering (Beverage), Danone North America

Patrick Keenan R&D Packaging Engineer, General Mills/Annie’s Organic Snacks

Mike Marcinkowski Director of R&D Material Science, Packaging & Sustainability – Nature’s Vault/Fesh Loop

David Smith, PhD Principal, David S. Smith & Associates

Brian Stepowany Packaging R&D, Senior Manager, B&G Foods, Inc.

Jasmine Sutherland President, Texas Food Solutions; Vice President, Perfect Fit Meals

Blue Bell’s Unique Shrink Multipack Automation pwgo.to/8460 VIDEO PreformBlown Gallon PET Bottle has Integral Handle pwgo.to/8461

VIDEO Mary Kay Mascara Hits Speed Sweet Spot pwgo.to/8414 VIDEO Packaging Recycling Summit Video Library pwgo.to/8477

LIST Sourcing Mono-material Barrier Pouches pwgo.to/8500

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Optical AI to Recycling’s Rescue?

The concept of packaging circularity is so new, and the territory so uncharted, that stakeholders working to bend the linear packaging waste stream we inherited into a circular one are facing unforeseen headwinds from unexpected sources. The sheer complexity and scale of the undertaking is daunting enough, but we always knew it was going to be a steep hill. But brands didn’t expect their sustainability efforts to be at odds with public opinion; both in the way they’re being communicated, and sometimes, the efforts themselves.

Have you heard the term “green hushing?” Brian Sano from optical AI-based consumer waste bin sortation system Oscar Sort explained it to me last month at the Packaging Recycling Summit (see page 86) in Anaheim, Calif. It was a phenomenon that was vaguely on my radar but hadn’t had a name in my mind. Now that I know it has a name, I’m seeing it everywhere.

Green hushing as a concept entered brands’ consciousness about two years ago. The first public mention I can find dates to a 2022 Financial Times article titled, “‘Green hushing’ on the rise as companies keep climate plans from scrutiny.” It describes the chilling effect that charges of greenwashing have had on brands’ and CPGs’ outward communications related to sustainability initiatives. The specific claims that they’d been making had been under so much consumer scrutiny, from so many different directions, that the mere appearance of greenwashing imposed reputational risk. Brands were beginning to intentionally downplay sustainability initiatives they previously championed to avoid the very accusation of greenwashing. Worse yet, they were diverting resources away from the programs themselves if they weren’t getting marketing push from them anyhow.

To be fair, greenwashing is both real and self-inflicted. Brands tripped all over themselves to align with sustainability, and undoubtedly marketing departments can play fast and loose with the facts. Often, brands followed consumer perception rather than the data. One big problem area is recycling. Sure, a package might be technically recyclable. Everything technically is. But is it likely to be, or even able to be, recycled in our current infrastructure? That has been an unfortunate shell game for which industry is often dinged by the arbiters of greenwashing. I’d argue that the move toward packaging waste circularity is unavoidably iterative, and that perfection can’t be the enemy of good, incremental progress. But brands should say that, then, instead of making unrealistic or even deceptive claims.

The good news is that packaging waste recycling help might be on the way via data collection and AI. We’re entering a data-driven era that should help brands and CPGs make solid, data-based claims. Maybe you could call it Circularity 2.0, where it’s not just the packaging waste itself that’s becoming circular, it’s also the data as its shared through the stream. Physically, we’re working toward a system where packaging—like rigid HDPE or board or aluminum or glass—travels one direction, downstream, and hopefully, into MRFs and reclaimers and reprocessors, and back to converters or smelters or glass houses as PCR. But in the circularity model that’s now emerging in an AI era, the information flows along with the packaging. Consider European efforts around digital product passports, for instance, where any stakeholder with the right scanner can access data, and every scan adds data.

The best part of this new moment is that the information doesn’t only flow downstream with the physical materials. Data can flow the opposite direction, upstream. Two shining examples of this are Colgate-Palmolive’s (page 90) efforts to track its embattled toothpaste tube through the waste stream and Amazon Climate Pledge’s (page 94) desire to see how its paper and bio-based mailers travel through MRFs’ technologically improving sortation systems. New tools like AI can make sense of unwieldy piles of data and suggest optimization strategies. U.S. sortation system manufacturers like Glacier and AMP Robotics are on the forefront of devising the hardware, and MRFs and collectors like WM, Republic, and Rumpke are employing them to great effect. Optics with AI underpinnings are even letting Rumpke collect PET thermoforms—a format it didn’t accept until now. Insights and findings from those tests are fed back upstream to the brands, which can put them to work on improving packaging design for recycling and reclamation.

This potential multi-directional flow of info could be accessed by any stakeholder in the system, not necessarily just the next logical rung on the ladder. At least that’s the potential, if stakeholders build it that way, and data sharing becomes standard practice. PW

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Plant-based Protein Powder Gets Plant-Based Pouch

Since 2009, Denver-based PlantFusion has been dedicated to producing nutrient-dense supplement options that are 100% plant-based and allergenfree. In addition to producing products of “impeccable quality,” the company also believes it has a responsibility to foster change within the industry, including reducing the use of plastic packaging. That’s according to Phil Vigeant, PlantFusion’s CEO and co-founder, who adds, “We see plastic as a big problem that needs other solutions, and the consumer needs options.”

PlantFusion’s product range includes protein and meal replacement powders as well as vitamin, mineral, and herbal supplements, many of which are Certi ed Organic, Non-GMO, kosher, and vegan. Like most powdered supplement brands, PlantFusion packages most of its products in plastic tubs—a situation the company felt compelled to change. “With plastic bottles being the overwhelming norm, we saw an opportunity to make a valuable contribution to the forward momentum of sustainable options,” Vigeant says.

To this end, the company spent more than a year researching global options for plastic-free packaging for its Organic Plant Protein powder. Above all, it was looking for packaging that was 100% biodegradable and compostable. It also needed a material that could provide the necessary moisture and oxygen barriers to keep its product ingredients fresh.

The last consideration was the availability of the material. According to Vigeant, “Accessibility was key to guaranteeing our ability to provide it to our customers consistently and continue to use it for other products.”

PlantFusion considered using paper, but it didn’t offer the necessary moisture barrier and couldn’t seal as well as bioplastics. They also found that post-consumer recycled material didn’t break down as they needed it to. “Therefore, to be as environmentally friendly as possible and to protect the integrity of the product inside, we landed on a multilayer plant-based substrate,” Vigeant explains.

Before settling on a packaging supplier, PlantFusion did its due diligence to ensure any material it used was certi ed by a third party as being compostable. Likening the emerging compostable packaging market to the wild west of organic certi cation 20 years ago, Vigeant says he is wary of supplier claims. “It’s not that a supplier might be nefarious, they might just be oversimplifying what compostable means,” he says. “The bottom line is that it was really important to us that the packaging had BPI [Biodegradable Products Institute] certi cation, because that means it’s gone through a speci c process.”

After vetting a number of “compostable” packaging suppliers, PlantFusion landed on a proprietary vendor whose materials offer the desired BPI credentials. The company can also supply the needed volume of packaging for PlantFusion’s current and future needs.

As described by Vigeant, the new gusseted stand-up pouch for PlantFusion’s Organic Plant Protein is constructed of a “natural paper print layer, a mineral barrier layer, a plant-based barrier layer, and a plant-based sealant layer.” The plant-based layers use a blend of materials derived from eucalyptus and cassava root. Both the pouch and its reclosable zipper component have been certi ed by BPI as being commercially compostable. Vigeant adds that in-house tests showed that the material can also be composted at home using a Lomi countertop composting machine.

Printed on the back of the new pouch is the BPI Compostable logo, with the copy, “Commercially compostable only. Facilities may not exist in your area,” along with a certi cation number consumers can use to nd a commercial composting facility near them, “in the event they do not have a home composter,” Vigeant says.

Interested in learning more about sustainable packaging solutions? Don’t miss PACK EXPO International 2024 to learn about the latest innovations in sustainable packaging. Visit packexpointernational.com for more information.

November 3-6, 2024 ■ Chicago, Illinois, USA

The new 12.2-oz gusseted pouch for PlantFusion’s Organic Plant Protein in Creamy Vanilla Bean and Rich Chocolate varieties was launched in July 2024. According to Vigeant, the cost of the package is nearly double the price of single-use plastic, but he says the company felt it was imperative to take the rst steps in mitigating plastic use. As of presstime, the company’s full organic fermented line, including its Alkalizing Greens, Fruitful Greens, Beet Powder, and Cacao Greens, will be available in the compostable packaging.

PlantFusion products are sold at natural product retailers such as Natural Grocers, Whole Foods Market, and local health food stores as well as online at plantfusion.com and Amazon.com. —Anne Marie Mohan

Booth S1630

Flexible, Compostable Wheatgrass Sachets

Chilean health food producer Soy Silvestre has produced quality health supplements based on natural ingredients for the last eight years.

Wheatgrass shots, previously packaged in 30-mL hand-wrapped plastic pots, constitute an important part of its current offering. The company recently adopted compostable exible packaging to protect the product and its nutritional content while improving its sustainability pro le. Stakeholders say this is a signi cant step becuase liquid products are notoriously dif cult to pack, particularly in compostable packaging.

The packaging structure is provided by Green Heart Solutions, a Chilean packaging converter that offers a range of compostable packaging products. The high-performance structure for Soy Silvestre includes a high-barrier cellulose NatureFlex lm layer sourced from Futamura, laminated to another bio lm for hermeticity. It allows Soy Silvestre to produce small exible sachets for its dose of liquid wheatgrass.

“’In our search for an automated solution for packaging our shots, we wanted something that was environmentally friendly. Green Heart Solutions helped us nd the best solution to protect our product, ensuring at the same time that our packaging is compostable and sustainable. We are committed to innovation and sustainability, and will continue to look for ways to improve our processes and products for the bene t of people and the planet,” a Soy Silvestre spokesperson says.

The new solution enables automated packaging and effectively protects the fragile product through its life cycle—from the lling/wrapping of the liquid product, to a freezing stage, through distribution, and ultimately a defrosting process before consumption. Not only is the product protected for its four months of shelf life, but the sachets are also compostable, allowing Soy Silvestre to align the packaging to its sustainable business model and reduce environmental impact. Green Heart Solutions compostable sachet complies with Chile’s PUSU law No. 21368 (single-

use plastics), and has both home and industrial composting certi cations, awarded by BPI, Dincertco, and TÜV.

This innovation was recognized during the Circlepack – Viva Packaging 2024 fair (CENEM) in April, an event during which Green Heart was awarded second prize in the food packaging category for their development of lm into sachets.

“[Futamura’s NatureFlex lms] are derived from responsibly managed, renewable wood pulp, and can then be composted into nutrients for soils, creating a complete circular life cycle for many products. The lms are versatile, with barriers to humidity and fats, and maintain avors and aromas. They can be laminated with certi ed biopolymers to achieve strong hermetic seals and additional properties for more complex applications. Wrapping fresh juice is one of these challenges that we are delighted to have solved,” says Ziomara Ferrer of Green Heart. —Matt Reynolds

McFlurry Moves to Paper-based Four-Flap Cup

Last month, McDonald’s unveiled its new Mini McFlurry for consumers conscious of portion sizes, and a packaging shift came along for the ride. The foodservice goliath says that it’s stepping up its commitment to sustainability by phasing out plastic McFlurry cup lids. Both the Mini and Regular McFlurry will now be served in what stakeholders say is a more environmentally friendly, paper-based, four- ap cup. The move will help reduce waste and advance McDonald’s goal of sourcing 100% of primary guest packaging from renewable, recycled, or certi ed materials by the end of 2025. As of the end of 2023, McDonald’s reported that it was nearly 87% of the way to reaching its goal.

“Packaging updates like this matter,” Michael Gonda, SVP, chief impact of cer of North America for McDonald’s says. “Not only is this a fun new way for our

U.S. fans to enjoy the McFlurry; we’re also moving one step closer to ful lling our packaging and waste commitments.”

This recent move comes on the heels of another sustainabilityminded McFlurry swap. Late last year, McDonalds dropped the dual-purpose mixing spindle and spoon, opting instead for a durable, washable, reusable spindle for back-of-house McFlurry prep. Consumers are now given the same small, black spoon that is used for other ice cream products.

“This small change will help reduce singleuse plastic waste in restaurants while giving customers the same delicious McFlurry they know and love,” the company says.

Given the huge volumes in which McDonald’s operates, small changes compound quickly. The four- ap paperboard cups are also available in several other international markets, including Canada and Indonesia. —Matt Reynolds

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Paper Cable Ties Eliminate 1,200 Miles’ Worth of Plastic Ties

The plastic cable ties used to hold products in place on a paperboard card may seem like a negligible amount of packaging, but according to Wire Cabling, as many as 100 billion of these non-recyclable cable ties are produced worldwide annually. In its journey to reduce 40% of its plastic packaging content by the end of 2024, baby lifestyle brand Munchkin, Inc., owned by WHY Brands, Inc., realized this small but consequential packaging component had to go.

mer, “both options have limited applications where they are a good replacement for traditional plastics, and ties aren’t one of them,” she says.

As for the latter, Velcro is generally made from nylon and/or polyester and has recycling and cost issues, so Munchkin dismissed this option as well.

The company also looked at traditional paper ties, but they usually have a metal thread running through them. “Although these are plastic free, they aren’t recyclable because of the mixed materials,” Barnes says.

The solution came in the form of a paper product with similar characteristics to string. The paper cable tie can be made from recycled content and can be recycled or will break down in a land ll or in home compost, similar to other organic materials.

Van Nuys, Calif.-based Munchkin, launched more than 30-plus years ago with a focus on innovative baby products and now a leading children’s lifestyle brand, has a storied history when it comes to developing packaging that is kinder to the planet—and to animals, in particular. In 2021, when news that a stray kitten had become entangled in a plastic ring used for its Any Angle trainer cup, the company not only paid for the kitten’s medical expenses, but it also redesigned its entire line of cup packaging to ensure no other animal would face the same plight. After a year of R&D, Munchkin introduced a paper packaging solution for its 500 cup SKUs that is animal safe and reduces its use of plastic by 643,630 lb annually.

From cups, Munchkin gradually moved to utensils. “While it was easy to remove the plastic blister on utensils, it didn’t yet feel like an improvement because there were still these small plastic components in the packaging,” says Diana Barnes, chief brand of cer and creative director of WHY Brands, Inc. “As a result, we challenged ourselves to make it 100% plastic free, and thus paper ties were born.”

Before landing on paper to replace its plastic cable ties, Barnes says Munchkin evaluated a number of other alternatives, including biodegradable and compostable plastics as well as Velcro. Regarding the for-

“The biggest challenge when developing the paper tie was ensuring that it was a better alternative and just as durable as a plastic cable tie,” says Barnes. “To ensure that 100% of our packaging is safe for the animal planet, we planned to transform our packaging design and ignite a redesign revolution by conducting several Life Cycle Assessments of plastic-and paper-based materials, measuring the total environmental impact over their lifespans to validate conjecture. The results showed that paper is superior to plastic, ultimately being less harmful to produce and easier to recycle, while also being a regenerative resource.”

After receiving samples of the paper tie from a proprietary supplier, Munchkin developed a molded-pulp backing plate to reinforce the tie and prevent ripping. The combination of the paper ties with the molded-pulp securing mechanism proved to be just as strong as plastic and metal-wire equivalents. To ensure the backing plate was strong enough without using too much material, Munchkin transit-tested different con gurations.

“It is an ongoing process as we learn and apply it to different applications,” says Barnes. “The main function of these ties is to hold the product in place without the thermoform blisters. In almost every redesign, we saw an overall reduction in materials. Fortunately, most of our product is light and durable, so the change was easy for us with minimal damage being made to the product.”

The paper cable ties and backing plate are made with 60% PCR—as is the case with all of Munchkin’s paperbased packaging—and are used across several categories, including bath products, sippy cups, snack catchers, and utensils and feeders, among others. The ties and plates are applied manually, just as the plastic ties were.

“There’s a slight increase in cost, mostly from a labor perspective,” Barnes shares. “However, it’s nominal, and Munchkin is willing to absorb it to do the right thing.”

According to the results of LCAs conducted by the company, the paper cable ties have helped reduce Munchkin’s annual CO2 output by 794,766 lb when the footprint of its previous packaging—a blister card, PET blister, and plastic cable tie—is compared with that of the current blister card and paper tie package. It’s also resulted in the elimination of more than 133,000 lb of plastic, which is equivalent to 1,197 miles in length of plastic ties.

Says Barnes, “As the world’s most-loved baby lifestyle brand, we recognize our duty to enact impactful and sustainable business practices and pave the way forward for future businesses and generations. It is a pivotal time to create sustainable change, and we are proud of the paper trail we are leaving behind.” —Anne Marie Mohan

Johnnie Walker Breaks New Ground with Lightweighted Bottle

If you get the feeling that Diageo has been a xture in Packaging World recently, you’re not imagining it.

The company’s Baileys Irish Cream brand graced our cover a few months ago with a paper bottle concept, and we looked at an AI-based label experience with Johnnie Walker in September. Well, the brand owner is back with another interesting packaging development.

Diageo brand Johnnie Walker unveiled its Blue Label Ultra, the brand’s lightest 70-cL Scotch whisky glass bottle to date. To the best of the brand’s knowledge and research, it’s the world’s lightest 70-cL glass Scotch whisky bottle.

Five years ago, having noticed that many luxury categories were heading in a new direction—delicate rather than heavy—the Johnnie Walker brand sought to experiment with one of its most luxury whiskies. The aim was to push the boundaries of glass lightweighting. At 180-g without the closure, the company seems to have succeeded with Blue Label Ultra.

“Johnnie Walker Blue Label Ultra was born out of an ideation session looking at the future of luxury. With other categories moving towards lightweight–such as eyewear and high-performance cycling–we questioned whether luxury spirits could follow suit,” says Jeremy Lindley, Diageo’s global design director and project lead. “We took our vision to a team of expert glassmakers [at] Sisecam and throughout a ve-year test-and-learn process slowly discovered how to create elegant, lightweight glass. The technical challenges that

lightweighting presents led us to incorporate various design and production speci cations that we could not have envisaged at the start of our journey; from the requirement of a teardrop shape which we have molded to still mimic the iconic square form of Johnnie Walker bottles, to the addition of a protective [bamboo] cage to allow for a round base, and the hand-making and lling of each individual bottle to avoid damages in production.”

The company says the result is an industry- rst that, while aesthetically pleasing, also shows what luxury, lighterweight, lower-carbon bottles could look like. As part of its environmental commitments, Johnnie Walker aims to reduce the weight of glass, and associated carbon emissions, used in its packaging.

The technology is not yet available to permanently launch bottles of this weight at scale. Only 888 bottles will be ever produced. But the company says learnings are already being applied to lightweighting projects across the Diageo portfolio. Over its ve years of research, the brand was granted a U.K. patent. But to encourage further progress in the industry—and in a rst for Diageo—a license to the patent will be offered to anyone in the world.

“Rather than hold this new knowledge close to our chest, we’re excited to be offering a royalty-free license to our granted U.K. patent to the world” adds Lindley.

A limited number of these limited-edition bottles will be released for sale in 2025 in selected markets worldwide (RRP £1000). —Matt Reynolds

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Paper-Based Canister Keeps Powdered Collagen Fresh and Dry

The latest brand to join the growing list of CPGs and product categories that have jumped on the paper packaging bandwagon is Vital Proteins, a Nestlé Health Science brand. Chicago-based Vital Proteins has transitioned the packaging for its powdered Un avored Collagen Peptides from a rigid plastic container to an 80% paperboard canister. According to the brand, this marks the rst signicant packaging change in its 10-plus-year history and is a category- rst packaging design.

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“The swap comes as consumer interest in sustainable packaging continues to rise. In fact, nearly 80% of North American shoppers have expressed a desire to purchase a product based on its sustainability claims,” the brand says, citing the 2023 “Buying Green” report from Trivium Packaging and Euromonitor.

Made from Forest Stewardship Council (FSC)-certi ed ber, the paper-based packaging will reduce more than 90% of the plastic used across all Vital Proteins canister offerings. This equates to roughly 1,800 metric tons of plastic, or 4 million pounds. The new packaging is curbside-recyclable, with a How2Recycle label printed on the canister to advise consumers on how to dispose of the package when empty.

According to the brand, three years of R&D went into creating the new package, which was designed in-house by experts at the R&D center for Nestlé Health Science in Bridgewater, N.J., in collaboration with external partners. The container includes updated design elements like a patented pull-tab lid that opens for daily scooping and closes tightly when done—no more twisting of the lid required. To maintain the same product freshness as with the previous plastic packaging, Vital Proteins shares that the new tub underwent extensive stability testing, while the structural integrity of the canister was also thoroughly reviewed to ensure its ability to withstand leaks, spills, and busy everyday life.

Designed to be splash-proof and moisture resistant, the new canister also features a waterproof polymer layer on the inside as well as a water-based, water-resistant varnish on the outside.

“As pioneers in the collagen category, we feel a responsibility to lead when it comes to investing in sustainability initiatives, which includes innovating our packaging and reducing our plastic footprint,” says Vital Proteins General Manager Jill Abbott. “With wellness at the core of our brand, we care about making a positive impact on both our consumers and the planet through all that we do. The road to get here wasn’t always easy, but we’re incredibly proud to take this meaningful next step in our journey toward a more responsible future as we introduce our new paper-based canister—and to be the rst collagen brand to do it.”

In celebration of this milestone, Vital Proteins is donating to the U.S. Plastics Pact, which is dedicated to eliminating problematic plastics and identifying opportunities to make plastic packaging 100% reusable, recyclable, or compostable. This contribution will support the organization’s main target areas around plastic waste.

Vital Proteins plans to transition all of its collagen peptides products from plastic to paper-based canisters by 2026. Vital Proteins Un avored Collagen Peptides in the new paper-based packaging is now available in a 24-oz size in club stores for a suggested retail price of $36.99 and in a 20-oz size at national retailers for $47. —Anne Marie Mohan

BY THE NUMBERS

2.2M

The number of pieces of fraudulent or forged cannabis packaging materials recently seized by California authorities, with much of the packaging branded as candy or other sweets that could target children

“With today’s shift in position to support plastic production caps and regulate chemicals via the UN Plastics Agreement, the White House has signaled it is willing to betray U.S. manufacturing and the hundreds of thousands of jobs it supports. If the Biden-Harris Administration wants to meet its sustainable development and climate change goals, the world will need to rely on plastic more, not less. Plastics enable solar and wind energy, are critical to modern healthcare, deliver clean drinking water, reduce home, building, and transportation energy needs, and help prevent food wastage.”

69%

The percentage of Americans who would be likely to use a brand’s disposable bottled water if they knew the packaging was 100% recyclable and made from PCR, according to a survey from CG Roxane

$1.5M

The amount of a civil penalty Keurig Dr Pepper has agreed to pay to settle charges from the SEC regarding what it said were misleading claims about the recyclability of KDP’s K-cup singleuse coffee pods

–Chris Jahn, president & CEO of the American Chemistry Council, as quoted in an article from Powder & Bulk Solids, “US Changes Position on UN Plastics Agreement”

“It is not surprising so few brands consider their sustainable packaging strategy to be achievable—many are still far behind the curve when it comes to collecting the data they need. Legislation like EPR demands 100 percent data accuracy across all components, or brands and retailers will likely face higher fees. Another major source of concern is that so many are leaving it to be done manually, which is simply an impossible task. Businesses need reliable, agile processes in place to collect and manage that data and design their sustainable packaging right the rst time.”

–Greg Lawson, managing director for Aura, in an article from Recycling Today, “Research claims data collection a roadblock to sustainable packaging”

>52%

The percentage of men in the U.S. who are using facial skin-care products, representing an increase of 68% since 2022, according to Mintel

“Despite increasing caution in consumer spending, consumers are less willing to cut back on their beauty expenditures compared to other fast-moving consumer goods products, with 80% indicating they intend to maintain or increase their spending in this area. The beauty industry’s global popularity continues to rise, with industry sales maintaining a doubledigit growth rate across all regions, and is expected to bring an increase in scale of $300 billion over the next decade.”

–Claire Marty, VP of global client development at NielsenIQ, in an article from Consumer Goods Technology, “Personal Care Brands Jumping on Personalization and Convenience, Per NielsenIQ”

Collective Champions Beauty Packaging Circularity

Packaging World:

Read the unabridged version of this interview at pwgo.to/8450

Each year, 120 billion cosmetic packages are created; very few are recycled. Most are land lled, incinerated, or littered. In 2021, members of the beauty supply chain came together to bring circularity solutions to the beauty industry. In the following Q&A, Carly Snider, executive director of Pact Collective, shares the work the collective is doing to capture and recover these materials.

Can you talk a bit about Pact Collective and why it was formed?

Carly Snider:

Yes, so Pact Collective was founded by MOB Beauty and Credo Beauty—two very progressive and sustainable companies. Credo is focused on clean beauty; MOB Beauty is a smaller brand that has spent a lot of time on sustainable packaging. They wanted to create a takeback program as well as gure out ways to make and support better packaging decisions. They formed Pact Collective to provide collection programs and educational resources in a pre-competitive way so that all of beauty can have a seat at the table when talking about these important packaging needs.

How is Pact organized now?

MOB Beauty and Credo were our rst activator members, and so we did all of our piloting with them through our mail-back program and our in-store program. Now they are on our board and help us strategically in that capacity. For day-to-day operations, we’re a lean team of three, and we work independently of those brands to support the organization and make sure operations are moving forward and education is being executed.

Who can become a Pact member?

We have two different membership tiers. The rst is activators, which would be any kind of organization that is directly impacting packaging waste. So this could be a brand, a retailer, a packaging supplier—anyone that is selling a product or is involved in that product process would be considered an activator. We also have an advocate membership tier. This would be anyone that’s not directly impacting waste: non-pro ts, media, designers, consultants. We want to get

everyone out of their silos to have constructive conversations around beauty packaging and sustainable packaging in the beauty space.

This year we have announced that all activators have to enroll in a collection program. No longer can you just be a Pact member and check the box; this action has to happen. That’s something we feel really strongly about, that to be a part of this and to be a part of these conversations, you have to do the first step and participate in at least one of our Pact-run collection programs.

What do your collection programs looks like?

The rst thing to note about our program is that we are completely brand agnostic, so we accept any brand that ts our speci c collection guidelines. You don’t have to go to a Credo bin to drop your empty packaging off there. If you purchase the product there, you can go to the bin nearest to where you’re located and drop off any empty that ts our guidelines.

We have four different programs that members can choose from. The first is an in-store collection program. This is best for retailers or brands that have brick and mortar. What this looks like is a collection bin that can be co-branded that sits on the store floor and allows customers to drop off their hardto-recycle beauty empties for free. That’s something we’re focused on, and it’s been wonderful to launch with brands like Sephora, Ulta, Saks, L’Occitane, and Credo, and get our bin footprint up to almost 3,000 bins. The goal is to have a bin in every single community, so it’s really easy for customers to drop off empties.

We also have an in-office program, which operates very similarly to the in-store except that it’s in an office setting so employees can participate. And then we have a mail-back program, which is focused on direct-to-consumer brands, so brands

that don’t have that brick and mortar and have nowhere to place a bin.

We’re trying to make this accessible for everyone to participate in, but we encourage customers to leverage the in-store or in-office programs. We want to collect high volumes and then be able to ship that rather than individual packages across the country.

The last program is our obsolete inventory program. This is more of a back-of-house solution, it’s not a customer-facing program. This program collects any kind of obsolescence— expired goods, returns, any kind of packaging that was defective during production and cannot be used. So any kind of material that is no longer sellable we’re able to process and find best and highest use.

What are some of the challenges around recycling specific to the beauty industry?

There are basically three things. The rst is the packaging size. What we’re looking at with beauty is a lot of teeny, tiny pieces and also multiple pieces that can make up, let’s say, a serum bottle. There’s the bottle itself that is tiny, and then you have the dropper or some kind of an applicator that is also another individual tiny piece. What happens at the material recovery facility [MRF] is that anything that is under two by two inches is falling through the cracks of the facility and then goes to the land ll.

Beauty packaging also leverages material types that are considered low-value plastics—the number seven “other” category. For MRFs, a lot of times it doesn’t make sense for them to process it because it’s so low value, so they send it to the landfill, or they put it in a mixed bale and it’s downcycled.

With our system, because we’re sorting everything by hand, we’re consolidating volume, we’re collecting those small items and low-value plastics and trying to find the best and highest use for that material.

And then lastly is mixed material. With beauty, we see a lot of, let’s say, pumps or other kinds of applicators that have different types of material associated with one unit. So if you look at a pump, there’s probably a couple of different types of plastic and a metal spring. It gets rejected because it’s impossible for the recycling facility to separate those components because there’s not a manual sort or disassembly process. For our solution, we take that initial step to separate pieces.

What would low-value plastics consist of?

A lot of it is SAN [styrene acrylonitrile] and ABS [acrylonitrile butadiene styrene]. But then there’s also LDPE, which is used for squeeze tubes. At a lot of MRFs, squeeze tubes get completely rejected. They lay flat when going down the conveyor belt and the disc screens, and because they lay so flat, they also tend to fall through the cracks. We can also add flexible packaging to that as well, where we have layers of different plastic, and then that becomes mixed material, which would also be thrown into our number seven bin.

Once you get the empty packaging, what do you do with it?

We find best-in-class collection partners that are focused on processing small-format and hard-to-recycle items. We currently have three collection partners. Our primary facility is in Chicago. We work independent of the recycling partner, so we go in as almost the auditor for our members to make sure that operations are set up correctly and that we’re getting the data we need, and then making sure the material is moved to best and highest use.

We have an extensive protocol that each of our collection partners has to follow, which includes an on-site audit. This includes strict guidelines on what the sort needs to look like and what data sets need to be collected, and then we have final say on where the material goes once it’s sorted. We’re working very hard to make sure this material doesn’t just get sent to the highest bidder, but that we’re finding creative solutions to move this material to mechanical recycling as our top priority.

With recycling, it’s definitely a volumes game. A really important piece of this is the consolidation we’re seeing. Being able to present a unified solution for the industry and collect material and consolidate it across all of our programs allows us to find solutions for mechanical recycling for our material. —Anne Marie Mohan

By Sterling Anthony, CPP, Contributing Editor

Plastic Packaging Realities

Author’s note: In this column, “plastic packaging” refers to rigid or semi-rigid containers, especially those carrying the recyclability symbol of a number within a triangle of chasing arrows.

Decades into the sustainability era, recycling has not lived up to its promotion as a solution to plastic packaging solid waste. Concerns about plastic pollution have even gone global. For example, the United Nations Environment Assembly is working on a treaty aimed at alleviating the problem. Consumer packaged goods (CPG) companies will be impacted by evolving conditions, so now is the time to strategize.

It’s not that CPGs have had no strategy on plastic packaging previously. To the contrary, promoting plastic’s recyclability seemed a logical strategy. Reduction (i.e., lightweighting) has its limitations, before negatively affecting package performance, machinability, etc. Reuse, too, has its limitations, subject to such factors as package size and open/ reclose features. Of “the three Rs” [reduce, reuse, recycle] a strategy based on recycling made sense, justifying, for example, claims about the percentage of recycled content contained in a plastic package.

In the interim, what has become increasingly open to debate is whether recycling is a viable solution. An objective interpretation of industry forecasts is that the production of virgin plastic will continue to outpace recycling, short of intervening initiatives. Some critics claim that the plastics industry knows that recycling is not the solution but wants society to believe that it is. Even if one does not share such cynicism, one has to concede that the platforms for espousing it are many and varied.

Given this imagined scenario, CPGs will face hard choices. With the possible exception of the ultra-luxury market, consumers are price conscious. There’s no better example of that truth than the retail industry in general, and the grocery segment in particular. Narrowing the choices available to CPGs, consumers are aware and resentful of shrinkflation (products sold in smaller content packaging, at previous prices). A less than well-thought-out price increase (or its equivalent) can lead to reduced sells, which can lead to reduced shelf-space allotment, and at worst, can lead to a discontinuance by the retailer.

The recyclability of plastic packaging is not the same sustainability credential that it once was. Previously, greater indulgence was given to a systems argument. An example is Life Cycle Assessment (LCA), which proports to measure the net environmental impact of a package/packaging material across the stages of its lifespan. Its appeal was owed to its applicability, because depending on the variables used, any plastic can be said to have sustainability bona fides. Increasingly though, an all-things-considered argument finds itself straining under the weight of the observable presence of postuse plastic packaging in the environment, terrestrially and aquatically. An inconvenient truth: the fact that plastic packaging is recyclable doesn’t guarantee, in and of itself, that it will be recycled.

An inconvenient truth: the fact that plastic packaging is recyclable doesn’t guarantee, in and of itself, that it will be recycled.

CPGs need to strategize about which proposed intervening initiatives might see implementation. As a starting point, a company can be well-served by identifying those initiatives that are likely to have the most far-reaching ramifications. One such type of initiative is regulatory controls aimed at limiting annual production rates. Another type is to make the industry fund solution-seeking sustainability projects, grant-style. Even though the two types of initiatives would target the supply side, CPG companies won’t escape the trickle-down effects.

In response to production limits and/or funding mandates, the plastics industry will increase its prices to maintain profit margins. That doesn’t mean that price hikes will be the only reaction. Increases in production efficiencies is another. Nonetheless, nothing else is as immediately implementable as the passing-along-of-costs. The first recipients will be package suppliers, who will add their mark-ups, to be paid by package users, such as CPGs. And for CPGs, packaging is indispensable. After all, it’s part of the name of that industry sector. Adding to its plight, a CPG might find itself facing not only price hikes, but changes in attendant factors, such as quantity-discount terms.

Before segueing into what revised stance on recycling might benefit CPGs, a retrospect about the undeniable popularity of plastic packaging can lend perspective. Plastic is the newcomer among packaging materials compared to paper, glass, and metal. All types of packaging are expected to satisfy the functions of containment, protection, communication, and convenience. It then follows that plastic packaging wins out when its performance proves optimal for certain application-specific conditions. The same has proven true of plastics when matched against hybrids and substitutes, such as biodegradables and compostables.

As the plastics industry continues lobbying, CPG companies need not resign themselves to awaiting results. Being proactive is better than being reactive. CPGs still can support recycling. But at the same time, why not better promote the direct-to-consumer advantages of plastic packaging?

Depending on the product, it can behoove CPGs to display reminders on the plastic packaging, itself. Possibilities include shatterproof, lightweight, stay-fresh, see-through, and easy-carry handle. They are low-cost (no-cost?) attempts to favorably dispose consumers regarding their purchase decisions. Consumers know that plastic packaging is recyclable, but the majority of consumers of products in plastic packaging don’t recycle. That contradiction will persist, at least for the near future, regardless of how aggressively recycling is promoted. In the meantime, CPGs should not pass up opportunities to assuage the misgivings that some consumers might experience. PW

By Todd Bukowski and Brian Wagner, PTIS LLC, Certi ed Futurists

Looking Back to Look Forward

We’ve all heard the saying that hindsight is 20/20. Looking back, it’s easy to see how events unfolded, connect the dots, and understand the causal relationships that led us to where we are today. But what about foresight? Is it possible to look forward with the same level of clarity? Can we predict the future? The short answer is no, at least not with absolute certainty. But the practice of foresight allows us to anticipate a range of possible futures and systematically analyze them. By doing so, we can make better decisions in the present that will positively impact our future.

To that end, for 20 years PTIS and its futurist partners have led a triennial, pre-competitive program called the Future of Packaging with dozens of companies, each looking out over the next three, five, and 10 years. Participants have included CPGs and retailers large and small, as well as packaging converters and raw material suppliers—all of whom leverage the outputs and insights to develop strategic plans for their packaging organizations and companies.

Participating companies send two to three representatives to three unique sessions throughout the year where they learn and participate in facilitated work sessions and networking with their industry peers. They’re essentially co-creating the future of packaging. Past meeting locations included Microsoft’s Home and Office of the Future, NASA, Oak Ridge National Laboratory, the University of Georgia’s Material Science Center, and Arizona State University’s College of Global Futures. This initiative informs participants’ strategies, plans, and investments.

their operations, setting them up for early success in an increasingly environmentally conscious market.

Companies that have participated in these programs report being better prepared for the future, equipped with a clear vision, and understanding of what is needed for effective implementation.

PTIS and its partners look beyond current trends to identify the potential for Horizon 3—transformational changes that could dramatically impact how packaging is produced, sold, and integrated

into the circular economy. Their scenarios for the world of packaging in 2035 offer a glimpse into the future, helping companies build strategic roadmaps to guide them through to the next generation of packaging.

Future of Packaging participants say they are positioned to be ahead of the curve by identifying and preparing for significant shifts in the packaging industry. One notable scenario included considering the spike in oil prices to $145 per barrel (2008) at a time when the actual price was less than $60 and industry experts said it would top out in the mid-$90s (2007). Such foresight allowed companies to make strategic adjustments, mitigating risks and seizing opportunities.

Another significant insight was the emphasis on sustainability in 2004 when it was barely a term in the industry lexicon. In September 2006, it was pushed to the forefront of business, when Walmart’s Chairman, Lee Scott at the Clinton Global Initiative proclaimed, “Supplier Packaging Scorecard and Virtual Trade Show will reduce the environmental impact and cost of the 160,000 products.” By projecting the growing importance of sustainable practices, the Future of Packaging helped companies integrate eco-friendly measures into

While the industry has been talking about recycling for decades, all of that effort has not yet led to a major boost in recovery rates, which have hovered around 34% for a while, and are much lower for many materials. We feel the industry is about to embark on a transformation driven toward a circular economy of packaging—one where recycling plays a role but coupled with far more reusable/ refillable and compostable packs, driven by the digitization of packaging. The use of QR codes that enable tracking of deposits, AI that identifies packaging for sortation (food grade HDPE vs. non-food grade), and in-store refill models all will drive the transformation. We need to stop asking what can we do to participate in this transformation and move to what must we do drive this transformation.

The next Future of Packaging program will commence in January 2025 and will look to identify those next transformational ideas and issues that will drive packaging into the next decade. PW

By Dan Felton, Executive Director of AMERIPEN

Evaluating EPR Packaging Laws: Key Lessons from Early Adopters

In recent years, Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) programs for packaging have gained signi cant traction across the U.S. Since 2021, ve states—Maine, Oregon, Colorado, California, and Minnesota— have enacted EPR laws for packaging, each with distinct provisions and tactics. More states will certainly follow, and policymakers likely will look to these early adopters for lessons on what might work well and what challenges arise in implementing packaging EPR programs.

For several years, AMERIPEN has been working with lawmakers to advocate for the packaging industry and to guide those lawmakers in building programs that are reliable, efficient, equitable, and fair. We believe that a balanced approach, incorporating industry input and allowing for flexibility and innovation, is the right path forward for advancing recycling goals. Some of the current laws do a better job of that than others. As these laws are further refined through rulemaking and are implemented, policymakers and stakeholders can learn from each state’s experiences, potentially leading to more harmonized and effective EPR frameworks in the future.

Comparing the laws

Scope of covered materials. While all five states cover packaging, there are differences in the scope of materials included. Oregon and California, for instance, explicitly include food serviceware. In Maine, Colorado, and Minnesota, the focus is more narrowly on packaging. These differences in scope could lead to variations in the impact of the laws on different sectors of the packaging industry. They also create additional challenges for producers engaging in cross-state commerce.

A deeper look at the laws’ provisions underscores the complexity of designing packaging waste management policy and its patchwork nature. What follows are a look at key elements in the laws:

PRO structures and oversight. The structure and number of producer responsibility organizations (PROs) vary across the states. Maine is unique in that only one PRO is allowed through a 10-year contract with the state. Colorado, California, and Minnesota also allow only one PRO to begin, with additional PROs allowed after the initial EPR programs are well established. Oregon allows for multiple PROs from the start, but only one PRO is currently positioned to run the program for now.

The level of governmental oversight also differs significantly among the states. Maine’s law gives substantial authority to the state’s Department of Environmental Protection (DEP), with limited stakeholder engagement. Not only will this approach be taxing on the state agency, but it also isn’t consistent with established EPR laws in other parts of the world that recognize and tap industry stakeholders for their ability to help create effective long-term solutions for recycling.

While the previously mentioned single PRO in Maine can receive input from producers and others for its annual plan, stakeholder input is not required, and the law does not call for an advisory committee of any kind. The PRO in Maine is also charged with developing an adjusted-fee (eco-modulation) formula for fees and funding infrastructure development in the state, but again, both are subject to DEP approval.

Similarly, the California and Oregon laws call for significant state agency oversight and decision-making power on most of the substantive elements of the program. Advisory boards are allowed in Minnesota, Oregon, Colorado, and California, but their recommendations are nonbinding. The PRO in Colorado will have significant decision-making authority: It can directly contract with recycling service providers, determine readily recyclable parameters, and set minimum recycling collection and recycled content rates. The Colorado PRO also will be responsible for the expansion of nonresidential recycling services by 2028.

Like in Colorado, Minnesota’s PRO approach allows for more industry collaboration, with the state maintaining an advisory role. The law calls for the PRO to be formed by packaging producers. The PRO will develop a process and reimbursement model for

core recycling and composting functions, focusing on services at residences, schools, small nonprofits, and governmental entities. By contrast, in Maine the state develops reimbursement methods, while the Colorado and Minnesota laws mandate the PRO to develop reimbursement plans, in consultation with their advisory boards. Funding structures. The five states also take different approaches to funding their EPR programs. Producers in Maine, Colorado, and California are required to fund 100% of their respective recycling and composting systems.

However, because of commingling of recycling and commodities in Oregon, producers there will be paying for a mix of residential and commercial recycling, funding about 30% of an expanded recycling system in the state. Monies also will be used to fund ratepayer protection, contamination reduction programs, expanded recycling collection and composting access, waste prevention and reuse grants, rural and distant community freight costs, administrative costs, and educational resources.

Minnesota introduces a shared responsibility model, featuring a gradual increase in producer responsibility, starting at 50% in 2029 and capping at 90% in 2031 and each year thereafter. This allows for a smoother transition and maintains involvement from industry stakeholders in the recycling ecosystem.

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Recycling targets and eco-modulation. Methods for setting recycling targets also vary among the states. California and Oregon plastic-specific goals are stated in the statute, while Maine and Colorado’s goals are set by the state or PRO, respectively. Minnesota law avoids arbitrary rates and dates and calls for the PRO and state to collaboratively establish targets.

Goal provisions in California’s law are extremely granular. They require all covered materials to be recyclable or compostable by 2032, with specific recycling rates for plastic materials (30% by 2028, 40% by 2030, and 65% by 2032). They also mandate a 25% source reduction in covered materials by weight and number of plastic components by 2032 and prohibit expanded polystyrene (EPS) food serviceware if recycling rates are not met (25% by 2025, 30% by 2028, 50% by 2030, and 65% by 2032).

California’s law also establishes an additional separate $500 million Plastic Pollution Mitigation Fund, paid annually by the PRO for at least 10 years. The PRO may collect up to $150 million of the total amount from plastic resin manufacturers that sell covered plastic materials to producers participating in the PRO. The money collected will pay for the monitoring and mitigation of plastic pollution, particularly in low-income, disadvantaged, and rural areas. No other state has such a provision in its law.

Eco-modulation is included in all five state laws, and, with the exception of Colorado, the methodology and fees are developed by the PROs. Incentivizing factors, such as the use of post-consumer recycled content, also are set in statute.

Timelines. Implementation timelines vary across the states, reflecting differences in the readiness of existing infrastructure and the ambition of the programs. Oregon and Colorado require producer payments by July 2025, Maine by late 2026, California by early 2027, and Minnesota by early 2029. These different timelines will affect the speed of change in packaging practices and may impact recycling infrastructure development in each state.

Why AMERIPEN supports Minnesota’s approach

The emergence of packaging EPR laws in five states provides valuable insights into different policy approaches and their potential impact on both the packaging industry and the recycling and composting infrastructure. While each state has taken a unique approach that reflects local conditions and priorities, Minnesota’s law stands out for its collaborative nature and consideration of industry perspectives, including the following aspects:

Shared responsibility. The gradual increase in producer responsibility (50% to 90%) is a fair compromise that supports Minnesota’s existing strong recycling infrastructure while allowing stakeholders to adapt. By law, service providers also must register with the PRO and meet performance requirements to be reimbursed for covered costs. Over the past two years, AMERIPEN has staunchly advocated for laws with true shared responsibility for program costs.

Fair competition. The law provides for reimbursement to service providers for infrastructure investments based on competitive bids. This provision promotes efficiency and innovation in recycling services, potentially leading to costeffective improvements in the recycling system.

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Producer-led PRO. Allowing packaging producers to form and manage the PRO leverages industry knowledge and insights. This approach should lead to more practical and efficient implementation of the EPR program, as those most familiar with packaging design and production are directly involved in the decision-making.

Non-statute performance targets. Instead of mandating specific recycling rates in statute, the law allows for collaborative targetsetting between the PRO and the state. This flexibility can lead to more realistic and achievable goals that consider local conditions and capabilities. AMERIPEN ideally would like to see PROs given full authority to develop performance goals that are then reviewed and approved by the state.

Allowing

more seamless integration of the EPR program with existing systems, potentially reducing disruption and improving overall effectiveness. Focus on core functions. By concentrating on core recycling functions at residences, schools, small nonprofits, and governmental entities, the law targets areas where improvements can have significant impacts without overextending into sectors (like large commercial operations) that can manage their own recycling costs.

packaging producers to form and manage the PRO leverages industry knowledge and insights. This approach should lead to more practical and ef cient implementation of the EPR program.

Innovation-friendly definition of recycling. The neutral definition allows for the inclusion of new recycling technologies, which AMERIPEN views as crucial for long-term improvement in recovery and recycling rates. This approach can encourage investment in innovative recycling solutions that may not fit traditional definitions but could significantly improve recycling outcomes.

Consideration of existing infrastructure. Minnesota’s approach considers the state’s current recycling and composting landscape and laws, making it more practical to implement. This can lead to a

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Watching outcomes

Factors such as existing recycling and composting infrastructure, local political landscapes, and specific environmental priorities have all played a role in shaping these five diverse EPR laws. Ultimately, their success will be measured by their ability to increase recycling and composting, reduce packaging waste, and drive innovation in sustainable packaging design. As implementation progresses, close observation of these outcomes will provide valuable data to inform future policy decisions, at both the state and—potentially—federal levels. PW

AMERIPEN represents the U.S. packaging value chain by providing policymakers with fact-based, material-neutral, scienti c information. Contact Dan Felton at danf@ameripen.org.

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Walking the Tightrope of Brand Family Package Design

By Mike Skrzelowski, Senior Creative Director, Equator

Over the course of their career, packaging designers are constantly challenged to strike the delicate balance between differentiation and uniformity. They walk this tightrope every time they design or redesign a range of products or a sub-brand (as Diet Coke is to CocaCola). These products must, to varying degrees, tell their own story, but to preserve brand identity and recognition, they need do this while maintaining alignment with each other. This balancing act is achieved predominantly though a strong and well-established brand architecture.

Exploring the family tree

We sometimes think of brand architecture like a family tree, with several related sub-brands or variants attached to it. Despite some variation in appearance, they can be traced back to a single point of origin, the “parent brand,” with a visible structure holding them together like tree roots.

There are several ways packaging designers can achieve visual cohesion, either across a range of products or between a parent brand and its sub-brands, while combining elements that draw attention to their differences. While we would have to write a book

Giant Eagle’s Market District brand features a white plate as a central holding device to create a unifying architecture across the range.

to capture the depth and nuance of the multifaceted strategies our teams create to achieve this for our clients, we have picked a few examples to give just a flavor of what is possible.

The central holding device

A device commonly used to create cohesion across a collection of products is the central holding device, which contains key content (e.g., the logo, product name and variant, and instructions). Different background patterns or colors may be used to show that each product has a distinctive flavor profile, main benefit, or key ingredient, because the central holding device is the same, not only in color but in shape and position. And because it presents the same information in the same way across multiple pack fronts, it establishes a visual cohesion that ties everything together.

When we redesigned Giant Eagle’s Market District brand, which comprises a collection of products sourced for their quality and distinctiveness, we utilized a white plate as a central holding device to create a unifying architecture across the range and at the

A redesign for Crispers snacks features vibrant block colors that denote avor pro les and a centrally positioned hero image and logo for cohesiveness.

same time allowing space for points of differentiation, including whimsical illustrations that flexed from product to product, reflecting their character and personality. It’s important to point out that there must be a consistent visual language to maintain overall cohesion— and this includes the style and “feel” of the imagery used on pack. No element of a packaging design should be considered in isolation but holistically, as part of a whole.

Dynamic design elements

Some of the most intriguing and innovative examples of designers effectively unifying ranges of different products concern the clever use of certain elements of design architecture. An example is Lowes’ Sta-Green, a range of high-performing lawncare and garden products. When we helped the retailer refresh Sta-Green’s visual identity, differentiation between products was essential for navigability due to the sheer number of products, which spanned several segments. Brand colors and photography were used strategically to differentiate between them and communicate intended usage and expected results, while a consistent green-arrow design element was positioned to point dynamically across each pack front, creating visual cohesion across the range.

Color itself is a powerful design cue, influencing consumer perception of a product, from its taste and flavor to its health and sustainability credentials. Certain colors have even become synonymous with flavors (red for ready salted) and brands (purple for Cadbury), demonstrating their power to convey information without using a single word.

Color can also be used to great effect when it comes to differentiating products, while other elements, such as on-pack photography, typography, and logo positioning can tie everything together. When we worked with Mondele - z on its redesign of Crispers, for example, we used vibrant block colors to denote flavor profiles, while a centrally positioned hero image and logo created a cohesive and easily identifiable range.

Language and tone of voice

What you say matters, but so does how you say it. While visual elements such as color, typography, and imagery are vital, language and tone of voice are equally important. Implementing a distinctive tone of voice through the language you use can help build a memorable personality that consumers can easily recognize. It acts as an invisible thread that ties the range together. It is also important for highlighting what makes the range unique or appealing, whether that’s the brand’s focus on quality or its fun, youthful persona. From the luxurious and indulgent to the fresh and vibrant, on-pack language is a powerful differentiator.

A word on brand guidelines

Carefully crafted brand guidelines are essential for any brand. Not only do they establish a brand’s visual and verbal expression, but they also outline its strategy, from target audience to positioning and personality. Brand guidelines should be at the heart of any design project, whether that’s rolling out a new sub-brand, extending a brand into a new category, or redesigning an entire product range. PW

Mike Skrzelowski is senior creative director for global brand design rm Equator.

For Lowes’ Sta-Green redesign, brand colors and photography are used strategically to differentiate between products, while a consistent green-arrow design element is positioned to point dynamically across each pack front.

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Single- led cups of vanilla and single- led cups of chocolate are shown here (photo right) entering the Morrison turning and grouping screws. After turning screws have turned cups onto their sides (photo above), grouping screws send groups of six cups into a chute and then onto a dividing plate (A) that carries the group down to the oor level and the shrink sleever.

Shown above, top and bottom turning screws (B is the top screw and C is the bottom one) reorient cups so they no longer sit on their bottoms but rather lie on their sides. Then a pair of grouping screws (D is the left grouping screw and E is the right one) forms cups into groups of six.

Timing Screws are Key to Ice Cream Multipacking

From mass conveying to single-filing to stacking to a short ride down an elevator and finally to controlled indexing of six-high stacks into a sleever, this system is a wrap for Blue Bell.

By Pat Reynolds, Contributing Editor

Brenham, Texas-based Blue Bell Creameries is one of the few ice cream manufacturers in the country that relies on its own direct store delivery system and personnel rather than sending its frozen treats through central distribution centers. Naturally, the many Blue Bell route sales representatives who stock supermarket freezer cases in parts of 23 states provide feedback on how packaging performs as they go about their duties. And for some time now they noted that there could be improvements made to the popular 12-count loose- tting pre-made polyethlene bags

that have been used historically. What’s more, the folks in sales and marketing were convinced that the on-shelf appearance of the product would be improved if the secondary packaging got an upgrade.

Route sales representatives and the sales/marketing team weren’t the only ones who found shortcomings in the bag format. Facilities project manager Russell Halfmann explains how the loose nature of the 12-count units presented challenges in automating the case packing operation.

Cups ride in groups of six down parallel elevators and are then pushed at a right angle onto two parallel ighted conveyors. Watch a video of the Blue Bell packaging line in action at pwgo.to/8460 or by scanning the QR code.

“We’ve always felt that manual case packing was too labor intensive, but nding an automated case packer that would accept such irregular and inconsistently shaped units was challenging,” says Halfmann. “Still we kept looking, and eventually we came across a way of shrink sleeving the single-serve cups that lends itself to automated case packing and that lets our route sales representatives in the stores ef ciently and attractively stock the freezer case.”

Blue Bell achieved the shrink sleeve format Halfmann refers to by installing a Tripack machine with custom tooling. It drops a shrink sleeve over 12 cups of ice cream in two six-high stacks, one stack of chocolate and one of vanilla, and shrinks the sleeve in a heat tunnel. The result? A 12-count multipack with a consistency and rigidity that facilitates automated case packing and is considered more attractive in the supermarket freezer.

But the shrink sleever is only half the story. Getting the cups of frozen ice cream to behave upstream in a manner that would permit automated shrink sleeve application was an even greater challenge. And that, says Tripack business development manager Marc Tredo, was where Morrison Container Handling came in. They came up with an

integrated multipack system that turns, stacks, inspects/rejects, combines, and groups the single-serve containers so that the Tripack sleever can do its thing.

“We’re good at what we do, but we also know what partners it pays to work with,” says Tredo. “Whenever we face a challenging timing-screw solution, we usually turn to Morrison. We knew we’d need a timingscrew assembly to receive two stacks of cups each six-high. But in very short order it became clear that a sizeable build-out ahead of shrink sleeving was going to be required.”

“Getting containers to the Tripak was de nitely a challenge,” says Halfmann. “We really worked with Morrison for the concept, and they came up with a way to incorporate the change in elevation and increased production rate. All these criteria kind of folded into their solution. It boiled down to getting mass conveyed cups sitting lid-up and turning them on their sides so that we could create stacks of six and then getting those stacks of six down from an overhead level so that we could marry them in pairs to be conveyed into the shrink sleever.”

Two identical lines

When commercial production of the new and improved multipacks began last February, Blue Bell was the proud owner of not one but two brand new and identical packaging lines. Essential to each line are the following:

• a ller

• a blast freezer

• accumulation and single ling conveyor system

• Morrison container handling equipment

• an elevator to take stacked groups of six cups from mezzanine down to oor level

• more Morrison container handling equipment to merge and properly space pairs of stacked cups

• a Tripack shrink sleeve applicator and shrink tunnel

• an automatic case packer.

Since each line is a carbon copy of the other, we’ll look at just one here. Unlike the rotary ller used previously, the ller selected by Blue Bell is a Tetra Pak intermittent-motion cup ller. It denests paper cups and sends them into lling nozzles eight across. Four cups get vanilla and four get chocolate. Once lled, the cups have injection-molded LDPE lids that are singulated and applied by way of a friction t.

Exiting the lling and lidding system the cups enter a DSI Dantech spiral blast freezer, which discharges frozen cups at an overhead level.

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The nal set of Morrison timing screws is a stacked screw system that guides stacks of cups forward with just the right spacing so that the Tripack shrink sleever can drop sleeves over paired stacks. (Inset) Tighter, more consistent, and easier to run through an automated case packer, the shrink sleeve multipack (right) has been a big win for Blue Bell Creameries compared to its predecessor (left).

The cups proceed en masse down a Shuttleworth accumulation table that uses gradually faster conveyor sections and angled guides to singulate the cups into two single- le rows, one chocolate and one vanilla. The Blue Bell team incorporated a Keyence machine vision system to monitor feed rates and inspect the cups.

As soon as the cups pass through a Mettler Toledo metal detector, they enter the rst set of Morrison-designed timing screws—six for vanilla and six for chocolate. Since the same thing happens for each avor, we’ll look at just one here. First are top and bottom turning screws. Cups reaching them are sitting on their bottoms but when they exit this pair of screws they have been smoothly turned on their sides. Immediately after is a pair of grouping screws that forms cups into groups of six and sends them into a chute leading to the elevator that will take them down from mezzanine to oor level. Each group of six rests on a dividing plate as it makes its descent.

At the end of their elevator ride, the six-high stacks are pushed at a right angle onto a ighted conveyor. Considering how tall the stacks are and how abruptly each one is pushed, it would seem that this is a

golden opportunity for stacks to topple over. But two design features serve to prevent it. First, the tooling that does the pushing is just as tall as the stack, so it more or less cradles the stack from top to bottom to prevent toppling. And second, the stack gets pushed into a well-placed plexiglass backstop that prevents any chance of toppling and actually serves to square the stack up in case any cup takes a notion to wander even the least bit. Then, once the stacks are on their ighted conveyor, smooth and topple-free conveying is assured by independent servo drives that keep the conveyors in time.

So now we have two parallel lanes of stacks heading to a V-shaped merging station designed by Morrison where the stacks leave their two separate ighted conveyors and merge onto one common conveyor in a chocolate/vanilla/chocolate/vanilla arrangement. A photocell veri es that each stack has six containers and that the stacks are indeed in the alternating chocolate/vanilla/chocolate pattern. Any incorrect stacks are automatically rejected.

Before cups reach the Morrison timing screws that upend them and group them into stacks of six, cups exit spiral blast freezers—one for chocolate, one for vanilla—at an overhead level and move through this accumulation table that singulates the cups into two single- le rows, one chocolate and one vanilla.

Timing screws stacked three-high

One more set of Morrison timing screws remains. It’s a stacked screw system where three stacked screws on the left and three on the right guide stacks of cups forward with just the right spacing so that the roll-fed Tripack machine can cut and deposit a shrink sleeve—which gets date-coded by a Videojet heat-transfer unit before it’s cut from the continuous roll—over each stack. Then, after a short time spent in the shrink tunnel, the nished multipacks emerge onto an accumulation table that leads in short order to case packing. “It gives us about a minute or two of accumulation in case there’s a delay at the case packer,” says Halfmann.

Details on the material specs and supplier for the shrink sleeve are not available largely because there was a bit of development work involved in getting a material that would shrink effectively and perform well throughout the supply chain. Adding to the challenges is the fact that the packaging equipment and steam tunnel are located in a semi-refrigerated environment.

The Cama wraparound case packer brings a welcome measure of automation to the Blue

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Bell operation. “If you look at the overall upgrade from where we were to where we are now, we estimate a 28 percent increase in throughput and a 35 percent reduction in labor costs,” says Halfmann. “Much of that labor cost savings comes from going from manual to automated case packing.”

Multipacks are conveyed into the case packer single le and collated into groups of six. Then an overhead arm pulls the six onto a case formed from a corrugated blank that has been pulled from a magazine and erected. Case aps are closed with an application of adhesive delivered by a Nordson unit. Next is case coding, another area where Blue Bell was able to shave costs by getting away from pre-printed corrugated cases and relying instead on a Videojet ink-jet coder for whatever information the cases need.

“We were able to get away from a preprinted box to a completely blank box that we print just downstream from the Cama case packer,” says Halfmann. “We print product ID and date code and line number and even some graphics. This case identi cation

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Primary packaging also got a serious upgrade with the installation of Intermittent-motion lling machines that ll cups eight across—four chocolate, four vanilla.

information is really important because our route sales representatives rely on visuals to pick cases from the truck. So having that clearly printed product code on the case is what they need.”

Once nished cases have passed the coding station, they enter a

Ryson spiral conveyor that takes them to an overhead conveyor leading to an existing Motion Control Robotics palletizing system some distance away. “We upgraded the palletizer to accommodate a new case format,” says Halfmann. “We used to put four multipacks in a case and now we put six multipacks in a case. It was a good way to be able to keep the same palletizer without overwhelming it by the increased number of multipacks per minute we are now able to produce.”

Even under ideal conditions bringing an installation like this into commercial production would have been challenging enough. But Blue Bell had to do it in the teeth of the pandemic.

“The spiral freezers were what I ordered rst, just before the COVID-19 shutdown, because we thought they would have the longest lead time,” says Halfmann. “It turned out the freezers got here before everything else because of supply chain delays, especially where controls and automation components were concerned. But everybody had supply chain issues at that time. Fortunately, our machinery vendors worked with us with what parts they had on the shelf to do Factory Automation Tests as best they could. In some cases they’d ship us the equipment so we could do kind of a rough install and get past the majority of the installation ourselves, and then once that was accomplished and parts became available they were able to come out and recommission the machines for us. Suf ce it to say it took a while to get all the bugs worked out, but with the help of our equipment partners and our capable and diligent in-house team we did. And we’re pleased to have an appealing multipack that can be case packed with automated equipment.” PW

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At nVenia, we know the power of a great company lies in its ability to delight ƚŚĞŝƌĐƵƐƚŽŵĞƌƐ dŚĂƚŝƐŽƵƌŶƵŵďĞƌŽŶĞĨŽĐƵƐ &ƌŽŵLJŽƵƌĮƌƐƚĐŽŶƐƵůƚĂƟŽŶ to start-up, we will be with you every step of the way. Our promise to deliver an excellent customer experience is built on:

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Our commitment doesn’t end there - Our Lifecycle Services team ĞŶƐƵƌĞƐĐŽŵƉƌĞŚĞŶƐŝǀĞƐƵƉƉŽƌƚƚŚƌŽƵŐŚŽƵƚƚŚĞĞŶƟƌĞůŝĨĞŽĨLJŽƵƌĞƋƵŝƉŵĞŶƚ  dŚƌŽƵŐŚƵƌĂǀĂŶƚ>ŝĨĞĐLJĐůĞ^ĞƌǀŝĐĞƐ ŶsĞŶŝĂĐƵƐƚŽŵĞƌƐŐĂŝŶĂĐĐĞƐƐƚŽƚŚĞ ĐŽůůĞĐƟǀĞƉŽǁĞƌŽĨƵƌĂǀĂŶƚ ŝŶĐůƵĚŝŶŐŐůŽďĂůƌĞĂĐŚĂŶĚĮŶĂŶĐŝĂůƐƚƌĞŶŐƚŚ 

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Westrock Coffee Poised for Growth in RTD Coffees

Launched originally as a means of aiding Rwandan coffee farmers, Westrock Coffee just opened an Arkansas manufacturing plant that includes three sophisticated packaging lines.

By Pat Reynolds, Contributing Editor

When Scott Ford, former president and CEO of wireless data tech supplier Alltel Corp, sold that rm to Verizon in 2009 for $28 billion, he took some time to think about what his next move should be. As a charitable gesture, he also joined an economic advisory council serving Rwanda. When he realized that independent farmers in that central African nation were not getting nearly as much for their coffee as they should be, he knew what his next move had to be: build a private-label coffee business predicated on getting a fair wage to the small and independent coffee farmers of Rwanda.

The publicly traded business Ford launched in 2009 in his hometown of Little Rock, Ark., is Westrock Coffee. First came roasting and grinding, as Will Ford, son of Scott Ford and group president of operations at

Westrock Coffee, explains. “The only way it made sense for us to become buyers of green coffee from small landholders in Rwanda was for us to have a roast and grind facility in a geographic location where we could adequately serve a range of private label customers by providing them with bulk coffee. Then in 2014 when the Keurig patents on single-serve coffee pods expired, we expanded into that format. In 2020 we bought

Cans travel from an overhead depalletizer (above) to the can ller (left) by way of a twist rinser (below).

S&D Coffee, one of the largest private-label manufacturers for quickserve restaurants and convenience stores. But three weeks after the acquisition, COVID-19 shut down 80 percent of that foodservice customer base. Fortunately, S&D Coffee also had a small operation making coffee extract, a concentrated liquid coffee sold in drums and totes to food and beverage manufacturers who would use it as an ingredient in a nished food or beverage product. When COVID caused demand in the foodservice sector to plummet, retail exploded. Suddenly demand for the food and beverage products in which our customers were using our liquid extracts also exploded. Before long those customers asked if, since we already were making the extract, we’d consider investing in nished goods packaging?”

The answer was yes, and that’s what led to the December 2020 purchase of a 570,000 sq ft plant in Conway, Ark., formerly used to make feminine hygiene and adult incontinence products. The plan was to use 25% of the plant for RTD coffee beverages. But within days of Westrock Coffee announcing the Conway purchase, the rm’s private label RTD capacity was four times oversubscribed. So Conway was, as Will Ford puts it, “rewired” to make room for three new lines for packaging RTD coffee products. One line is for multi-serve PET bottles distributed through the cold chain (see sidebar on next page). The other two lines,

Shown above are ve of the 11 full-immersion rotary retorts used on the new can line. Also visible is the shuttle (A) that carries baskets of cans to and from the retorts and the tracks on which the shuttle runs. Image left shows a graphic mockup illustrating the kinds of containers Westrock can ll for its private-label customers.

one for single-serve glass bottles and one for single-serve aluminum cans, both include retort equipment, so the containers can be distributed and merchandised at ambient temperatures.

“Growth in RTD coffee has grown so rapidly over the past few years, and is poised to continue growing, that it’s led to a market that is extremely constrained,” says Shay Zohar, executive vice president of operations at Westrock Coffee. “Not only are there not enough manufacturers of high-quality coffee extract concentrates, there are none that are fully integrated as we are with the addition of the Conway facility. We already had a good starting point controlling so much of the supply chain as we did from green to roast to grind to extract. Now we’ve added packaging. It all comes back to our core mission of bene ting the farmers in Rwanda. We can best do that by scaling up, by opening new capacity that will let more private-label customers come into the copacking environment across multiple packaging formats.”

Versatile can line

The most highly automated of the three lines in Conway, says R.J. Macke, senior vice president of engineering at Westrock Coffee, is the can line. “We do a range of can formats on this line,” says Macke, “including an 8.4-oz slim, 12-oz sleek, 12-oz standard, and 16-oz standard. Changeover time is important, and while it’s not exactly a push-button operation, it’s still pretty quick. A change in can height, where the can diameter stays the same, for example, is 15 to 30 minutes. It’s a little longer when the can body diameter changes, and longer again if the lid goes from a 200 to a 202 because the seamer that applies that lid takes some time to change.”

Cans arrive at the Conway plant on pallets that are loaded into an overhead C- ow depalletizer from Alliance Industrial. Equipped with what Macke describes as “push-button changeover for different

ESL for Multi-serve PET Bottles

While both cans and glass bottles filled at Conway get retorted and go into distribution at ambient temperatures, the PET line is for extended shelf life (ESL) beverages that are distributed and merchandised under refrigeration. “We looked into aseptic filling, but the private label customers we are serving were perfectly happy with ESL, largely because that is where a lot of these beverages are currently found,” says R.J. Macke, senior vice president of engineering at Westrock Coffee.

Bottles filled on the ESL line, which range from 16- to 48-oz, have a refrigerated shelf life of four to six months and reach consumers through retail as well as foodservice outlets. Unlike the beverages that go into cans, which are finished and usually flavored products ready to be opened and immediately quaffed, the products in PET bottles are more often black coffee that consumers customize themselves by adding soy or almond milk or pumpkin creamer.

The filler on the PET line is the Model 3010 from Fogg Filler, a ProMach company. It features a 30-valve rotary filler and a 10-station rotary capper. “It’s a great machine that we spent a lot of money on,” says Macke. “The level of sanitation is one place where it really delivers. Even the caps get UV sterilization.”

Immediately noticeable when it comes to the Fogg system is the number of rotary turrets through which the bottles pass by way of smooth star wheel exchange. At the front end of the filler is what Fogg calls the bottle blaster, a rotary turret where bottles have a liquid sanitizing agent sprayed inside

under high pressure. The next station is another rotary turret that is a rinser where bottles are inverted and sprayed again with a sanitizing agent and then rinsed with water. Bottles now encounter a third rotary turret where bottles are inverted for yet another spray of sanitizer that’s delivered with an aggressive pulsing action to deliver mechanical as well as chemical sanitizing. The next rotary turret serves to rinse out the chemical sanitizer. At this point the bottles enter the actual filler, which is distinguished by an automated CIP system. And finally is a Fogg articulated jaw capper with a quickchange chuck that accepts a wide variety of closure types. Some Westrock customers use closures that include a foil liner that gets induction sealed a short distance downstream from the capper by an Enercon system. Other customers opt for a closure that includes a tamper-evident band, in which case the induction sealer is simply bypassed.

Zohar confirms Macke’s statement that the ESL filler represents a sizeable investment. “It was probably more expensive than any other machine in the Conway plant,” he adds. “But it delivers a log six bacteria reduction that lets us fill beverages cold without needing excessive amounts of preservatives that could alter the taste or prevent us from having a clean label. The filler is very suitable for the coffee beverages we’re putting into PET bottles, most of which are black coffee that consumers customize themselves by adding soy or almond milk or pumpkin creamer.” PW

container heights,” it uses a mass container sweep to remove cans one layer at a time onto a mass conveyor. Empty can, full can, and full case conveyors were provided by Descon

“We partnered with Descon because their line design and integration philosophy aligns well with our ideas,” says Macke.

Line pressure gradually narrows the massed cans into a single le, and then they pass over a Videojet ink-jet coder that puts a date code on the bottom of each can. “I nd that coding the can bottom at the empty container handling stage is the best approach because you don’t have to deal with any wet or cold can bottoms,” says Macke. Right after coding is an empty can inspection system that removes any awed or misshaped cans from the ow, after which cans go through an Entech Gatling Gun Can Inverter/Rinser that leads down to the oor level of the plant. Along the way the cans are inverted 180 deg, rinsed with ionized air, and uprighted again so that they’re ready to be lled. The Entech inverter/rinser has adjustable components to accommodate various can sizes with minimal time spent on changeover.

Seaming and inspection

After a 12-head seamer from Ferrum closes the lled cans they run through a Filtec ll level inspection system and a Teledyne TapTone dud detection system. At this point the cans enter a mass accumulator that leads to the next step in the in-line process, retorting, which is impressive to say the least.

Supplied by Allpax, a ProMach company, the Automated Batch Retort System includes 11 retorts lined up neatly in a row. These are not static retorts, where an operator pushes in a wheeled cart holding baskets full of containers and shuts the door so that the containers can be heated, cooled, and wheeled out. Nor are they semi-agitation retorts where the baskets get tilted and shook during the thermal processing cycle. These are full-immersion rotary retorts. David Cohen, technical sales engineer at Allpax, explains how they work.

“There’s a top tank with water heated to around 275°F and then there’s the bottom tank. Uncooked containers in large baskets go into the bottom tank, the door is closed, and a connection valve is opened

Once cans are down at oor level they are conveyed single le into a 124-valve rotary volumetric ller from KHS. “In my experience the KHS llers hold good tolerances on ll level,” says Macke. “They also have very good can handling and minimal foaming.”

Zohar also has a high opinion of the ller. “We looked for a hightech, high-precision ller that would provide us the best quality and versatility for the different products we run. There aren’t many great, proven llers that run canned items across a multitude of different sizes with extremely automated changeover and built-in CIP, which was absolutely critical to us. The KHS unit delivers that versatility in a proven unit that, in our case, lls up to 1,600 cans per minute. It also allows us to create ultra pressurized cans for nitro beverages, for example, in addition to regular liquid coffee. We can even add ingredients directly into the ller itself to create new beverages, and in the fast-growing RTD coffee arena, it’s all about the beverages of tomorrow. With this ller, we’re ready for tomorrow.”

to let the water from up top ow into the bottom tank, fully submerging the containers. Also important is that because the coffee is quite viscous, we constantly rotate the baskets during the cook cycle so that the liquid contents in every can are evenly mixed. Otherwise it would take too long to get the center of the product up to the temperature needed to render the containers shelf stable. And with beverages like these, some of which contain dairy components, the quicker you get up to kill temperature and then back down to chilled the better your nished product will be.”

Zohar agrees that the use of full-immersion rotary retorts is especially important for RTD coffees because the taste and overall sensory qualities of such products are very sensitive and easily damaged by excessive exposure to high heat. “With this type of retort we run a shorter cycle,” says Zohar. “We come up to cook time quickly, and after a short duration we cool down quickly, too, thus preserving the avor notes. Also, our cans don’t have burnt product on the outside as sometimes

This cartoner puts cans into paperboard cartons holding anywhere from 4 to 24 cans.

is the case with other kinds of retort systems, which really ruins the consumer’s overall drinking experience.”

Equally impressive is that the movement of cans into and out of the retorts is completely automated thanks to a shuttle system devised by Allpax. The shuttle runs north and south on tracks and has two berths— one is used to receive baskets of cooked containers from a retort and the other is used to carry baskets of uncooked containers to that same retort. To the right of the shuttle are the retorts, and to its left are a basket loading station and a basket unloading station. Uncooked cans are conveyed in mass into the basket loader, which sweeps layers of cans into retort baskets. When a suf cient number of cans have arrived at the infeed—basically the number required to form a layer—they’re released

into a sweep box that has front and back containment to tightly enclose the entire layer. Then the layer is swept forward into a basket. The basket is on an elevator, so once a layer has been swept in, the basket is lowered so that the next layer can be swept in. The system also incorporates an overhead vacuum pick component that picks a plastic slip sheet and places it on top of the layer that was just placed in the basket.

Now to the shuttle

Once the proper number of layers are in the basket, that basket is discharged onto the departure lane. When four baskets are in the departure lane, they’re pushed onto the shuttle. The shuttle then moves to a retort that has just nished its cook cycle. When the retort door opens,

its four baskets of cooked product are pulled onto the shuttle’s empty berth. The shuttle then repositions itself so that the baskets on its other berth can be pushed into the now-empty retort. Once the retort door closes, the shuttle takes its load of cooked baskets to the arrival lane at the basket unloader. This component works much like the basket loader except in reverse. It sweeps cans layer by layer onto a discharge conveyor that takes the cans to secondary packaging located downline.

Worth mentioning from a water consumption and energy conservation standpoint is that a sophisticated recovery system lets Westrock Coffee recapture the hot water used to cook one batch of retort baskets and use it to cook another batch. It’s an approach far more energy ef cient than having to bring cold water up to retort temperature every time a process vessel has to be lled.

When Oil Free Air is Critical

“It’s an incredible system, not only because it’s energy conscious and highly automated but also from a command and control perspective,” says Zohar. “And especially when we’re dealing with such throughput and the shuttles are handling such heavy weights. There’s also the food safety element that is part of any retort process. Not many suppliers of this kind of equipment can offer this kind of sophisticated automation while also including systems integration all the way to automated FDA reporting. So if you look at the Allpax system overall—cycle time, process time, repair and maintenance requirements—there are a number of advantages. They even tie into our autonomous maintenance systems, and they’ve provided us with resources to completely tie in all of their systems to give us predictive analytics accessed through our Rockwell-based system.”

Stretch wrapped pallets get a print-and-apply label applied by this unit.

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Many private label customers’ cans lled on the Westrock Coffee line are preprinted. If so, they bypass the dual shrink sleeve labelers from Sleeve Seal. Then comes cartoning on a Douglas Spectrum MP-SSP system that puts containers into paperboard cartons holding anywhere from four to 24 cans. A Keyence laser coder puts date code information on each carton. Next in line is a KHS tray packer/shrink wrapper that unitizes cartons in corrugated trays. At that point all that’s left is palletizing on a T-Tek palletizer followed by a Wulftec stretch wrapper and a print-andapply pallet labeler from ID Technology, another ProMach company.

As Zohar looks back over the past few years, even he is impressed with how quickly the facility went from planning to production—especially when the original plan did not call for three RTD packaging lines. “Projects on this scale typically take three to ve years from concept to execution,” he points out. “But we set an aggressive timeline from the start, and it was 13 months from the rst purchase order to the rst production shift.”

Macke recalls it this way: “We ran into challenges but we kept moving forward. One of the biggest challenges was that this was a paper products facility prior to being a beverage facility. When we got here there wasn’t any real drain system to speak of, so the infrastructure in general required some upgrades for that reason alone. We also went from a four-inch to a 12-inch water supply into the plant. We teamed up with Nabholtz Construction getting that done. Additionally, we’re in the process of bringing online our own wastewater treatment facility to help treat the water before we send it to the city.”

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The timing on Westrock’s Conway investment could hardly be better. According to Fortune Business Insights, the global RTD coffee market size was valued at USD 22.44 billion in 2019 and is projected to reach USD 64.78 billion by 2032, exhibiting a CAGR of 8.54% during the forecast period.

“We’re in a good place,” says Will Ford. “RTD coffee is a fast-growing category and we’re primed to be the most ef cient provider out there. In our existing plant footprint we have room to add six more lines. And should we choose to we can add about another 300,000 square feet to the plant.” PW

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Mary Kay Hits the Sweet Spot on Speed with Mascara Packaging Line

To boost mascara and other tube production at Mary Kay’s Lewisville, Texas facility, it turned out that intermediate speeds and intermittent motion were the right mix of speed, sophistication, and throughput.

By Matt Reynolds, Chief Editor

Cosmetics giant Mary Kay’s Lewisville, Texas facility contains 20 packaging lines that serve the company’s whole gamut of cosmetics products, from creams and lotions to colognes and lipsticks.

Industry equipment veteran George Bode, now manager of corporate engineering, joined the company in 2016 with more than two decades of cosmetics experience at L’Oreal already under his belt. One

of his early assignments in 2018 was to open the then new Lewisville green eld operation and move a deep existing installed base of packaging equipment to the facility.

But as the equipment was transported and re tted at the new location, a tube and carton line for mascara and lip balm products was noticeably scant in automation sophistication compared to others. Mascara in particular is more dif cult to automate than most other tubes—more on why that is later.

With only a ller and some conveyance, mascara packaging operations at the facility had been quite manual until 2022, requiring 12 to 14 operators on three different shifts to keep the line running. The company made it work with people power for a few years, but people became scarce, necessitation temp agencies. When the pandemic hit, the labor-intensive operation became untenable—managing 36 to 42 temporary workers through COVID-19 was a heavy lift. Bode saw automation as a way to remove the company from an unending treadmill of hiring, training, rehiring, and retraining.

Scarcity and turnover weren’t the only labor issues; the cost of labor was also going up. Temp service prices spiked during the pandemic, making the decision to automate a simple math problem based on ROI. The nance department provided Bode with the year-to-date temp hours spent on the mascara line, speci cally on the lling equipment. A simple cost-bene t analysis revealed a quick payback on automation, potentially two years or less.

Richard Talbot (left) of Equip-Pak with Mary Kay’s George Bode (center) and Brandon Polyniak (right).

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“That was the tipping point,” Bode says. “This [summer 2023 mascara and lip balm line] is the rst new packaging line that we’ve done since 2015 or 2016.”

Unique set of equipment needs

The mascara line would need to accommodate six to eight different primary and secondary packaging formats, all in 4-g ll to 8-g ll tubes, and in 2.5-in to 4-in tall cartons. That might seem like a modest number of formats, but each of the eight comes in dozens of different “ avors” (formulas, colors, viscosities). That makes for a lot of SKUs, and in turn, a lot of changeover.

The frequency of changeover on the mascara line would precipitate a shift away from Mary Kay’s existing, highly sophisticated attitude toward automation. Other recent packaging lines projects consisted of continuous-motion machines that operated from 120 up to 150 pieces/ min. But for a few reasons, that level of automation seemed unrealistic for the mascara line.

First, the equipment itself was almost as expensive as labor, eating into the favorable payback timeframe. To get the ROI and payback they sought, the company hoped to land at about half to even a third of the cost of its high-speed continuous lines.

On top of that, the Lewisville operations staff has never been highly trained technically—few operations groups contain mechanics or engineers. In that labor environment, changeovers on sophisticated equipment takes time, taking longer to debug the machines between runs, and longer to ramp them up to operating speeds.

So instead of the fastest continuous-motion equipment, “we tried to stay within that 50 to 60 pieces/min range with intermittent equipment,” Bode says. “It’s less sophisticated than the continuous lines. Of course, it’s sound equipment—everything is servo, including the feeder bowls. But the difference is they’re feeder bowls in the rst place, as opposed to vision-guided robotics. But the tradeoff isn’t just price, it also means it’s much easier to change over. A big reason that’s important to us is that we have a lot of SKUs, and a lot of smaller work order sizes.”

In general, 80 pieces/min is the tipping point between intermittent and continuous equipment for tube and carton lines like the one Bode was seeking. Based on his preference for an intermittent system, that was the speed ceiling.

Also, as is the case across the cosmetics space, gentle handling was a requirement. These are prestige products that use luxe, sleek packaging in many cases. Scuffed tubes or smudged inks are sore spots for cosmetics manufactures. Speci c to mascara, equipment bending the application brush and wand is a dealbreaker.

Other musts for new equipment included a minimum speed to justify automation in the rst place, and temp force reduction—both variables in the equation could yield a two-year payback. Bode was going to have to thread a needle between sophistication, exibility, speed, and ease-of-use.

With these constraints in mind, Bode and his team set about to nding equipment to ll the bill. Longtime acquaintance and PallayPack

Individual caps ready to be torqued onto lled bottles.

A starwheel orients tubes for lling.

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local representative Richard Talbot of Equip-Pak suggested TGM, an Italian manufacturer known for operating in the cosmetics space. That led Bode to another acquaintance, PallayPack, an OEM that serves as the North American of ce for TGM alongside several other global OEMs.

“I have a policy not to build anything I can buy,” says Louis Pallay, PallayPack president. “Everything we build, from gummy lines to vial lling and vaccine manufacturing equipment, those are all built in Montreal. But for our customer Mary Kay, for this speci c application, bringing in TGM was the correct choice.”

Bode and Brandon Polyniak, Mary Kay’s reliability manager, travelled to PallayPack in Montreal and TGM in Italy for other CPGs’ integrated tube line FATs. Seeing the full lines in action sealed the deal for Bode.

Purpose-built among several parties

The multi-party OEM, integrator, and brand owner partnership worked as follows. PallayPack asked Mary Kay for a highly speci c user requirements (URS) document from which to work. Based on those requirements, TGM would deliver a turn-key line consisting largely of TGM equipment. Once the non-disclosure was signed, Mary Kay would write all the P.O.s to PallayPack. The company dealt with importing the machinery, or-

The brush and wand extend so far beyond the closure collar that, when the cap is closed over the tube just after lling, the brush is plunged deep into the product well under the closure.

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dering spare parts, and deploying North America service technicians, “although we really haven’t needed a lot of service yet,” Bode says. Notably, Mary Kay requested a modem be installed on the system for remote access from afar, greatly assisting in troubleshooting.

The FAT for Mary Kay’s purpose-built line, held at TGM’s facility in Italy, featured the fully intact line—no other equipment had to be bolted on back in the states, or added piecemeal. The test ran eight different products, took ve days, and passed on the rst try. Bode says this streamlined FAT contributed to fast SAT and a quick, 28-day installation.

Scan the QR code or visit pwgo.to/8414 to watch this Mary Kay mascara line in action.

“From the time the equipment hit the dock, we uncrated, installed, powered-up, and then TGM came in set everything up debugged, and we were running nished goods in that 28-day window.”

Fully assembled mascara tubes are checkweighed immediately upon exiting the lling block.

“PallayPack and TGM worked with us closely to make sure we got what we wanted,” Polyniak adds. “He was careful about making sure we got exactly what we needed, knowing what our requirements were, and the line was turn-key. We had some certain options that we wanted to keep standardized, like inkjet printers, for instance, because that’s what

our people are familiar with, and they accommodated that… It was just nice to go to one place to qualify this equipment.”

“Even though their cost, relative to the project, is considerably less than some of the continuous-motion options, it is rst-rate equipment,” adds Bode. “They’re using Omron and Festo componentry and controls and pneumatics, we have password and recipe management, all the

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Time to rethink end of line palletizing

The RI20 palletizing cell with industrial robot arm simplifies all the complex processes of a traditional palletizer.

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modules communicated back and forth—start, stop, and adjust— and it’s really well put together. Since we’ve been up and running, for the last ve or six months, we’re averaging 60% to 70% uptimes even with the frequent changeovers. And sometimes we’re doing much better than that.”

According to Pallay, who reminds Bode that the machine is specied for 50 pieces/min, not 50 to 60, it might be a little too ef cient. He spoke of seeing 100% OEE gures on his last visit to the Lewisville location.

Circular bottom labels are applied after a 90-deg turn orients the tubes from end-to-end, to side-by-side. On-tube and on-label coding and marking is done in the stage.

“How do you get a line that runs at 100% OEE? You buy a line that’s supposed to go at 50 a minute, and you run it at 55 a minute,” jokes Pallay. “That was one of the things that we asked them not to do, but they’re hitting record productivity numbers.”

Not to get lost in the equipment’s performance or ef ciency has been the headcount of temp workers it obviated. Mascara production on the old lling line required 12 to 14 people. The new automated line needs only two operators.

Unique mascara tube construction

Packaging mascara is more complex than lling and closing most other tube cosmetics products. Like other tubes, such as the lip balms that also run on this line, a mascara primary packaging consists of two elements. One half of the pack is a tube that acts as a well to hold the somewhat viscous liquid product. On the other half of the package is a cap or closure that is threaded or otherwise af xed over the tube well below to contain the product within.

But in the case of mascara, a brush at the end of a wand is afxed to the interior of the tube-shaped closure, joined under the circular closure top and extending down the center of the cylindrical closure, protruding beyond the closure collar. Consumers use this brush to apply the mascara. The brush and wand extend so far be-

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yond the closure collar that, when the cap is closed over the tube just after lling, the brush is plunged deep into the product well under the closure. This means that the brush is loaded with the viscous mascara product when it’s rst closed after lling, and again whenever a consumer unscrews the cap and applies mascara.

“We actually have another mascara machine from previous years, but we can’t use it on this particular product range. And there’s a reason why,” Bode says. “The brush that goes in the mascara is a delicate silicone ber, and it would not successfully run on the other automated machine—hence the reason for this being a more manual operation until recently. PallayPack and TGM looked at the brush and said, ‘no problem.’”

Literature or pamphlets are pulled from a magazine (upper right), then using belts, are shot (lower left corner) to a position between the tubes and the erected cartons.

Below, the green belt shoots the literature or pamphlet in between the carton and the mascara tube. When tubes are pushed into the carton, the literature goes along for the ride, enveloping the tube entirely within the carton.

The tube container that acts as a product well has its own unique feature as well—a valve called a wiper that is inserted into the tube neck after lling, but prior to closing with the brush and closure. This wiper carefully controls the amount of product that’s allowed to exit the product well on the brush. As a consumer opens the tube, the device gently wipes excess product away from the brush as it slides upwards through the neck and removed from the well. The wiper valve ensures that product dosing is consistent for the consumer, use after use.

All in all, mascara packaging requires a few extra components that lip balm or lip gloss don’t need, making automation tricky.

The new packaging line

The new mascara line begins with tandem TGM bulk feeder bowls, each feeding a TGM ller. Each feeder introduces one half of the tube and closure combination to the lling module.

The rst hopper to the right of the ller introduces the empty tubes that are to be lled with mascara product. From a 45-deg incline convey-

or, the hopper feeds the empty tubes into a vibratory feeder bowl from Bonino Group that sorts and single- les the tubes into conveyance that carries the tubes horizontally into the ller. The tube could be oriented with either neck leading, or the heel leading. There, an eight-slotted star wheel accepts the continuous infeed of tubes and indexes them, orienting them vertically into an intermittent servo-based rotary ller.

“The star wheel has a neat way of ipping that tube from horizontal to vertical that never jams,” Bode says. “There’s a pin, and if the pin is able to enter the neck of the tube, it’s dropped one way. If the pin hits the bottom of the tube instead of the neck, it drops it the other way. But either way, the neck is always oriented upright entering the ller dial table, and sensors also check for the tube’s presence and orientation.”

The dial-table in the ller is a 16-puck system that intermittently deliver tubes to a lling nozzle that precisely doses product formula into the tubes. In parallel, and within the lling enclosure, an unscrambler and sorter single les the wiper features and feeds them intermittently into another star wheel, indexing them for application. A servo-based arm with pneumatic gripper picks wipers from the wheel and applies to the necks of tubes, immediately after lling, while they’re still resting

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in their respective puck on the dial table.

“A lot of lines have pucks that carry these products, especially a tall cylindrical product,” Bode says. “The only pucks related to this line are inside the ller, actually in the dial table that rotates the empty bottles around for lling and adding the wiper.”

Simultaneously, another hopper and 45-deg incline conveyor feeds the sensitive cap, wand, and brush closure constructions into another vibratory feeder bowl. There, the closures are oriented vertically, with the wand and brush feature hanging beneath conveyance that grasps and holds the tube-shaped caps. Another servo-based arm intermittently picks each closure and brush, orienting it over the lled tube with wiper. The brush and wand are plunged into the tube through the wiper valve, and the closure is torqued onto the pack to complete primary packaging operations. An auto-adjusting chuck varies the torque to the closure style among different SKUs. All operations thus far, from feeder bowls to lling to closing, are controlled by a single HMI on the ller module.

Coming out of the ller, closed tubes are oriented end-to-end (lengthwise) resting horizontally on the conveyor with the closure leading. This single le of end-to-end tubes is then fed into a MettlerToledo checkweigher. The device checks each tube for weight, rejects

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exceptions as necessary for under- and over-weights, and monitors a rolling statistical average weight of 20 tubes. If the average weight begins drifting away from the centerline (say, from 8 g to 8.1 g), it feeds that information back to the TGM ller. The ller then adjusts its output to bring the average ll volume back into spec.

“The cosmetic industry is really prone to over ll and giving away formula,” Bode says. “While they’re not as expensive as, say, vaccines, it’s still rather expensive to be giving it away. The checkweigher has been a real advantage in keeping us from giving away extra formula.”

The mascara tubes’ direction of travel makes an abrupt 90-deg turn to the right in a TGM transfer unit. In this sharp turn, the tubes’ orientation with respect to one another, or preceding and trailing mascara tubes, is switched to side-by-side, with the circular tube ends (face and heel) facing outward, instead of end-to-end. There, they enter a labeler with both inkjet coding capabilities from E-Packaging. Small, circle-shaped labels are applied to the at circular heel of each tube—these could be pre-printed labels, or they could be blank labels awaiting coding and marking on the inkjet or laser jet, depending on the needs of the day. Every Mary Kay mascara tube receives a code on the tube heel; either a pre-printed pressure sensitive label, or an inkjet code that’s printed onto a blank label.

Cartoning operations follow labeling. Three in-line servo-based robotic arms simultaneously pick and place individual tubes into waiting TGM cartoner infeed buckets at the handshake between the labeler and cartoner. Meanwhile, within the cartoner, a servo-based arm picks at, printed, pre-glued 2D carton blanks from a magazine and erects them. Pamphlets (Mary Kay refers to them as literature) are pulled from another magazine, and belts shoot it into a stationary waiting position between the carton and the tube. When the tube is pushed into the open carton, it hits the center of literature, which folds around the tube and travels with it into the carton cavity.

“The way that this machine handles the literature insertion [see images on page 78] is completely different than any cartoner I’ve seen,” Polyniak says. “Typically, you’re indexing the literature with the tube or bottle, and you’re using a clip to hold them together as they’re pushed into the carton. There’s a lot of movement, and the literature can become disoriented. This was really unique and sold me on the equipment right there.”

Bottom carton aps are closed mechanically with locking tabs rather than adhesive, and the mascara tubes are pushed into the open cartons, which are similarly closed thereafter.

The cartons are then laser coded on a Hitachi laser printer. Laser coding is used for the high print quality and the cleanliness compared to inkjet methods. This practice reduces ink as a consumable input and ensures cleaner cartons. Also, many of the cartons have a slick, glossy nish that doesn’t accept ink as easily—ink could be wiped off prior to drying. The cartons are coded with lot, batch, and date information on the carton closure ap.

After coding, cartons make another 90-deg turn to the right, this time retaining their side-by-side orientation. They are accumulated in this orientation until a Keyence photo eye recognizes a 24-count layer. The completed 24-count layer is then lowered to accommodate another 24-count layer, which will be pushed on top of the preceding layer in a down-stacking operation.

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“You’ve seen case packers that stack up, these actually stack down,” Bode says. “You literally let gravity work for you as opposed to try to push up. We almost never have a jam.”

After 10 layers are stacked, a 24 by 10 cube of cartons, or 240 count, is oriented for side-load case packing in corrugated cases. The cases are erected by servo-based robotic arms, with bottoms closed rst with tape. The 240-count product cube is then pushed, side loaded into the awaiting corrugated case.

With speeds of around 50 pieces per minute in a 240-count case, each case comes off the line at a rate of roughly one every ve minutes, so automatic palletizing isn’t necessary—that’s done manually.

What’s next?

It’s not always the case that slowing down a packaging line leads to greater productivity, but in the era of SKU proliferation and frequent changeovers, there’s a place for it.

“This is the direction we’re going,” Bode says. “We’ve actually got another line starting later this year, and we’re sourcing that with the same companies because we like their equipment. And we’re going to stay within those slower speed ranges, with intermittent motion below 80 pieces a minute. We’re staying in the indexing equipment because it has worked so well for us.”

As for the existing mascara, Polyniak is also impressed. “You can tell they put a lot of thought into how everything works, and attention to detail,” he said. PW

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The 240-ct cube of cartoned mascara tubes is pushed or side loaded into a waiting erected case.

Summit Convenes Supply Chain to Close the Recycling Loop

Packaging World’s second annual Packaging Recycling Summit brings together brand owners, recyclers, reclaimers, and material and equipment suppliers to drive package recycling rates.

To access videos of all the presentations from PRS24, visit: pwgo.to/8477

By Anne Marie Mohan, Senior Editor

It’s an undeniable truth that the U.S. recycling rate is unacceptably low, hovering around 30% for years. Despite the best efforts and signi cant investments by brand owners, recyclers, reclaimers, and policymakers, the U.S. EPA estimates the combined rate for all materials is just 32%. Moving forward, however, new packaging materials, recycling technologies, and partnerships have the potential to move that needle.

In 2023, Packaging World debuted its Packaging Recycling Summit, a conference designed to facilitate packaging recycling by bringing all members of the supply chain together to share resources, best practices, and insights on each segment of the circular supply chain for system. After a successful rst year, PRS returned this September in Anaheim, Calif., with an increase in attendance of 60%.

Topics at PRS24 covered a wide spectrum of recycling issues designed to move stakeholders out of their silos and into an environment of collaboration and innovation. Encapsulating the spirit of the event, during his presentation, Michael Okoroafor, chief sustainability of cer for McCormick & Company, shared an African proverb that advises, “If you want to go fast, go alone. But if you want to go far, go together.”

burning, our business is going to keep eroding, and a lot of what we do ultimately will not suf ce anymore,” he said.

Representing a company that ranks among the top global producers of plastic, Nook emphasized that Danone’s commitment to becoming more recyclable and sustainable by 2030 is not just a corporate goal but a necessity for survival.

Following is coverage of just some of the topics discussed at PRS24. To access all of the conference content in video form, see pwgo.to/8477.

Danone puts customer rst in sustainable innovation

In his presentation, “Danone’s Packaging Portfolio Outlook for 2030,” company VP of Packaging Research & Innovation, Kory Nook, conveyed a clear message: The future of packaging lies in sustainability, and the stakes are high. “Our planet’s burning, and if we continue to do business the same way we have in years past, our planet’s going to keep

Kory Nook shared how Danone is redesigning consumer-centric packaging that is also more sustainable. Danone’s switch to blow-and- ll PET bottles from HDPE containers for International Delight will reduce the package’s GHGs by 31%.

Nook’s presentation was a blend of urgency and optimism, underscored by a reference to the “Nun Study” on cognition. This study, conducted at Notre Dame, revealed that despite having brain plaques and tangles typically associated with Alzheimer’s, the nuns remained mentally sharp due to their disciplined, community-focused lifestyle. Nook

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drew a parallel to the packaging industry, suggesting that a similar approach of discipline and community could help achieve sustainability goals. “My message today to everybody is essentially we need to start working that way,” he emphasized.

Danone’s 2030 strategy revolves around three main pillars: CO2 reduction, halving virgin fossil-based packaging, and ensuring all packaging is reusable, recyclable, or compostable. One of the signi cant challenges Danone faces is reducing Scope 3 emissions from packaging, which Nook said is the hardest to decarbonize. Scope 3 emissions are indirect greenhouse gas emissions (GHGs) that occur outside a company’s direct control but are still a result of its activities. For CPGs, Scope 3 emissions can include (upstream) GHGs from the sourcing, production, and transportation of ingredients and packaging, as well as (downstream) emissions from the logistics, use, and disposal of its products, including end-of-life treatment.

Explained Nook, the cost of reducing carbon in packaging is signicantly higher than in other areas of the supply chain, making it a complex issue to tackle. However, he stressed, putting the consumer at the center of these efforts is crucial.

“If we’re changing a pack to be more recyclable, lower weight, whatever, we’ve got to make it better for the consumer,” he said. “It has to be bene t-led, otherwise the consumer is going to have a harder time paying for it, or they’re not going to understand it, and it’s going to be pointless.”

Nook then unveiled some recent and soon-to-be launched packaging innovations. Following three years of R&D, Danone will soon be switching from sourcing high-density polyethylene bottles for its International Delight creamer to in-house blow-and- ll PET bottles, resulting in a 31% decrease in GHGs and an easily recyclable package.

Another notable initiative was its recent shift from non-recyclable polystyrene yogurt cups to polypropylene cups with PP labels. This change allows consumers to recycle the entire package easily, aligning with Danone’s goal of making packaging more consumer-friendly and sustainable.

McCormick: Reducing Scope 3 emissions is a

‘strategic imperative’

Much like Nook, Michael Okoroafor of McCormick also stressed the challenges of reducing Scope 3 emissions and the criticality of collaboration in this effort. Setting the tone for a discussion that delved deep into the complexities and necessities of sustainable practices, Okoroafor told the audience, “The era of make, use, dispose is over. We have to be thinking about make, use, reuse as we go forward if we want to save the planet.”

without decarbonizing packaging.”

One recent example of McCormick’s efforts to reduce the carbon footprint of its packaging is a switch to 100% post-consumer PET for its food coloring bottles, which resulted in a 59% decrease in CO2 emissions versus the same bottle made from virgin material (see pwgo.to/8456).

Noted Okoroafor, reducing Scope 3 emissions is not just good for the environment, but it’s also a strategic imperative for McCormick. The company sources vanilla from Madagascar, black pepper from Vietnam, and red pepper from India, among other ingredients from over 85 countries. These sourcing communities, often located in the global south, are on the front lines of climate change.

“We have to take care of these communities and do the right thing,” he said. “We have to make sure that these communities are vibrant and they can supply things to us in perpetuity.”

According to Okoroafor to combat climate change effectively, the focus must shift to Scope 3 emissions. For McCormick, these emissions constitute over 95% of its carbon footprint. Packaging alone accounts for at least 8% of this gure, making it a critical area for intervention. “If we want to reduce our carbon footprint, packaging has to be an integral part of that,” he added. “There is no decarbonizing the planet

Okoroafor is on the board of the United Nations Global Compact, whose 2030 agenda includes 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). “The most important one, in my opinion is SDG 17, which focuses on partnerships,” he said. “If you want to get there [your destination], you have to partner to drive it, and that’s how you can reduce cost.”

Aligning with SDG 17, three years ago, McCormick partnered with PepsiCo and Mars to create the Supplier Leadership on Climate Transition (Supplier LOCT) initiative. The program now comprises 24 CPGs and has trained over 800 suppliers, helping them understand and implement science-based targets through the Science Based Targets Initiative (SBTi) for reducing emissions.

McCormick has had its Scope 1, 2, and 3 emissions validated by SBTi. To date, the company has achieved a 40% reduction in Scope 1 and 2 emissions and is working towards a 42% reduction in Scope 3 emissions by 2030. McCormick’s ultimate goal is to reach net-zero emissions by 2050, a target that aligns with the U.S. net-zero commitment.

McCormick’s Michael Okoroafor stressed the strategic imperative of reducing Scope 3 emissions.

In 2022, McCormick moved to 100% rPET for its food coloring bottles, resulting in a 59% decrease in CO2 emissions.

Coca-Cola designs game-changing stadium recycling system

Setting the stage for his presentation, “Pioneering Closed Loop Systems at Universities, Sporting and Concert Venues,” Jim Velky, senior director of sustainability for Coca-Cola, began, “So a fan arrives on game day, the stadium’s packed, and there’s excitement in the air. So what do they do? They go up to the concession stand and grab an ice-cold CocaCola in either an aluminum can or a 100% rPET bottle. It’s the perfect refreshment for a perfect game day. So they nish their drink, they spot a recycling bin, it’s clearly marked for bottles and cans. So basically they’ve done their part.”

For Coca-Cola, he explained, this moment is a critical juncture in its journey towards sustainability. The company has made public its commitment to a circular economy through its World Without Waste strategy, which promotes a system where waste is minimized and materials are continuously reused. “We at Coca-Cola realize there is a packaging waste issue, and as one of the largest beverage producers globally, this is critical for us,” said Velky.

Coca-Cola’s World Without Waste sustainable packaging program aims to make all packaging 100% recyclable by 2025, incorporate 50% recycled material by 2030, and collect and recycle a bottle or can for each one sold by 2030.

The challenge, however, lies in the execution. Despite the presence of recycling bins at many venues, data reveals that much of the collected material does not return to the packaging supply chain. This gap prompted Coca-Cola to collaborate with Circular Solutions Advisors (CSA), a provider of circular economy solutions, to develop a closed-loop recycling system. This system ensures that the beverage containers collected at its customer sites are recycled into new food-grade packaging, thus closing the loop.

The Intersection of Machinery and Materials

The PRS24 panel titled “Integrating Recyclable Materials with Established Machinery: Implications and Strategies” explored how brands work with suppliers to incorporate newer, more recyclable materials with existing equipment. Watch for a January 2025 PW webinar and ebook, and a March 2025 PW feature on the topic.

Coca-Cola captured over 60 million pounds of PET and aluminum bottles, with plans to double this amount in the coming year. Notable successes include certi cations at the Crypto.com Arena in Los Angeles, the San Diego Zoo, and the Rose Bowl.

According to Velky, the signi cance of the collaboration between the venue, the MRF, reclaimers, and packaging suppliers extends beyond the venues themselves. The multiplier effect of these efforts reaches into the surrounding communities, enhancing overall recycling rates and contributing to a more sustainable future.

As Coca-Cola continues to advance its sustainability goals, Velky shared that the importance of collaboration remains at the forefront. “We work together as a team and really focus on achieving a vision in creating circular solutions, and we’ve done this by strong collaboration and partnerships,” he said. “By working together, we can help drive innovation and develop lasting solutions that create a circular economy at both local and national scales.”

Jim Velky of Coca-Cola described the company’s work with stadiums, entertainment venues, and universities to recover PET bottles and aluminum cans.

CSA’s role involves conducting recycling value assessments at various properties, including universities, sporting venues, and concert arenas, among other closed-loop environments. They evaluate both front-of-house and back-of-house recycling processes, visit local MRFs, and validate that the collected materials are reprocessed into Coca-Cola’s supply chain. This meticulous process aims to transform venues into certi ed closed-loop properties, ensuring no recyclable material is wasted.

The impact of these efforts is already visible. Shared Velky, in 2023,

AI unlocks recycling data on Colgate’s HDPE tube

Along with the themes of collaboration and the necessity of addressing Scope 3 emissions, another refrain woven throughout the conference was the need for data, which is notoriously sparse in the recycling world. But there is one technology in particular that has emerged over the last several years that may provide the key to unlock that vital information: Articial Intelligence.

As proof of its potential, Rebecca Hu, founder and CEO of AI and robotics company Glacier, shared the stage with two of the company’s high-pro le customers—Colgate-Palmolive and Amazon—to illustrate how AI is capturing data “not only for data’s sake, but to empower everyone who’s thinking about how to enable circularity to do so much more quickly and much more ef ciently,” Hu explained.

In the case of Colgate, the story begins with the company’s ve-year journey to transform its toothpaste tube from a non-recyclable multimaterial laminate to one that is recyclable in-practice and at-scale. “Globally there’s about 20 billion toothpaste tubes manufactured every year. And without a circular end of life that’s more mainstream, the vast majority of these would end up in land ll or, if not worse, leaked into the environment,” explained Greg Corra, VP, Global Packaging & Sustainability, Colgate-Palmolive Company.

Colgate-Palmolive is one of the world’s biggest manufacturers of toothpaste, producing 17,000 products/min. “That’s about 9 billion a year,” said Corra. “So we had an opportunity and a responsibility to address this issue.”

Its solution was to develop a recyclable tube made from HDPE with an ethyl vinyl alcohol (EVOH) barrier layer. The new package is designed to be compatible with existing HDPE rigid recycling streams.

Colgate knew however that delivering a tube that would be recyclable in-practice and at-scale would require industry-wide adoption, so it shared its technology openly, inviting competitors to join the effort. This collaborative approach has already seen signi cant uptake, with the other three largest toothpaste manufacturers committing to the change. As of 2024, nine out of every 10 toothpaste tubes sold in the U.S. are designed to be recyclable.

To understand the impact of the new tube, Colgate partnered with Glacier, which developed a rst-of-its-kind vision-based AI model capable of identifying and sorting both toothpaste tubes and non-toothpaste tubes in real-time. Installed in a number of partner MRFs, the AI camera captures continuous images of tubes on conveyor belts, allowing it to detect them “in all their avors and variations in the way they show up at the MRF,” said Hu.

Hu added that AI’s ability to provide real-time, easily digestible data is a game-changer. Colgate and partner MRFs can log in to a dashboard and learn what’s happening on a given belt over the last year, or even the last minute. “And so we can aggregate all that amazing tube data, all

As Rebecca Hu of Glacier and Greg Corra of Colgate-Palmolive explained, AI is enabling the collection of tube recycling data in real-time at the MRF.

those images we’re collecting to answer questions like, what proportion of tubes in the recycling stream are toothpaste tubes, or what impact did our activation campaigns have on the recycling rate in a given geography over time? And this is all really just scratching the very, very surface of the types of strategic circularity questions this type of data can start to help answer in real time,” she said.

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Colgate-Palmolive was the rst to launch a fully recyclable HDPE toothpaste tube in 2022.

when it comes to AI,” Hu continued. “There’s a lot of news out there, and as someone who’s worked in this space for many, many years, I can tell you what I’m seeing on the front lines. The type of AI progress we’re sharing here today is really impactful and probably a little bit historymaking. And it’s the result of many, many months of really hard, invisible work and collaboration between Glacier and Colgate and our MRF partners. So this work, I have to say, at the end of the day, is worth it.”

Amazon enlists Glacier to inform packaging design

In the case of Glacier’s work with Amazon, the goal was to identify bioplastic packaging in a MRF to understand the viability of transitioning to this novel material and to facilitate its pathway through the recycling stream. In early 2024, Amazon provided considerable funding to Glacier through its Climate Pledge Fund, a $2 billion corporate venture capital fund dedicated to investing in solutions that can help the company achieve net-zero emissions by 2040 (see pwgo.to/8314).

One of Amazon’s critical areas of focus is improving the recyclability of its packaging materials. “Back in 2019, we knew one of the key challenges we were going to have to square down with was getting a handle on our boxes, plastic wrappers, and the packaging we’re sending customers in knowing what happens to it and then improving on that design to ensure it becomes more recyclable,” explained Nicholas Ellis, principal of the Amazon Climate Pledge Fund. The partnership with Glacier emerged as a promising solution to this challenge.

To aid Amazon in following the path of exible bioplastic packaging through the recycling stream, Glacier installed an AI camera on a MRF paper line, where much of the lm ends up. It then developed an AI model to identify bioplastics “when there are thousands of items every single minute owing across the conveyor belt,” Hu explained.

After training on thousands of images over the course of several months, the AI model can now detect various types of bioplastic packaging, from produce bags to snack packaging, with 90% accuracy.

Among the learnings gleaned from the project was the importance of packaging design elements. For instance, the AI model’s ability to detect packaging is in uenced by the size of the item and the visibility of distinguishing features, such as graphics. Another insight was that by collecting and analyzing data on the recyclability of packaging materials, Amazon can make informed decisions to enhance the design and recovery of its packaging. “If you don’t have the data, you can’t make a good decision,” stated Ellis.

Concluding the session, he added, “There are a few key things I hope each of you takes out of this presentation. One is there are already some key learnings you can carry right back today into your packaging design. Consistency matters, size matters, differentiation matters. These key lessons are something we’ve internalized. We’ve already started to adjust our packaging as a result.

“If you’re a MRF operator, I encourage you to consider how AI can change the economics of your business, make customers like Amazon better partners to you, and make sure we’re not wasting anything in that recycling stream—that we’re actually recovering as much as we possibly can.”

Google writes, and shares, the book on plastic-free packaging

Another company that has bared all (of its proprietary R&D) in the name of greater sustainability for all brands is Google and its consumer hardware team with the launch of its Plastic-Free Packaging Design Guide.

As David Bourne, lead for environmental strategy at Google explained, in October 2020, the company made a commitment to eliminate all plastic from its packaging by 2023. Last year, it achieved its goal, unveiling its Pixel 8 smartphone in a 100% plastic-free, 100% recyclable package. Since then, all the products it has launched have been in similarly plastic-free packaging.

David Bourne of Google shared the company’s journey to develop 100% plastic-free packaging by 2023. Google has made its Plastic-Free Packaging Design Guide available to all brands.

In 2020, when Google announced its ambitious commitment, 94% of its packaging was ber-based. But the challenge to get to 100% plastic-free was still signi cant. “As it turns out, that last 6% is full of a lot of really thorny and dif cult areas of packaging where developing theber-based alternative with equal performance is really tough—so polypropylene lamination, shrink-wrap, hang tags, a long list of elements of our packaging for consumer electronics that had to be replaced with a viable ber-based alternative,” said Bourne. “But we did it.”

Upon reaching its goal, Google unveiled a downloadable, 95-page guide on its website that details its plastic-free journey. The guide shares speci cs on ber-based alternatives for every plastic component, including coating solutions, shrink wrap, closure labels, paper tapes,

hang tabs, protective product wraps, and in-box trays as well as information on its material suppliers.

“That sounds a little counterintuitive because why would we want to enable our competitors? But really, when we think about sustainability, we think it’s a space to be collaborative and not competitive,” explained Bourne. “It’s not Google’s core competency to be about sustainability, and for many companies, it’s not their core competency either. We believe that by collaborating on sustainability, we can all enable the goals we collectively have and still have plenty of competition in other areas.”

Providing a glimpse at some of the R&D challenges, Miguel Arevalo, packaging innovation lead for Google, shared that ensuring the protection of Google’s expensive electronics was paramount; the new packaging had to match the performance of plastic in terms of protection, scratching, and dust resistance. Additionally, it needed to present the product attractively while being intuitively recyclable.

After the original plastic-free package and guide were launched in 2023, Google introduced an enhanced packaging design and an updated guide this past summer. “The intention of this new design was to try to push a little bit further, to enable an iconic look of what Google is, and try to get away from the white box that we used to have before,” said Arevalo. “But the main feature we enabled was the creation of a new paper solution.”

With the new box, Google is adding PCR newspaper materials to the ber to give the paper a speckled look. Meanwhile, it has improved the paper’s mechanical properties, increasing its tensile strength threefold

Miguel Arevalo of Google provided insights on the company’s 100% plastic-free packaging components. In 2024, Google rolled out a new version of its 100% plastic-free packaging, with a new speckled paper solution (inset).

and its stretchability by 70%. “We have a much stronger paper, which allows us to reduce the weight of the box, meaning a reduction in the carbon footprint when we ship our boxes versus the previous generation,” said Arevalo.

Changing from a pure white to a speckled ber is also helping communicate the package’s recyclability to both consumers and MRFs. “We think the best consumer education you can do is in the design itself and the experience of recycling and what the packaging intuitively communicates about itself to you,” said Bourne. “And we’re hopeful the studies we’ll be doing on this new packaging design will bear that out.”

Tin packaging serves as a lasting advertisement for your brand

The business of MRFs explained

The most distinguishing feature of the Packaging Recycling Summit, which differentiates it from MRF-focused recycling events and brandfocused sustainability conferences, is that it brings the entire packaging and recycling supply chain together to share solutions for circularity.

At the summit, Jeff Snyder, senior VP of Recycling at Rumpke Waste & Recycling, Justin Davis, director of Commercial Origination & Business Development at AMP, and Jim Marcinko, Recycling Operations director at WM (Waste Management), shared with the audience the intricate dance between economic pressures and technological advancements that shape the recycling industry.

The discussion began with a broad overview of the economic landscape. Marcinko, a veteran with three decades in the eld, highlighted the volatility of commodity prices and the resulting impact on recycling operations. “The value of commodities is crucial, but so is our cost structure,” he noted. The uctuating prices of materials such as corrugated and plastics create a challenging environment for recycling facilities, which must balance operational costs with the revenue generated from selling recovered materials.

Snyder added that the composition of the recycling stream also plays a signi cant role in determining the economic viability of recycling operations. “We’re still seeing about 58 to 60% of the stream being ber or paper,” he explained. “Plastics make up only about 10%.”

This composition affects the investments that companies like Rumpke and WM can make in their facilities. When commodity values rise, they can invest in new technologies and infrastructure; when values fall, they must nd ways to maintain pro tability.

The conversation then shifted to the technological advancements transforming the industry. Davis described AMP’s approach to reimagining MRFs from the ground up. “We started with the standard robot, but now we’re focused on fully AI-enabled automated sortation systems,” he said.

Snyder shared how Rumpke recently invested $100 million dollars in technology at its new recovery facility in Columbus, Ohio. The technology was selected to address three goals. First was to liberate the material and size it upfront to get small-format items out of the stream as soon as possible. Second was to increase recycling rates. “So we put optics behind optics and then put recovery optics in to blow material that got through the

system that we didn’t recover back into the system,” Snyder explained.

Third was to go deeper into the waste stream. For this, Rumpke added AI as well as near infrared (NIR) technology to ensure that what goes into the bin gets recovered and to pull more commodity out of the waste stream. Rumpke recently began separating colored PET, PET thermoforms, and PET cups from its PET bottle stream and selling the material to Eastman Chemical for use in its chemical recycling processes (see pwgo.to/8459).

Marcinko agreed that chemical recycling may provide a new end market for hard-to-recycle waste. “Chemical recycling is kind of that next step,” he said. “It’s going to create opportunities for the hard-torecycle materials that maybe we didn’t have opportunities to do with before.” However, as the technology is still in its early stages, the panelists agreed that mechanical recycling should remain the priority.

For its part, WM has also made signi cant investments in new technology, allocating over a billion dollars to upgrade and expand its facilities. “What worked great 10 years ago is now dated,” said Marcinko. “The mix of materials has changed, and we need to adapt our facilities to handle these changes.” Optical sorters and AI are key components of this adaptation, enabling WM to target and recover more materials with greater accuracy.

Collaboration, in the form of brand and MRF partnerships, was also discussed. Snyder shared how Rumpke has worked with companies like T. Marzetti and Procter & Gamble to test and improve the recyclability of their packaging. “We want to help brands understand how they can make their packaging recyclable,” he said. “We would love to have more packaging that we can run through our material recovery facilities and get it where it’s supposed to go and get it recycled. That’s really the end game.”

Untangling the thermoform conundrum

As Rumpke’s Snyder shared during the MRF panel, Rumpke will be announcing to its customers on November 1 that moving forward, it will be accepting thermoforms at its new Columbus plant. On its face, the acceptance of PET thermoforms by a MRF may not seem newsworthy, but this packaging type has long been a thorn in the side of the recycling world.

In the panel entitled, “Enhancing Thermoform Circularity: An Opportunity for Improvement,” Megan Moore, program director for the National Association for PET Container Resources (NAPCOR), shared that while PET thermoforms are molecularly identical to PET bottles, they have struggled to nd their place in the recycling stream. One reason is access. “Less than 60% of communities or of the population has access to thermoform recycling at this moment,” she noted, adding that there are signi cant regional disparities in thermoform recycling capabilities.

In the Midwest, including markets such as Ohio, Kentucky, Indiana, Illinois, and West Virginia where Rumpke operates, thermoforms have traditionally been an anathema to MRFs as they end up contaminating PET bottle bales.

“We sell to bottle-to-bottle folks that are making new clear PET bottles,” Snyder explained. “The rst thing those folks do [when they get a PET bale] is they strip out the thermoforms, they strip out the color [colored PET], and they take the clear PET bottles and recycle them back into clear PET bottles. So if you get over 10% thermoforms in that bale, it can be rejected because now you’re increasing the cost and increasing the amount of material they have to throw away or get rid of because they can’t make new bottles out of it.”

(From left) Jim Marcinko of WM, Justin Davis of AMP, and Jeff Snyder of Rumpke Waste & Recycling explained the economics of MRFs.

As Zach Muscato, corporate sustainability manager at custom thermoformer Plastic Ingenuity (PI), explained, thermoforms are a contaminate due to their use of labels. “The labels on thermoforms tend to be very hard to remove,” he said. “Oftentimes there is a ber component to those labels, so they contaminate the PET recycling stream.”

He added that to make thermoforms more compatible with the recycling stream, PI designs packaging for its customers with this in mind. “A big part of what we do when we design a package is not just look at the thermoforms we’re designing, but look at the package holistically and say, if you want this to truly be recyclable, you really need to be cautious and look at your label selection and think about how you’re going to go about that. So there are a lot of different aspects that go into those design collaborations.”

Muscato then gave a shout-out to The Association of PET Recyclers and its APR Design Guide (see pwgo.to/8470) in helping PI navigate design for recycling. “Their design guidance for plastic products is unbeatable,” he said.

As Moore noted, there are clear economic incentives for making PET thermoforms more widely recyclable. “We need more PET,” she said. With only 30 to 35% of PET being recovered in the U.S., there’s a signicant opportunity to increase recycling rates. Moore added that the PET bottle market is about 6.5 billion pounds, while thermoforms account for 1.8 billion pounds. “As we’re tracking EPR and brand commitments, we see that by 2027 we need to reclaim almost a hundred percent PET for everybody to hit these commitments,” she explained.

Pointing to recent progress in thermoform recycling, Muscato said that over the last three to four years, the industry has begun to see more thermoform-only bales, especially on the West Coast, where produce growers are clamoring for more PCR from thermoform waste. “You could point to one brand in particular,” he said. “Driscoll’s stepped up and said, ‘We want PCR strictly from thermoforms in our clamshells so we can build that circular economy for the thermoforms we consume.’ That commitment they made was very public, and it literally drove a market.”

In the Midwest, where mechanical recycling of PET is sparse, Rumpke is producing bales comprising PET thermoforms, colored PET, and PET cups that will be sold to Eastman to power its molecular recycling technology in nearby Kingsport, Tenn. Shared Snyder, while the

Megan Moore of NAPCOR and Zach Muscato of Plastic Ingenuity explained the challenges related to thermoform recycling.

thermoform-only bales are of lesser value, the ability of Rumpke to now create 100% clear bottle bales will allow it to fetch over-market value for this material. “And the cool thing was, I was able to add a commodity,” he said. “So that was the motivation for me.”

Glass industry sets ambitious recycling goal

While plastic often makes up the lion’s share of any conversation on recycling, another material worthy of attention is glass, which, while in nitely recyclable, is only recycled at a rate of roughly 31% in the U.S. That’s according to Scott DeFife, president of the Glass Packaging Institute (GPI), who noted that data from Europe and other developed nations that have solid glass recycling systems shows that it is possible to recover from 50 to 90% of glass.

“The more of that that is recovered, the more we can turn it back into new bottles,” he said. “So ve years ago, the industry came together and set a goal for the 2030 time period of getting to 50% recycling rates.”

As he explained, glass offers unique recycling opportunities and challenges. Glass is used as primary packaging for the food, beverage, and personal care industries in particular, with beer making up 47% of the market share of U.S. glass container shipments by category, followed by food at 24%. Wine and spirits make up 8% and 6%, respectively.

“So glass follows people,” DeFife said. “And, if you track back to where the markets for glass are in the rst place, a majority of the glass is beverage alcohol, and where is beverage alcohol? It’s in the hospitality industry.” That’s in contrast to other packaging materials, which are more often disposed of at curbside.

He added that “glass could and should be recycled.” Among the bene ts, it makes up 17% to 27% of a MRFs incoming recycling stream (by weight), MRF fees typically cover the sorting of all materials, proper capture and cleaning of glass results in low cross contamination, and glass has the lowest variable cost.

Laura Hennemann, senior VP of Sustainability & Corporate Affairs at SMI (SMI is North America’s leading glass recycler, processing 2.4 million tons of material, primarily glass, each year), explained why brands want recycled glass. “Why do our customers use recycled content other than that it makes everybody feel really good and has a great story?” she asked. “They have a lower emissions savings because when you use recycled content versus a virgin material, it melts at a lower temperature, so therefore they see the savings, and it also is better for their equipment long-term, because they’re not running their furnaces as hard and as hot.”

June 25-27, 2025 • Dallas, TX

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Join us at the 2025 Packaging Recycling Summit to connect with industry leaders in the package recycling supply chain. Discover how brands can actively participate in a circular economy and profit from the promise of a sustainable future. Register now at: pwgo.to/8478

Joining DeFife and Hennemann on stage, Gabriel Opoku-Asare, director of Society/ESG at Diageo North America, provided a voice to brand owners eager to source more recycled glass. He shared that global spirits brand Diageo has committed to achieving 60% recycled content in all its packaging by 2030.

To help create glass packaging that is more recyclable, the company has begun to make design changes to its bottles. “We know that things like a large bottle base cause a lot of problems on conveyors and also on the crushers as well, so we are working to lightweight the base of the bottle,” he said. “We also understand the impacts of decoration when it comes to bottle recycling.”

Scott DeFife of the Glass Packaging Institute shared that the glass industry has set a goal to reach a glass recycling rate of 50% by 2030.

Hennemann also debunked common myths around glass recycling, such as:

• Broken glass cannot be accepted curbside. “It can.”

• Mixed, colored glass cannot be accepted. “It can.”

• Glass must be washed and cleaned before being put in the bin. “It’s not problematic if you don’t wash and clean it, but it’s the polite thing to do.”

• Glass contaminates all the recyclables. “In a single stream, everything contaminates everything else.”

To support and catalyze the glass recycling infrastructure, Diageo is meeting the customer where they’re at, literally, by partnering in the Don’t Trash Glass campaign, spearheaded by GPI. Piloted in Chicago, where there are considerable MRF glass-recycling capabilities, the Don’t Trash Glass initiative provides separate bins for 68 bars and restaurants to dispose of their glass containers for recycling.

“From the point where the customer consumes the beverage to the time that the glass is made into a new bottle is around two weeks,” said OpokuAsare. “In the rst year of the pilot, we were able to collect around 2.2 million tons of glass.”

Diageo has also joined the Recycle World Partnership, a $350 million initiative to drive glass recycling in Kentucky. Through WorkWell Industries, the initiative will collect clean int glass bottles from distilleries, tasting rooms, and bottling facilities in the region to crush into glass cullet and return to glass manufacturing facilities to be produced into new glass bottles.

“This program meets our mission to be more sustainable by 2030. For us, we are looking at long-term supply chain resilience,” said Opoku-Asare. “In the future, if glass is going through the circular loop, we can guarantee consistent supplies for us. Also, if you look at the bars and restaurants that within our chain, this is good for them to improve their own carbon footprint as well. So this is a clear carbon strategy for us.”

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Twig’s Beverage Blends Tradition with Modern Efficiency

Family-run Twig’s, a longtime contract packager for Keurig Dr Pepper’s Sun Drop, updates its old conveyors and installs modern bottling for its retro sodas.

By Joseph Derr, Editor, Contract Manufacturing + Packaging

Twig’s Beverage is a longtime contract packager for Keurig Dr Pepper’s Sun Drop soda in nostalgic glass returnable bottles, in addition to its own Twig’s line of retro-inspired specialty sodas. With a commitment to quality and community, Twig’s has been producing and distributing iconic sodas for the Upper Midwest since 1951.

As beloved as its old-school approach is, the company and its 20 team members faced a new-school challenge: outdated conveyor and handling systems that struggled to keep pace with modern production demands and hampered its plans for expansion.

A small-town soda tradition

Twig’s Beverage was founded in 1951 by Floyd “Twig” Hartwig, a Korean War veteran who started the company with his softball friends while recovering from war injuries. Based in Shawano, a small city in northeastern Wisconsin, Twig’s gained momentum in 1953 when Hartwig was approached to manufacture and distribute Sun Drop, the citrus- avored soft drink rst patented in 1930, throughout Wisconsin and Michigan’s Upper Peninsula.

Today, Twig’s remains a family operation led by Hartwig’s son, Dan, and grandson, Ben. The company continues to uphold its commitment to quality by maintaining the original Sun Drop recipe for Keurig Dr Pepper.

“Sun Drop was the original golden citrus drink,” says Ben Hartwig,

tabletop system.

vice president of Twig’s Beverage. “And Twig’s is the last returnable bottler for Sun Drop in the world.”

In addition to producing Sun Drop for Keurig Dr Pepper Inc. in glass bottles—the lion’s share of its business—Twig’s launched its own line of sodas, reaching new markets beyond its Sun Drop territory, in 2014. Twig’s brand now offers 18 avors, including Black Cherry, Rhu-Berry (a rhubarb/strawberry blend), and Butterscotch Root Beer, all packaged in 12-oz. glass bottles. (Its 19th avor, Diet Cola, comes out later this year.)

A legacy line breaks down

In recent years, Twig’s legacy bottling line, which had equipment in operation since the 1950s, was plagued by frequent breakdowns and inef ciencies.

Returnable bottles of Sun Drop stay snugly on track with MultiConveyor’s

Ben Hartwig (left), vice president at Twig’s Beverage, with production manager Chris Fietzer.

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“We’d have issues and breaks on it, like every week,” Hartwig says. “Bottles would be tipping over left and right because it wasn’t a smooth transfer.”

Broken glass on the shop oor was not the only problem.

“It was an old-school, metal tracking system, and parts on it would break,” Hartwig says. “We would have to shut down production to work on that one piece and get it going again, and it was hard to nd replacement parts.”

Delays and production stoppages caused by the outdated handling system were problematic. For one, the problems were limiting Twig’s ability to scale operations to introduce new products the company was planning to launch. They also put stress on Twig’s dedicated team members, who wanted to ensure orders were lled and that the company’s Twig’s Museum and Gift Shop, which gives plant tours and offers soda samples to visitors, was well-stocked.

Twig’s installed a new CIMEC rotary ller to enhance ef ciency.

Recognizing the need to modernize, Twig’s partnered with custom conveyor specialists Multi-Conveyor, headquartered one hour away. The goal: to recon gure and update the bottling and handling line, making it more reliable and ef cient while accommodating new bottle types.

Modern systems for retro bottles

In the fall of 2023, Twig’s undertook a signi cant upgrade to modernize its production capabilities while preserving its heritage and quality. The company installed new lling equipment and Multi-Conveyor conveyors running throughout the entire line, along with updates to other key equipment.

The new system includes three powered plastic tabletop chain conveyors and a rotary accumulation table from Multi-Conveyor to streamline the entire bottling process. Glass soda bottles are manually unloaded onto a single-lane conveyor, passing through a Model 60 orbital rinser from McBrady Engineering, ensuring each returnable bottle is perfectly clean before lling.

The bottles are then transferred onto a 90-degree side- exing plastic chain curve that feeds into a CIMEC 12-valve counter-pressure ller for precise lling and a PROCARB 10 carbonator from ProMach’s ProBrew that blends avors with carbonated water.

“We worked closely with Multi-Conveyor to ensure the track system matched perfectly with the dimensions of our CIMEC llers,” says Hartwig.

Retooling for new products

The collaborative effort helps maintain production consistency across Twig’s two main lines for both non-returnable and returnable glass bottles. What’s more, the upgraded line also positioned Twig’s for growth beyond glass-bottled sodas in 2024, when they launched Twig’s FIZZ, a soft seltzer line in 12-oz. PET bottles.

Twig’s employs two separate capping systems: an AROL EAGLE-C IES automatic single-head crowning machine for bottles with pry-off crowns, and a Kinex QuickFeed Capper for plastic bottles with twistoff caps. With dual-closure exibility, Twig’s can switch between bottle types, enhancing production versatility.

Filled and capped bottles move onto Multi-Conveyor’s secondary 90-deg side- exing curve conveyor that feeds into a CTM 360 Series pressure-sensitive modular labeler from CTM Labeling Systems. This labeler handles both plastic seltzer bottles and blank non-returnable glass bottles (traditional returnable glass bottles retain their etched paint designs.) A Citronix coder marks each bottle with production dates for traceability and quality control, with returnable bottles being coded on the cap.

Bottles continue to Twig’s new rotary accumulation table from Multi-Conveyor, where operators hand-pack the beverages into cases for shipment.

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Filled and crowned bottles rotate on a Multi-Conveyor accumulation table before being inspected and hand-packed into cases.

One of the challenges was designing the line layout in a compact space, and Hartwig says Multi-Conveyor delivered on it.

“They came back in and made sure the line layout worked for us,” Hartwig says. “The communication is always very clear—as soon as we need to talk to them about anything, they’re there for us.”

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Co-packing Beyond Sun Drop

In addition to bottling for its own brand and Sun Drop, Twig’s has expanded its co-packing services to regional brands looking to bring new sodas to market. Twig’s flexible production setup, low minimum order quantities, and commitment to quality make it an appealing partner for brands testing new products before large-scale production.

Twig’s has partnered with brands like Lakefront Brewery, producing maple root beer, and crafting cherry and black cherry sodas for other brands. Twig’s co-packing approach reflects its roots as a small business focused on collaborating and supporting brands, even at low volumes.

“We start small brands off with one or two pallets, and as their products pick up, we scale with them,” Hartwig says.

What’s Twig’s formula for excelling in co-packing for small to medium-sized brands? “Be flexible, prioritize customer service, and keep your minimums low,” Hartwig says. “Understanding your clients’ needs and helping them grow is the key to long-term success.” PW

More soda, less stress

Hartwig says Twig’s partnership with Multi-Conveyor and its other suppliers is paying off on the plant oor.

“We can now produce in two to three days what used to take a week,” Hartwig says.

The revamped line can handle up to 14,000 bottles per day, nearly doubling the previous capacity of around 8,640 bottles, according to Hartwig. Twig’s new, productive line has also reduced team member stress and impacted operator morale.

sodas in 2014. The bottling line upgrade helped Twig’s launch its rst seltzer water line in PET bottles in 2024 (right).

“Our team no longer feels overwhelmed by production targets,” Hartwig says. “Now, they come in knowing they can get their work done without constantly worrying about breakdowns.”

Looking ahead, Twig’s plans to expand its distribution network, particularly in areas like Madison, Wis. and Milwaukee, where demand for specialty sodas is strong, Hartwig says. The company is also pursuing SQF (Safe Quality Food) certi cation, a critical step that should open new doors for Twig’s in larger retail markets and enhance its co-packing credentials. With its new seltzer line in plastic bottles just getting started, Twig’s also hopes to expand distribution at events and venues that restrict glass containers.

Joe Miller, chief operating of cer of Multi-Conveyor, sees his company’s partnership with Twig’s as a rst step.

“Now that phase one is complete, Multi-Conveyor’s sales, project management and engineering teams are working hand-in-hand with Twig’s management and production supervisory staff, providing the same assistance to successfully implement phase two of their project, which will increase ef ciency and improve pro tability.”

Hartwig says he and his brothers, Jake and Luke, look forward to continuing the Twig’s tradition started by their grandfather. The close-knit environment of the family business in a small community fosters collaboration and a shared sense of purpose, he says. “We’re always bouncing ideas off each other, and we love supporting our community as much as they support us.” PW

Twig’s launched its own brand of specialty

Cristalia Implements PET Bottle with Integral Handle

This bottled water producer says it differentiated itself on the shelf, improved its appearance, added supply chain-friendly robustness, and upgraded its sustainability profile, all without sacrificing the integral handle consumers love. Here’s how they did it.

By Matt Reynolds, Chief Editor

Sourced locally from natural springs in Puerto Rico’s Caguas Valley, East Valley, and North Aquifer, Cristalia Premium Water says it bottles and sells the purest water on the island. The brand’s popularity there certainly substantiates the claim. Owned by vertically integrated Dominican Republic brand owner Diesco Industries and bottled by Diesco’s Pac Tech International (PTI) operation in Las Piedras, PR, Cristalia has long been the market leader in its corner of the Caribbean.

Even so, the brand recently had faced headwinds from near-identically packaged challengers in the 1-G HDPE jug format. Consumers couldn’t differentiate jugs of Cristalia from competitors sitting right alongside it on the retail shelf. This caused sales to plateau without much space for growth in a constrained geographical region. Outside of a race to the bottom on price, there weren’t a lot of levers to pull to help Cristalia to distinguish itself on a crowded shelf of similar-looking gallon jugs.

For stateside city dwellers, it’s worth noting that this 1-G format is particularly popular in Puerto Rico. Consumers there buy a lot of bottled water in larger pack formats than we might see on the mainland. Recent natural disasters like hurricanes Irma and Maria underscore the importance of having potable water, and lots of it, available on a Caribbean island. Tap water is perfectly safe everywhere in Puerto Rico, but hurricanes can disrupt its supply, and storm memories are pervasive in the area.

Such was the state of affairs in the Puerto Rican water market about ve years ago. To reinvigorate brands like Cristalia, and explicitly commit itself to supplying the storm-prone region, in 2019 Diesco chose to signi cantly boost and reinvest in its PTI bottling operations. It converted a large brown eld, former candy manufacturing plant into a state-of-theart water bottling facility, upping its size, throughput, and capability. A

big driver for the new facility was the shadow of then-recent Hurricane Maria—Grupo Diesco CEO and President Manuel Diez Cabral saw that Puerto Rico didn’t need to go through another water shortage-related humanitarian disaster. Import substitution strategies wouldn’t cut it in an emergency. The PET lightweighting trend was well underway anyhow, and investment was already necessary to modernize facilities and capabilities on the single-serve lines. This facilities investment coincided with Cristalia looking to differentiate its 1-G water line.

New bottle on the block

Meanwhile, a edgling PET bottle technology using a preform with an integral handle was emerging in the States. Packaging World covered early iterations (pwgo.to/8415) of the tech at PACK EXPO International in 2018. The rights to the technology changed hands a few times, and owners reached out to InterTech, an engineering, procurement, and construction rm in Atlanta, to help develop it and work with OEMs to develop machinery to support the technology. The decision was made to create a new company, Handle Preforms, LLC, and to go to market under the catchier BottleOne moniker.

This proprietary, license-based PET preform technology and stretch blow molding format includes an integral handle on the preform that remains rmly af xed to a sturdy, injection molded neck before and after the bottle is blown. Unlike opaque HDPE jugs, BottleOne PET bottles are transparent, so proponents say they offer greater consumer impact on the shelf—something that might pique the interest of a Cristalia brand seeking differentiation. Just like the HDPE jugs BottleOne seeks to disrupt, the integral handle also allows for easy one-handed pouring. This is important since these aren’t single-serve formats.

The bottle and PET material is also more robust and rigid than the standard 1-G HDPE jug format, behaving more like a 2-L carbonated soft drink (CSD) bottle than a milk jug, stakeholders say. Its sturdiness and hermetic seal let consumers to store it horizontally in a home refrigerator without fear of leakage. That’s not a strong suit of HDPE jugs, as anyone who has made that mistake with a milk jug knows. For Caribbean island consumers who may seek to stock up, vertical stacking without fear of collapse and resulting leakers is another bene t—one that extends upstream into the supply chain. Retailers can simply stack bottles as a display without a shelf, and distributors can stack pallets

of bottles in transportation using only shrink wrap. That means bottlers like PTI could forgo reliance on corrugated tray and case materials, using only shrink lm in its place. Speci c to high-humidity tropical environments like Puerto Rico, where corrugated breaks down quickly, this is especially advantageous.

It bears mentioning that BottleOne isn’t the only water bottle game in town, even in Puerto Rico. PepsiCo and Coca-Cola, for instance, have their own water brands in 1-G PET bottles in the market. But BottleOne’s integral handle distinguishes it. Other brands use a bale- or pinch-grip accessory handle that’s mechanically af xed to the neck ring but is not contiguous with the bottle. BottleOne says retailers have trouble with the

The BottleOne format’s top-load strength allows for stacking in retail settings. Multipacks of 2 by 3 use decorated, registered shrink lm instead of corrugated for improved branding.

Cristalia (left) 1-G [120-oz] PET jugs on the shelf at a Walmart in Puerto Rico, next to HDPE (center) and PET with bale-grip handle (right) formats.

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bale-grip format since the handles are prone to falling off in the supply chain, thus are harder to stock when they arrive at loading docks. BottleOne stakeholders say that consumers nd these bale-grip rings can be uncomfortable to carry. Additionally, these types of handles do not allow for a single hand pour.

Burning the ships to make the switch

As Diesco moved into the new facility, bottler PTI’s existing packaging line equipment also began to move. That included several highspeed, single-serve PET bottled water lines. There were tentative plans to move the water 1-G HDPE water jug line over as well. Notably, the brand had not been blowing its HDPE jugs on-site. It had been blowing the bottles off-site at one of Diesco’s plastics facilities, or sometimes taking delivery from a third party. This was a suboptimal solution for both ef ciency and sustainability, as transporting empty 1-G bottles is said to be “shipping air.”

But that wouldn’t be a problem much longer. By the time of the facility migration, Diez and his team had caught wind of the BottleOne format.

in HDPE. Once we did some market testing and some focus groups, it was obvious that the consumer was going to prefer this beautiful clear bottle that they could hold, grab, and pour.”

But there’s also the issue of leaking with a polyethylene gallon since the neck is not perfect—Diez says this factor is reported as an issue in all the industries that use it, like dairy and edible oil because it’s not an injected neck like on the PET.

“We could eliminate all the leakers that are inherent with the package. And the neck of the PET bottle is just superior closure-wise, the topload strength is much better, and you can avoid bottles being crushed,” Diez says. “And environmentally, it made all the sense in the world. We’re going to eliminate the corrugated, which is a huge cost and it’s simply a transport vehicle. We also can switch the resin so that we convert to food grade recycled PET [rPET]. One of the things we are doing, and we are actually going to inaugurate it later this year, is the rst rPET plant in the Caribbean. By the end of this year we’re going to have recycled content, and a closed loop system where we can actually grab the discarded bottles, convert them to food grade rPET, and insert them into the nished product. We could reduce dramatically our carbon footprint.”

“When we were out tting this new brand-new plant, the one thing that we hadn’t transitioned over was our legacy HDPE line,” Diez says. “We had been following this new technology and stayed in touch with Greg [Kershner] and Mike [Cunningham] and their BottleOne team to see when mass production would be available. When we were told BottleOne had production machines in operation, right as we were building this new plant, and we saw that there was a potentially gamechanging package that we could use to substitute for the status quo. It was a choice between modernizing the [high-density] polyethylene package, or making a commitment to transforming the package from the polyethylene to PET. We struggled for a few years, and we took the bullet on keeping the old machinery and equipment running on polyethylene in the old facility while awaiting the availability of the BottleOne format. When it became available, we nally threw all the numbers down on paper, and there were just too many pluses to BottleOne. Not only was the consumer going to get a better-looking package that would be completely transparent, they also were going to get a better tasting product, as there are sometimes complaints of an off avor in water

Multiple varieties of Cristalia water on a retail shelf. While a gallon is equivalent to 128 oz, 120-oz jugs (near gallon equivalent) are the standard in Puerto Rico.

Preforms rst travel into a ve-cavity SIPA linear SFL blow mold machine, where they’re blown at a rate of 83 bottles/min.

Blown bottles exit the blow molder on Dyco conveyers.

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Once the decision was made to adopt BottleOne, there was no looking back for Diesco, PTI, or its Cristalia brand. Diez recalls a regionally signi cant story about the Spanish conquistadors burning their ships once they arrived at a destination to show their commitment to staying, and not be tempted to return to their departure port.

“So that’s what we did. We literally mothballed the polyethylene lines, put them on a couple 40-ft. container trucks, and said, ‘We’re committing to this, there’s no going back.’”

Challenges in implementation

“We didn’t have many concerns in terms of consumer acceptance,” Diez says. “We had done all the homework we needed and felt comfortable with that. The biggest concern was operational. Our challenge was to ramp up ef ciently, so that the cost savings that we were getting in other areas weren’t consumed by operational inef ciencies.”

Indeed, Cristalia’s BottleOne adoption was a trial by re for the format, which had never run 24/7 before. To account for the unforeseen, Diez and PTI overshot their production capacity, knowing they might not get the ef ciency levels they were accustomed to.

“We knew that the ramp up curve was going to be slower than what it usually is when you set up a normal PET machine and lling line. By oversizing production, we felt we were covered in terms of supplying the market,” Diez says.

The packaging line

Packaging World usually begins its beverage lling line reporting at a bottle unscrambler or a depalletizer. But with a vertically integrated company like Diesco, we can reach a bit deeper into the supply chain to better understand how the whole system ows. It also doesn’t hurt that a key partner in the BottleOne format is InterTech, an OEM agnostic integrator that helped to select and procure equipment for operations Cristalia’s 120-oz PET bottle operations at PTI.

Multipacking in a Robopac shrink tunnel; no corrugated is needed. Clear lm is pictured, but Cristalia recently employed decorated, registered lm for a better appearance when the bottles are stacked as stand-alone displays (image on page 114).

He saw other operations start up their new PET bottling lines haltingly, ramping up in dribs and drabs. Diesco and PTI used a different approach with the Cristalia 120-oz PET bottle line.

“We have 60 years of experience operating machinery and equipment. We know that unless you start working it 24 hours a day, seven days a week, you’re not going to know how to really polish it and make it run as ef ciently as possible. We had done enough testing and onsite visits to manufacturing facilities that were used as test sites. We had done our due diligence with BottleOne. We burned out ships and jumped in right to full production, and then it was a matter of ne tuning at that point.”

“In our partnership with BottleOne, we are making the preforms locally in our plant in Dominican Republic, and we ship the preforms to PTI in Puerto Rico to be blown and lled. We do that for all our PET preforms, not just the gallon PET. But the integral handle on the BottleOne format is certainly unique among our preforms,” Diez says, without revealing the secret sauce science behind the integral

handle. “There’s a whole concept behind this system in terms of energy costs being less [in DR], economies of scale, exibility, and the ease of getting product from one island to the other because there’s a lot of commerce between them. You can put a container in Puerto Rico in less than 24 hours,” Diez explains. “It makes a lot of sense for us to do it that way.”

Bottles are lled on an eight-head monoblock ller from Fogg Filler, with capping (center right) immediately following.

Plus, shipping preforms is a lot more ef cient and sustainable than shipping blown bottles, even over shorter distances like from the Dominican Republic to Puerto Rico.

Diesco’s plastic subsidiary Polyplas Dominicana uses injection molding equipment from Husky with the proprietary integral handle mold, thus achieving the robust injection molded neck and handle in the preform. Those are bulk shipped to PTI, where bottles are stretch blown in-line prior to lling. Stretch blow-molding happens using a ve-cavity SIPA linear SFL blow mold machine, which feeds empty bottles into accumulation and buffer conveyance from Dyco

“The buffer gives the lling line enough space to keep lling if we’re doing tests on the preform molds or anything else,” Diez says. “The empty bottle is heavy enough and stable enough that it can travel on a regular conveyor line down to the to the lling station.”

Prior to lling, bottles pass through an MCC labeler that af xes adhesive applied labels from rollstock supplied by local Puerto Rican lm converter CCL. In designing the labels, the Cristalia team got creative with one of PET’s competitive advantages over HDPE: transparency. Two mostly transparent labels are applied to each bottle—one on the front, one on the back. The Cristalia logo is prominently positioned on the

traceability of all the products that we make,” Diez says of date coding operations. “Once they’re packed, we can trace everything everywhere.”

Speaking of caps, Diesco’s Polyplas Dominicana injection molds those, too. Instead of an all-PET cap and closure design, Diez and PTI opted to keep the legacy HDPE closure that they knew worked.

“We didn’t want to have an issue with a closure. And we felt there was enough testing going on with the bottle itself, so we didn’t want to also be working on testing a different cap than the one we knew already worked,” Diez says. “The rigid, injection molded PET neck means we don’t have the leaker issues that so many HDPE bottle and closure systems have.”

Secondary packaging follows in-line, consisting of a Robopac Dimac Nova 30T heat shrink wrap tunnel. Again, the complete lack of corrugated is notable here. Printed, registered shrink lm is used to wrap these multipacks, affording them additional branding if they stand alone, stacked from the oor or on an end-of-aisle display in retail, instead of single units residing on the shelf.

“We started with a two by three format for six gallons total in the multipack. We’re probably going to offer a two by two at some point, as well. But our research tells us that two by three is about as much weight as any consumer would be willing to carry, even if they’re stocking up.”

front label above text indicating which of the ve varieties of water it contains. Color is used sparingly on these labels, leaning into the transparent aesthetic of water, but each of the ve SKUs is associated with a color. For instance, puri ed water for babies is yellow, and distilled water is red. These colors appear on the labels in aqueous patterns, like beaded water droplets or dye entering a solution. These aqueous patterns also appear on the back label. Though the pattern is mostly the same as the label on the front, the cylindrical curvature of the bottle creates a lens or sh-eye effect that magni es the colored beads of water that appear on the back label. Using transparency and magni cation, a simple design cleverly achieves an outsized shelf impact. Caps are color-matched to the SKUs that they close, making it easy for consumers to identify their preferred variety, whether distilled or alkaline, on the shelf. Cristalia is the only bottler in the region that manufactures puri ed, distilled, alkaline, and baby water.

An eight-head monoblock ller from Fogg Filler, a ProMach brand, is next. Color-coordinated caps are torqued on immediately after lling. As they exit the monoblock, lled and capped bottles receive an inkjet date code. “Because of our FSS22000 certi cations, we have full

Cases ow to a PIA top-down palletizer via AMT conveyor. The pallet pattern works out to seven bottles by seven bottles at each edge, with two, two, and three bottle con gurations representing each square face. A square chimney that matches the diameter of one bottle rises up the center of the pallet. Layers are stacked to interlock up to four in height, using only shrink lm—no corrugated.

Scan the QR code or visit pwgo.to/8461 to watch a video of the Cristalia 1-G bottled water line in action.

PTI is experimenting with a ve-layer high pallet, since the topload of the BottleOne package can handle the added weight. The blow molder operates with a speed of 5,000 bottle/hour (83 bpm) with each successive piece of equipment rated at a higher speed to assure the products are always being “pulled away” for maximum line ef ciency. To determine run lengths and changeover schedule, Cristalia starts with what’s needed to be produced to ll demand, and works backward from there to work out how long lines will be running each SKU or variety.

“Because of the handle, our experience is that you’re not going to get the same output as you would if you bought that same stretch blow molding machine for just a regular preform. I’m sure you could have more cavitations than you do with this integral handle preform, but all that was embedded in our analysis. We knew from the beginning that we were sacri cing a little speed and a little volume for the better bottle design with a handle, and the ability to use rPET,” Diez says of the throughput. “As with any producer, we want to limit changeovers, so we’ll do a few days of each product, store them and then move on when we meet the projected sales volume. What represents most of the volume is the regular Cristalia puri ed water, so we tend to switch back to that.”

Shrink-wrapped multipacks ow to a palletizer via AMT conveyor.

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More generally Diez says of the equipment on the integrated line, “We pride ourselves in using top names in packaging equipment manufacturing just because you need to have a constant conversation with them. You need to be able to have 24-hour access to them, and their support. It also gives credibility to the process as well, which is important for everybody involved.”

Results

Diez’s analogy of Spanish conquistadors burning their ships to symbolize commitment didn’t end at PTI’s shuttering of the legacy HDPE line. It also extended to the retail shelf. Once the new BottleOne PET line was reliably up and running, the team at Diesco worked closely with Walmart stores on the island to arrange for an early morning shelf swap of its legacy HDPE format for its new PET bottles. Instead of consumers being gradually weaned off HDPE jugs of Cristalia over weeks, the brand ipped the packaging format switch in one fell swoop.

“One Monday morning at 5 a.m., before the store was open, we wanted to come in with a team and literally empty all the shelves of our old product, and replace it with the new,” Diez says. “We needed their help logistically on a few things, but Walmart committed to it. When the consumer left Walmart on Sunday, there were all polyethylene bottles. When they came back on Monday, there were all PET bottles. It was quite an interesting process.”

consumer or the retailers, so the Walmarts, Costcos, and Sam’s Clubs of this world are happy with this. And all the local retail chains on the island are happy with the product. We’re now starting to export it to the rest of the Caribbean as we’ve gotten very comfortable with the process. It’s really a transformational product that we’re proud of.”

What’s next

Operational ef ciencies continue to improve on the line, though most of the heavy lifting of ramp-up is complete. Cristalia and PTI were conservative with the rst pallets that left the line, stacking them to four layers and using slip sheets. Slip sheets have since been deemed unnecessary, and the company is experimenting with a fth pallet layer.

“This is polishing that needs to happen at an operational level,” Diez says. “How can we reduce packaging even more? How we can be more ef cient logistically? Now that we are comfortable with the consumer and retail acceptance of the product, how do we make this even more ef cient? How can we take more costs out of it? That’s the next step now.”

Diez also hopes his installation serves as a demonstration platform for other companies looking into BottleOne.

A PAI top-down palletizer anchors the line (above). Unlike HDPE jugs, the BottleOne PET format’s top-load strength allows for stacking without corrugated. Shown here in four layers (left), the company is currently experimenting with adding a fth layer.

According to Diez, consumer acceptance since the switch was ipped has been “fabulous. Better than we even expected,” he says. “We were able to reduce the price thanks to the ef ciency of the line, so consumers are getting a better environmental package, a reduced price, and a better-looking product. And we’ve got the capacity to supply the whole island in hurricane season, so these larger format packages are crucial. When hurricane seasons come and we have emergencies, it really makes all the difference in the world. We felt from a consumer standpoint, that it was going to be a home run—that was obviously in our analysis in our Excel spreadsheets. And I’m happy to report that it has been.”

Retailers love the format, too, he says. The likes of Walmart and Costco expected Cristalia’s PET to be a hit among consumers, but they also stood to bene t from supply chain ef ciency.

“The difference is astronomical from what it was before today. No leakers and no corrugated, which the retailers had to deal with afterwards. This was a win/win. We have not heard one complaint from the

“I think the savings are going to be even greater in other industries, like dairy and edible oils, where damaged bottles and leakers present a messier problem than does water,” Diez says. The integral handle comes in handy in foodservice or janitorial environments, too, for applications like cooking oil or disinfectants. The BottleOne format combines the one-handed pour convenience of the HDPE jug-like handle with the supply chain and sustainability perks of PET bottles.”

The next big thing for the Cristalia brand will be adding post-consumer resin (PCR) to the PET stream, for food grade, rPET content bottles.

“We’re we’ve already done testing with postconsumer resin—not in the gallon per se, but in the half liter and the 8-oz bottle. We feel comfortable that the product works, so the biggest challenge is going to be the price point, because PCR is more expensive than virgin resin. What’s next is incorporating that resin, and guring out the pricing strategy. We expect to be on our way sometime in 2025, with 25% PCR partially inserted into these products.” PW

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PACK EXPO International 2024 Quick Facts

Witness an unparallelled range of solutions and engage with industry thought leaders at the largest international packaging and processing show of 2024.

SHOW HOURS

Plan Ahead, Download the PACK EXPO International Mobile App

Download the free PACK EXPO International Mobile App, sponsored by ProMach, Inc., to your smartphone to navigate the show like a pro.

• Look up exhibitors, products, and educational sessions.

• Create and save a personal agenda of what you want to see and do. Access your agenda anywhere.

• Navigate from booth to booth with the interactive map.

• Get news and noti cations about demos, giveaways, and more.

• Join in on the Scavenger Hunt and enter to win $1,000.

New to PACK EXPO International 2024

Emerging Brands Central is a valuable resource for brands seeking to expand their reach and scale operations. An evolution of the Emerging Brands Summit, this educational stage offers easy access to industry experts as they share insights on topics including product development, packaging innovation, and scaling strategies. Attendees can participate in these free 30-minute sessions, which promise to deliver up-to-the-minute, practical advice for scaling operations. Emerging Brands Central will be located in the West Building at Booth W20049 See page 128 for more information.

Making its PACK EXPO International debut, Sustainability Central will take an expansive look into packaging sustainability and what it means to brands. That includes expert speakers and actionable, sustainable solutions in manufacturing, materials, design, and more.

Expert representatives from leading companies will share insights on various packaging sustainability topics and practical strat-

egies for brands to boost sustainability. With over 20 educational sessions, attendees can learn from experts at Amazon, Clorox, Conagra, Dr. Bronner’s, Dow, Merck, Nestlé, the Consumer Brands Association, and more well-known companies and organizations.

Sustainability Central will also feature kiosks from Virginia Tech, the University of Florida, Clemson University, PMMI Business Intelligence, AMERIPEN, and others, highlighting their latest research, innovations, and best practices. Find it in the West Hall at Booth W21020 See page 128 for more information.

The PACK EXPO Scavenger Hunt will transform the show into a dynamic and interactive journey, with an opportunity to win $1,000.

To participate, attendees must download the mobile app and enter the unique codes found at each of the 10 show specialty areas within all four buildings of McCormick Place. Attendees who complete all stops will be entered for a chance to win $1,000. Three winners will be selected.

Attendees can access the scavenger hunt via the PACK EXPO International Mobile App, sponsored by ProMach, Inc.

Returning Pavilions at the Show

The Healthcare Packaging Pavilion is a top destination for life sciences companies. It’s a “show within a show,” housing innovations for biologicals, medical devices, nutraceuticals, and pharmaceuticals. Find the Healthcare Packaging Pavilion in the West Hall.

Logistics is a crucial part of the product journey from manufacturer to consumer, and it’s more important than ever with the boom in e-commerce. The Logistics Pavilion will be the place to nd targeted solutions related to the supply chain, including distribution, warehousing, transportation, material handling, docking, and inventory management. Due to high attendee demand, this year’s Logistics Pavilion will be four times larger than 2022! Find it in the North Building.

This exciting area features the latest innovations in digital printing and converting, labeling, coding, and marking technologies. Year after year, the PACKage Printing Pavilion continues to be attendees’ rst stop for the digital printing, converting, and labeling solutions they need to enable cost-effective customization, short runs, and on-demand traceability and variable data packaging. Find The PACKage Printing Pavilion in the South Hall.

Association Partner Pavilion

The Association Partner Pavilion houses leading associations from the PACK EXPO International Partner Program. These organizations are dedicated to advancing the packaging and processing industry and offering signi cant resources, insights, and expertise. Find and engage with them all in one central location in the North Hall. Participating associations can be found at pwgo.to/8465.

For more pavilion information and to nd exhibitors within every pavilion at PACK EXPO International, visit pwgo.to/8464

Technology Excellence Award Finalists:

Your Vote Counts!

The Technology Excellence Awards are back at PACK EXPO International 2024, and it’s up to you to vote for the winner. These awards recognize the most innovative technologies not yet shown at any previous PACK EXPO event. More than 100 solutions suppliers submitted nominations for this year’s awards, which were reviewed by top industry professionals and narrowed down to three nalists in each of four categories.

New this year, voting will begin online on October 28, a week before the show starts, and continue through noon on Tuesday, November 5. In-person attendees are encouraged to visit the nalists’ booths and vote via the of cial show app or online. Winners will be announced after noon on November 5. For a complete description of the nalists’ technologies, visit the Technology Excellence Awards page at pwgo.to/8467

Workforce Development

PMMI U is offering its popular training workshops in Chicago to coincide with PACK EXPO International.

• Risk Assessment Workshop: November 1-2, 2024

• Certi ed Trainer Workshop: November 3-4, 2024

• Field Service Essentials: November 3-4, 2024

Visit pwgo.to/8468 to browse and register for these workshops

Attendee Resource Center

The Attendee Resource Center is an online gateway with information and resources to help attendees maximize their time and get more ROI from attending PACK EXPO International. Download the Attendee ROI Guide, use the justi cation letter template, watch explainer videos, explore additional search tools to nd the best solutions at the show, and much more. Find it at pwgo.to/8469

Packaging & Processing Women’s Leadership Network Breakfast

The Packaging & Processing Women’s Leadership Network (PPWLN) serves to recruit, retain, and advance women’s careers in packaging and processing. Each PACK EXPO, the PPWLN hosts a networking event to address a timely issue facing women in the industry.

The annual PPWLN Breakfast is back during PACK EXPO International, Tuesday, November 5 at 7:15-9 a.m., in Room W-375 at McCormick Place. It’s the perfect spot to mingle, munch, and start your day with energy and inspiration from guest speaker Lisa Sun, founder and CEO of retail brand and lifestyle company GRAVITAS. Sun will blend her personal story, experiences from her

data-driven insights from 11 years at McKinsey & Company, and the story of the launch of GRAVITAS to showcase the power of con dence, innovation, and a strong vision. Beginning her career at McKinsey & Company, Sun is no stranger to the corporate world’s highs and challenges. Her transformation from receiving critical feedback to launching a size-inclusive apparel brand shows just how powerful embracing your unique “superpower” can be.

The PPWLN Networking Breakfast is sponsored by BW Packaging, Emerson, ID Technology, Morrison Container Handling Solutions, Plexpack Corp., Schneider Electric, Septimatech, and Syntegon Packaging Technology, LLC. Register at pwgo.to/8466.

Get insights from industry professionals right on the show floor. Scan the QR codes for updated schedules on all of the show features listed below.

Innovation Stage

Learn the latest industry developments with up-to-the-minute content. On the show oor, three Innovation Stages present free 30-minute seminars on breakthrough technologies and techniques focused on a wide range of industry-speci c solutions.

Processing Innovation Stage

Find out about the latest food and beverage processing breakthroughs, including food safety, high-pressure pasteurization, sustainability, cleaning, and more in 30-minute seminars. These seminars are targeted to food and beverage manufacturers.

Industry Speaks

Gain valuable insights from industry experts tuned into the hot topics affecting packaging and processing. Speakers will cover multiple industry verticals, and speak on the latest trends including sustainability, remote access, supply chain solutions, augmented reality, and operational ef ciency.

Sustainability Central

Receive actionable advice on how to make your brand more sustainable at this new, must-attend educational stage. Expert speakers from Amazon, Clorox, Dow, Merck, Conagra Brands, and more will cover a range of packaging sustainability topics and guide you to a complete understanding of achieving packaging sustainability or your brand.

Emerging Brands Central

This new educational stage is designed for brands seeking to expand their reach and scale operations. It offers easy access to industry experts as they share insights on topics including product development, packaging innovation, and scaling strategies. These free, 30-minute sessions promise to deliver practical advice for scaling operations.

Reusable Packaging Learning Center

Hear suppliers’ and end-users’ real-world experiences of incorporating reusable assets into the supply chain. Discover how a reusable packaging system can improve material-handling performance, reduce operating costs, create new economic values, and lower environmental impacts in your supply chain.

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Building a Modular MachineVisualization Solution

Mespack innovated and modularized to best meet its customers’ needs, including a flexible Emerson Movicon.NExT HMI/SCADA to standardize its products and support future advancements.

By Sean Riley, Senior News Director

For many mass-produced products, standardization and modularity are great ways to improve overall ef ciency. However, this approach is challenged when the products must incorporate many variations. Mespack of Barcelona, Spain, an international packaging machinery manufacturer of horizontal and vertical form/ ll/seal, end-of-line, and water-soluble pods equipment for consumerpackaged goods (CPGs) serving the world’s leading brands, experienced the latter situation.

“Mespack offers a wide-ranging industry product portfolio. We may supply a single machine to a customer or a turn-key solution for entire production lines. While we offer standard products, there is great customer demand for various sizes, capabilities, and other customizations, so all equipment is tailor-made,” says Adrián Mora, automation and controls engineer at Mespack.

From a mechanical standpoint, Mora says Mespack made great strides over the years in designing machines featuring modular construction so they could rapidly offer a variety of solutions based on proven technol-

ogy. Because the digital graphical human-machine interface (HMI) is a highly visible way that operators interact with the equipment, it plays a key role in the overall acceptance of any machine design (Figure 1).

Mespack’s design team needed to select an HMI software platform that would provide signi cant design exibility, modern visualization, extensive connectivity, and the ability to scale and address future needs—just as modular as their mechanical approach.

Taking a closer look at the HMI

Over the years, the Mespack design team became well-acquainted with various HMIs. Some products were standalone, while others could be networked as larger supervisory control and data acquisition (SCADA) systems. They knew what worked and held some strong opinions about how an HMI/SCADA platform would need to support their efforts for current and future equipment.

A primary consideration for selecting a new standard HMI/SCADA was that it needed to use scalable vector graphics to deliver a modern look

Figure 1: An HMI is a vital and highly visible way for operators to interact, so it must provide clear visualization, extensive connectivity, and scalable design exibility.

and feel like any contemporary web experience (Figure 2). However, any HMI/SCADA platform encompasses more than just a striking outward appearance, so the Mespack team created a list of other must-have features. Some of those requirements included graphical elements, objects, and library support—including both standard and user-developed objects—through an easyto-use integrated development environment, promoting consistency and rapid con guration by developers.

“A user-centered interface readily adopted and understood by all levels of their customers’ staff. Support for creating con gurations is based largely on the ISA101 human-machine interface standard, but with the ability to add new and speci c functionalities to help users operate the machines. Comprehensive multi-driver communications so the platform could interact with any target OT-located PLC or intelligent device, and with any higher-level IT computing resources,” Mora says. “Advanced capabilities—such as scripting for sophisticated functions, and 21 CFR Part 11 electronic records/signatures compliance for regulated applications—and an application

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programming interface (API) so the developers could create their own internal automated methods for rapidly developing con gurations.”

It also needs to be able to run standalone on a desktop or industrial PC and be deployed in a client/server architecture while providing secure cloud connectivity and mobile visibility and options for loading/viewing/ managing/storing machine settings and exposing data and operating information through graphical widgets, reports, SMS, emails, and more.

Mespack was looking for a uni ed visualization and data handling HMI/SCADA platform with ample innovation to adapt to its current equipment and future requirements while offering a user-friendly and streamlined user experience. The team had hands-on experience with many products that could not quite do it all, and this helped inform their research into other products, leading them to select Emerson Movicon.NExT as its standardized HMI/SCADA platform.

Building a digital machine solution

Previous machine HMI con gurations were more speci c to individual machines, and there was no effective or ef cient way to standardize the work and adapt it from one machine or project to another. So, the rst task was to develop typical graphical objects, screen navigation methods, and other principles that would be useful for all machines.

Thus began the creation of the Mespack Athena HMI/SCADA solution. This digital platform gives end user customers the power to maximize the value of their production data by performing various tasks ranging from machine control to data analytics (Figure 3). Now, the company can offer a consistent look and feel across their equipment offerings, reducing the operator learning curve while enabling the creation of a growing library of objects for easy implementation into each new project, speeding development and minimizing retesting.

“The solution moves beyond basic machine monitoring, setup, and command options and provides additional value by giving users complete access to their production data, along with the ability to perform analytics on this data to provide insights for optimizing production,

maximizing uptime, improving quality, and minimizing energy usage,” says Maurizio Zaniboni, senior software engineer, Emerson R&D.

While some of these installations may be standalone to some extent, they can still be remotely updated for enhanced support. The solution leverages native Windows security and user accounts. Now, Mespack has options to integrate its visualization solution throughout an entire production line, up to the cloud, and even to mobile devices, giving end users more options and capabilities than ever before.

“The company has utilized Movicon NExT scripting functionalities to develop a standardized project featuring a modular architecture. This architectural approach empowers programmers to ef ciently con gure the project with regard to visualization, navigation, and other functionality. As a result, commissioning time is signi cantly reduced, errors are avoided, and operational ef ciency is enhanced, increasing the end user satisfaction and making the Mespack realization team more efcient,” Zaniboni says.

From a super cial standpoint, some might see an HMI/SCADA as just a collection of everyday graphical objects and buttons, and the software category as fully mature and lacking novelty. However, this story highlights the need for an innovative HMI/SCADA platform ready to increase ef ciency and performance for OEMs, as well as end users and systems integrators.

According to Mora and Zaniboni, implementing Mespack Athena in the equipment signi cantly bene ts CPGs. Customers can streamline their operations due to the intuitive HMI/SCADA user interface/experience, which features tooltips and recommendations to reduce the learning curve for operators. Integration of the manufacturing process within a scalable platform enhances versatility, while quick access to alarm troubleshooting and preventive maintenance systems improves autonomy. Additionally, operators bene t from easy access to view support documentation.

“Mespack committed to creating modular mechatronic designs to provide a premium equipment offering, and now the HMI/SCADA platform empowers them to carry this concept further for the visualization and data processing aspects of their systems,” Mora concludes. PW

Figure 3: The Mespack Athena HMI/SCADA solution is built on Emerson Movicon.NExT, providing a standardized and streamlined look and feel throughout the company’s equipment offerings with operational insights based on data analytics.

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Estée Lauder Closes in on Sustainable Packaging Goals

Luxury cosmetics company Estée Lauder shares how internal design guidelines and innovative packaging strategies have allowed it to come within four percentage points of its 2025 sustainability goals.

By Anne Marie Mohan, Senior Editor

A mainstay of the beauty industry since 1946, The Estée Lauder Companies (ELC) has gained a worldwide reputation for elegance, luxury, and superior quality in the four major product categories of fragrance, hair care, skin care, and makeup in which it operates. With a portfolio of more than 20 brands and a presence in over 150 countries and territories, ELC is well-positioned to drive global impact around sustainability. It’s a responsibility the company has embraced throughout its organization, and its commitments around more sustainable packaging play an integral part.

Balancing luxury, functionality, and sustainability

ELC’s brands encompass an extensive range of beauty options, among them re ned luxury fragrances from Aerin, dermatologistguided skin care and makeup solutions from Clinique, plant-based and better-for-you hair and skin care products from Aveda and Origins, and vegan, cruelty-free makeup from Smashbox—among 18 others. But with great luxury comes great expectations, particularly from consumers who want equally premium packaging.

The Estée Lauder Companies’ fragrance, hair care, skin care, and makeup portfolio comprises 23 brands. Image courtesy of The Estée Lauder Companies

In 2020, ELC articulated its goals around sustainable packaging, stating that by 2025, 75% to 100% of its packaging by weight will meet at least one of what it calls the “5 Rs”: recyclable, re llable, reusable, recycled, or recoverable. In addition, it has committed to increasing its use of PCR to 25% or more by 2025 and reducing the amount of virgin plastic in its packaging to 50% or less by 2030.

While ELC’s goals are like those of many of its CPG peers, being in the luxury business carries with it unique challenges. Nevertheless, through its use of robust, SKU-level data and innovative, emerging technologies and strategies, the company is just a few percentage points shy of its 2025 goal.

“Our business is in the prestige and luxury beauty space, and in those markets, packaging is a very, very important part of the consumer proposition. It’s one of the rst things the consumer is attracted to when she sees it in the store or online,” says Robert Peterson, senior vice president, Global Packaging & Engineering, for The Estée Lauder Companies. “It has very high functional value, especially when you’re dealing with things that are applying makeup or applying product to the face. And it has a very high luxury-badge value to the consumer. Oftentimes the consumer cherishes the product; for example, she takes it out of her purse and puts it on in the restaurant. She wants people to see it.”

In this space, maintaining functionality and aesthetics while delivering a more sustainable package can be challenging. Premium beauty packaging often includes special printing processes like embossing and foils that render it non-recyclable, multiple materials and components, as in the case of mascara and lipstick packaging, and small-format sizes that can’t be recycled through conventional material recovery facilities (MRFs). The use of PCR in luxury packaging can also be dif cult. As a result of the mechanical recycling process, PCR may not have the same functional or aesthetic properties as virgin plastic, or even material compatibility with the products being packaged.

Despite these challenges, the company says that incorporating sustainability into its packaging designs is a strategic imperative. “That’s

why we created our 5 Rs,” says Peterson. “We wanted to give our brands options to look at different ways of driving our sustainable packaging.”

Important to note, he adds, when ELC developed its sustainable packaging goals in 2020, they were not driven by corporate pie-in-the sky aspirations. Rather, they were created in partnership and based on existing SKU-level analysis.

“We used the data to do a top-down analysis to say, ‘Okay, what are our current 5 Rs?’ And it was around 50%. And then, to get to 75% using the data analytics, we asked ourselves, ‘How much packaging can go to glass? How much can go to re ll? What percentage from available PCR streams can we incorporate?’ We did a top-down analysis to say that we believe this is achievable with these interventions.”

Custom tools and training guide sustainable design

As of 2023, 71% of ELC’s packaging meets the 5 Rs. Much of this progress can be attributed to New Product Launches (NPLs) that have been designed with the 5 Rs in mind. According to Peterson, 25 to 30% of ELC’s sales come from NPLs launched within 12 months. “As we’re developing new products and new packaging, we’re taking the opportunity to incorporate one of the 5 Rs, versus having to go back and design

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ELC switched the packaging for its Advanced Night Repair Serum from plastic to glass to allow the container to be recycled while enhancing its luxury appearance. Image courtesy of The Estée Lauder Companies

all our packages from scratch,” he explains.

To assist its packaging developers, marketers, and procurement teams in creating packaging that aligns with the 5 Rs, ELC developed its Packaging Sustainability Guidelines, which contain an overview of ELC’s de nitions, material selection guides, and FAQs. They also provide direction for design that enhances packaging sustainability.

The priorities listed in the guidelines include reducing and removing packaging where possible, designing packaging that is reusable and re llable, building designed-in recyclability, increasing amounts of PCR material in packaging, and replacing petroleum-based plastics with bioplastics, if the bioplastic can be recycled and does not contaminate traditional recycling systems.

ELC also provides regular training sessions, both formal and informal, for the packaging development team. In addition, in 2022, it introduced custom-developed tools to calculate the sustainability pro les of different packaging. In 2023, the calculator was enhanced to include

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potential GHG emissions associated with packaging designs.

“The calculator is very important, because we need to synchronize our new product package development work with our sustainability initiatives,” says Peterson. “Getting those developers and designers and engineers trained on using the tools is super important.”

ELC takes several routes to recyclability

As Peterson shares, getting from 50% to 71% recyclable, re llable, reusable, recycled, or recoverable packaging has involved “a lot of heavy lifting.” Given the expansive range of brands and packaging in ELC’s portfolio and their corresponding challenges, ELC’s packaging team has had to use out-of-the-box/bag/sachet/jar/bottle thinking. In the process, some of the packaging innovations ELC has introduced meet more than one of the 5 Rs. Likewise, for some of the 5 Rs, ELC has taken multiple routes to reach the same goal.

To address both recyclability as well as the need for more PCR in its packaging, in 2021, ELC transitioned from a plastic to a glass bottle for one of its biggest franchises, Estée Lauder Advanced Night Repair Serum. As Peterson explains, the existing bottle was made from a plastic that was not being captured in recycling streams. This meant that not only did the packaging not meet ELC’s recyclable standard, but because it was hard to re-

cycle, ELC was also unable to incorporate PCR into new serum packaging. According to a 2021 Facebook post from the company, switching to recyclable glass bottles for the serum “saves millions of plastic bottles per year.” It added, “If we lined up those bottles end-to-end, they would stretch over 2,000 km/over 1,000 miles!”

Some skeptics may argue that moving from plastic to glass may be more about consumer perception than an actual reduction in greenhouse gas emissions (GHGs). To ensure that a move from one material to another is more than window dressing, ELC conducts a Life Cycle Analysis (LCA) when making a packaging change.

“When we went from plastic to glass for our Advanced Night Repair Serum, it was a big decision,” says Peterson. “We wanted to be sure that by making it more recyclable, we wouldn’t end up increasing the carbon footprint of the packaging. So, we did a very detailed LCA using an external party to validate that that wasn’t the case. Then we were able to move forward with the project and the decision to go that route.”

ELC brand Aveda created a paper packet for its single-use sample packs that can be recycled in Europe and the U.K. Image courtesy of The Estée Lauder Companies

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In addition, the move to glass enhanced the aesthetics of the package, making it even more luxurious, Peterson adds.

Another avenue ELC is pursuing around recyclability is the use of paper for items like single-use sachets and sample packs, which are traditionally made from a multi-laminate exible lm structure. “Because we offer prestige and beauty products, sampling is a very, very important part of our business model,” says Peterson. “The consumer must often rst experience a product, then they fall in love with it and buy the full size. So, we want to be more sustainable with our single-use samples.”

In 2022, ELC hair-care brand Aveda, a pioneer in the sustainability space since its founding in 1978, unveiled a sample packet made from paper with an ethylene vinyl alcohol (EVOH) coating (see pwgo.to/8448). The packet is certi ed as curbside-recyclable in Europe and the U.K.; Aveda is still working toward broad recyclability, including in the U.S. In addition to recyclability, the packet also offers other sustainability

advantages. A peer-reviewed LCA shows that the paper package reduces water consumption by 36% to 68% and emissions [CO2 equivalent] by 37% to 64% when compared to the multilayer laminated structures commonly used in the industry.

For beauty and personal care product brands though, ensuring that a package is recyclable is not always as “easy” as switching to a new material. If a package is too small, even if it’s made from a material that is widely recyclable, it won’t be captured at a MRF due to the limitations of current sorting technology. Beauty and personal care packaging also oftentimes comprises numerous components, made from different materials and of different sizes.

Recognizing these challenges, in 1990, ELC established the Backto-MAC takeback program (see sidebar below) to help create a place for makeup packaging in the circular economy. Through the program, packaging is disassembled, and those materials that can be recycled are

Back-to-MAC Makes Recovery Possible

Of The Estée Lauder Companies’ 5 Rs, “recoverable” may be one of the most challenging for a maker of luxury personal care and beauty products. To address the difficulty in processing and recycling the small-format and multicomponent packaging traditionally used in these applications, in 1990, ELC brand MAC Cosmetics pioneered one of the first takeback programs with Back-to-MAC.

Back-to-MAC enables consumers to return their empty MAC Cosmetics packaging, including eyeshadow pots and lipstick packaging, to participating MAC stores and online. Not eligible for return are liquid lipsticks, glitters and pigments, makeup removers, fragrances, brush cleansers and face cleansers, mixing mediums, acrylic paints, nail lacquers, and airbrush makeup.

Says the provider, “Our global locations are uniquely positioned to handle recycled makeup packaging. While other facilities may require consumers to wash out bottles, containers, and tubes, we have the equipment to do it for them. Taking down the roadblock helps more consumers return their empties, giving them new life.”

To address the variety of challenges related to this packaging, ELC’s program takes into account operational concerns such as transportation, handling, and end-of-life processing, as well as customer experience, communication, and engagement, says Robert Peterson, senior vice president, Global Packaging & Engineering, for The Estée Lauder Companies.

In North America, ELC has developed a closed-loop system to reincorporate some of MAC’s signature black plastic collected through the Back-to-Mac takeback program into new makeup packaging. Image courtesy of The Estée Lauder Companies

To help run its programs, ELC collaborates with suppliers around the world. In Europe, MAC works with MBA Polymers. In Australia, it has partnered with end-to-end solutions provider Close the Loop for over a decade. In March 2023, MAC announced it would also be partnering with Close the Loop in the U.S. and Canada.

After empties are returned to MAC, they are delivered to Close the Loop facilities, where they are then sorted and processed. If the plastic materials can be recycled, they are shredded, washed, and repelletized, after which they used to produce new materials. Meanwhile, metals are separated and sent to a metals recycling facility, and glass is crushed before becoming new glass. Materials that cannot be recycled are converted into energy via waste-toenergy technology, for a zero wasteto-landfill solution.

While the amount of material that comes directly back to MAC for its new packaging varies, depending on consumer engagement and the types of packaging that are being returned, in North America, ELC has developed a closed-loop system to reincorporate some of MAC’s signature black plastic into new MAC makeup compacts.

Says Peterson, “It’s an investment of time, people, and expertise and is a program we’ve developed over many years in partnership with our suppliers.” In 2023, more than 340,000 lb of empty MAC containers—the equivalent of 9.3 million lipsticks—were processed in the U.S. PW

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handled by companies specializing in hard-to-recycle items; the balance is used as waste-to-energy. Back-to-MAC, as well as other takeback programs from ELC brands Aveda, DECIEM, Bobbi Brown, and Clinique, check off several 5 R boxes; they are recyclable and recoverable, and become a source for recycled materials.

Advanced recycling joins mechanical as a source of PCR

Among ELC’s 5 Rs, one of the most important interventions is the use of recycled content. In this area, Aveda has been a leader. According to the company, 80% of Aveda high-density polyethylene bottles use a minimum of 80% PCR content, and more than 85% of its skin care and styling PET bottles and jars contain 100% PCR. In scal 2021, Aveda also launched a new 350-mL mono-material tube with 65% PCR polypropylene, which ELC says is the highest percentage it has developed to date in a mono-material tube.

Despite Aveda’s success with recycled materials, however, Peterson explains that it can be tricky to incorporate mechanically recycled PCR into beauty packaging. “With mechanical recycling, as you break down plastics and then grind them down, and then remelt them and use them again in molding processes, they don’t always have the same mechanical or aesthetic properties, or even material compatibility properties with the formulas we use,” he says. “We have to do a lot of testing and analysis on the materials to see how they’re going to perform in combination with our formulas.

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“And sometimes, going back to our industry being perceived as luxury, the aesthetics are the big challenge. We may get the performance we need, but the aesthetics are not there. And then we have to go back to the brand and let them know there’s going to be a variation in the color of the package due to the PCR. Some brands are okay with that, because the story behind the brand is built around sustainability. Whereas other brands, while they want to be sustainable, they don’t want to sacri ce that luxury appearance.”

For the latter brands, ELC has found a way to incorporate PCR while still providing the same aesthetic properties and the same functionality as virgin materials. In 2021, ELC signed an agreement with chemical

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Molecular Recycling Contributes to PCR Goal

In 2021, The Estée Lauder Companies and Eastman announced a global memorandum of understanding (MOU) whereby ELC and its portfolio of brands would begin incorporating recycled material from Eastman’s molecular recycling technologies into its packaging. (Molecular recycling is one of the technologies that falls under the umbrella of advanced recycling.)

Eastman’s molecular recycling technology enables hard-torecycle polyester material to be broken down into its chemical building blocks for use in new PET products and packaging. Feedstock includes materials that would traditionally be sent to landfill or incineration, such as post-consumer recycled carpet fiber, green or mixed colored bottle bales, and thermoforms, among other waste polyester. In addition to unlocking a new source for rPET, Eastman says the technology also offers a lower GHG footprint when compared with virgin plastic production and results in a plastic that is indistinguishable from virgin materials.

Eastman’s portfolio of molecularly recycled PET resins includes Cristal Renew and Tritan Renew, which Eastman says “demonstrate the same high-quality and processing ease of virgin polymers with the clarity, luster, color compatibility, and durability cosmetics packaging demands—while providing premium recycled content.”

Says Robert Peterson, senior vice president, Global Packaging & Engineering, The Estée Lauder Companies, “Our goal to reduce the amount of virgin petroleum content in our packaging as well as regulations around the world that target plastic reduction further encourage our exploration of advanced recycling as a complementary solution to mechanical recycling. We incorporate advanced recycled material from a variety of suppliers across our portfolio of 20 brands where relevant.”

Eastman’s molecular recycling technology enables hard-torecycle polyester material to be broken down into its chemical building blocks for use in new PET products and packaging.

Balm and Bobbi Brown’s Extra Plump Lip Serum.

As Peterson explains, the decision to use mechanically or molecularly recycled material depends on whether a material might be available or compatible with a formula and its application, as well as the material’s compliance with ELC’s quality and certification standards. For those cosmetics that are regulated like overthe-counter drugs and require food-grade materials, advanced recycling offers virgin-quality materials that meet these regulations.

Packaging for Clinique’s Take the Day Off Cleansing Balm incorporates PCR from advanced recycling technologies. Image courtesy of The Estée Lauder Companies

In the last several years, ELC has worked with Eastman and global chemical company SABIC to incorporate advancedrecycled PCR into its packaging. Examples include packaging for products such as Clinique’s Take the Day Off Cleansing

company Eastman to begin using its molecularly recycled Renew PET resins in its packaging (see sidebar above). Since then, ELC has also worked with SABIC to source certi ed-circular polyole ns for its tube packaging.

“The exciting thing about advanced-recycled resins is that they have the same properties, theoretically, as virgin plastic, so there is very little compromise on quality and performance,” says Peterson. “We haven’t seen anything like it before. The challenge is that some of the materials

“Suppliers play a critical role in our packaging sustainability journey,” says Peterson. “Eastman’s recycling technologies and portfolio of Renew products are one example of supplier collaborations that help move forward our company’s packaging sustainability goals while maintaining the highquality aesthetic, safety, and performance of our brands’ prestige products.” PW

are still in the nascent stages; it’s not available for all resin types. It’s also more expensive.”

According to metrics provided in ELC’s 2023 Social Impact & Sustainability Report, since 2021, the company has increased the percentage of PCR used in its packaging from 15 to 19%. It also reports that in the same timeframe, it has increased the percentage of its packaging made from PCR and/or renewable materials from 38 to 40%. In regard to its use of virgin petroleum content in its packaging, ELC is currently at 83%.

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Reusable Glass Jar, Re ll Pod Reduce GHGs for Popular Moisturizer

In January 2022, The Estée Lauder Companies introduced an upgraded formula for its Revitalizing Supreme+ Moisturizer Youth Power Crème in packaging that meets two of the 5 Rs—refillable and reusable—while maintaining product integrity and the luxury experience ELC’s consumers expect.

“The product is one of the Estée Lauder brand’s leading moisturizers, and the brand wanted to improve the sustainability profile of the packaging, taking into account the whole product lifecycle,” shares Allan Hafkin, senior vice president, Global Brand Package Development, The Estée Lauder Companies.

The goal of the project was to create a refillable and reusable system that would reduce packaging waste and improve the overall environmental impact of the product. The resulting packaging system involved a switch from a plastic jar to a reusable, recyclable glass jar with a multi-material cap and the development of a plastic refill pod that minimizes packaging weight by 90%.

The re llable/reusable packaging for Estée Lauder’s Revitalizing Supreme+ Moisturizer Youth Power Créme includes a reusable glass jar and a re ll pod made from plastic. Image courtesy of The Estée Lauder Companies

The path to realizing this packaging system presented several hurdles, however. According to Hafkin, one of the primary issues was ensuring that the refillable pods were as robust as the original packaging. The design had to allow consumers to easily replace the pods while maintaining the luxurious feel of the product. This required meticulous attention to the size, fit, and technical controls around the neck of the jar to ensure functionality and robustness in commercial execution. The teams also needed to guarantee that the jar and refillable pod would work seamlessly together across all tolerance ranges.

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Another challenge was related to the specific nature of the product—a cream. “For any product across ELC’s brand portfolio, our high standards for safety, quality, and performance must be met,” says Hafkin. “In systems involving refillable packaging, we needed to ensure the product in the package would be protected when consumers replaced the pods, especially from a safety perspective.”

The implementation of the refillable/reusable system has led to significant environmental benefits. A Life Cycle Analysis (LCA) revealed that the new packaging approach has reduced thousands of pounds of plastic and has resulted in a reduction of at least 40% in associated emissions and energy consumption. PW

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The rise of re llable/reusable packaging

The nal of the 5 Rs, re llable and reusable, make up the minority of ELC’s packaging, but that number may grow as engineers begin leveraging this option when developing NPLs. In February 2023, ELC ne fragrance brand Le Labo began offering online re lls for its 50- and 100-mL eau de parfum bottles from its Classic Collection to U.S. and U.K. customers. It also allows consumers to bring their empty 50-, 100-, and 500-mL Classic Collection and City Exclusive Collection bottles back to a select number of its stores worldwide for re ll, along with a discount.

Another ELC fragrance brand, Kilian Paris, also offers a re llable/ reusable system. Says the brand, “Kilian Paris’ commitment to sustainability is native to its concept of luxury perfumery. A favorite perfume is bought only once and re lled for life. Hence, all our perfume bottles are in nitely re llable. Kilian re lls allow you to re ll your iconic 50-mL perfume sprays, 30-mL travel sets, or your carafes.”

According to Kilian, the re ll bottle is equipped with an anti-overow mechanism, and its dispenser automatically stops the transfer of the perfume once the bottle is full. In addition, the new re ll package has been lightweighted to minimize waste.

The most recent innovation from ELC in this space is a new re llable/reusable packaging system for Estée Lauder Revitalizing Supreme+ Moisturizer Youth Power Crème, a multicomponent package that uses a pod re ll (see sidebar on page 148).

Estée Lauder: a beacon of innovation

In an era where sustainability is becoming increasingly intertwined with consumer expectations and corporate responsibility, ELC stands out as a beacon of innovation and commitment to environmental stewardship. Through its strategic approach encapsulated by the 5 Rs—recyclable, re llable, reusable, recycled, or recoverable—ELC has not only set ambitious goals, but has also made tangible strides towards achieving them.

Navigating the complexities of the luxury beauty industry, where packaging plays a pivotal role in consumer perception, ELC has leveraged robust data analytics and cutting-edge technologies to drive sustainable packaging solutions. From transitioning iconic products like Estée Lauder Advanced Night Repair Serum to recyclable glass bottles to

Fragrance brand Kilian Paris offers a re llable/reusable packaging system that includes a premium reusable bottle with re lls in packaging that has been lightweighted to reduce waste. Image courtesy of The Estée Lauder Companies

pioneering paper-based alternatives for single-use sachets, the company has demonstrated a steadfast dedication to reducing its environmental footprint without compromising on product quality or aesthetics.

Crucially, ELC’s commitment extends beyond mere rhetoric; it is deeply ingrained in the fabric of its operations. By integrating sustainability into the very DNA of its packaging development processes, from comprehensive life-cycle analyses to innovative material sourcing partnerships, ELC is forging a path towards a more sustainable future for the beauty industry.

As the company continues to push boundaries and explore new avenues, such as the expansion of re llable and reusable packaging systems, it serves as a testament to the transformative power of datadriven innovation and strategic collaboration. Through its unwavering dedication to the 5 Rs and beyond, ELC is not only rede ning luxury in beauty, but also setting a new standard for environmental responsibility in the global marketplace. PW

ROBOTICS IN PACKAGING

Rethinking Robotics in Modern Manufacturing

Twenty-five automation experts share their thoughts on overcoming ‘brittle’ automation, ensuring process flexibility, and strategies for financial justification of robotics.

By Liz Cuneo, Senior Digital Editor

A 2023 article from the Harvard Business Review titled, “A Smarter Strategy for Using Robots,” (see pwgo.to/8421) discusses the concept of zero-sum automation, where the increases in productivity achieved by companies through the addition of automation result in a decrease in process exibility.

Among the reasons for this are that routine maintenance on a robot can grind production to a halt while third-party consultants are called in. Another is that preprogrammed robots are locked into rigid ways of accomplishing tasks, stunting innovation by line employees. “Many robots and automated systems are designed and con gured by thirdparty technical consultants in ways that make them rigid and brittle,” the article says. “Even small changes in the production environment or process can stymie the system.”

To avoid zero-sum automation, authors Ben Armstrong and Julie Shah advise the following: “They [companies] must stop measuring project success by comparing the cost and output of machines with the cost and output of human workers; that approach overlooks how automation can contribute improving a process across multiple dimensions.”

The authors then introduce the concept of positive-sum automation, which they de ne as the design and deployment of new technologies that improve productivity and exibility. “Positive-sum automation depends on designing technology that makes it easier for line employees to train and debug robots; using a bottom-up approach to identifying what tasks should be automated; and choosing the right metrics for measuring success,” they explain.

Examples in the article include automation deployed in automotive

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plants and hospital environments. But what about the use of automation in packaging plants? Are productivity and exibility diametrically opposed in these environments as well? Is “brittlness” a problem in packaging line applications as well? And what metrics should be used to determine the success of a robotic application?

To answer these questions, we enlisted the expertise of 25 industry professionals—among them, robotics OEMs and integrators, contract packers, and consumer packaged goods (CPG) companies using robotics. The following article offers perspectives across the value chain on how to rethink the adoption of robotics in today’s manufacturing plants, including addressing how automation can help you use your labor force in a more productive way.

Battling brittleness with exibility

A tongue-in-cheek project management axiom known as the Iron Triangle tells seekers of goods or services to “pick two” between “fast, cheap, or good.” The world of packaging robotics could be said to abide by its own version of the Iron Triangle, one that reads, “fast, exible, or inexpensive. Pick two.” Given unlimited money and programming resources, of course a piece of robotic packaging equipment could max out on both productivity and exibility, but that’s just not practical. For most end users of packaging robotics, cost is likely to be the most de ned and constrained variable of the triangle.

According to the HBR article, brittle automation is the idea that what a company gains in productivity, it tends to lose in process exibility—

focusing on the zero-sum, one-or-the-other understanding of the two competing factors.

Productivity means output—more widgets leaving the loading dock means more pro ts. Flexibility in robotics means that the robot can adapt to change, handle new tasks, and changeover quickly between product sizes. Further down the road, it may also mean that the robot could be deployed elsewhere on the line.

Working around brittle automation is a reality for today’s CPGs. “A lot of automated systems and robots come in, and they’re not exible. They’re just meant to do a certain job,” says Ramiro Gomez, general

manager of Intelligent Foods, one of the country’s largest meal kit companies. “And then, just like the article states, the process changes ... so it causes a lot of headaches, and you have to do training. And then, there’s also the cultural training where everybody has to get used to this new system and learn how to work around that new system. And you can train everybody on it, they can be knowledgeable about it, but unless they have experience putting systems in place, there are some pain points.”

Some industry professionals we spoke with say that integrators or third parties would object to the idea that they build brittle systems. These companies say they build the system to solve a speci c problem that’s agreed upon at the start, and a good integrator makes their customers aware of what robots can and can’t do. Then, ideally, the integrator would match that to what a CPG needs versus what they want. Patrick Coakley at Plant Automation Group (PAG), an integrator, says if a CPG nds that brittle, they likely weren’t clear on what they actually needed.

Eric Rohlf, product manager for palletizing and depalletizing for packaging machinery OEM BW Integrated Systems, agrees. “What you see when you see all these applications that you might want to call ‘brittle’ is that there are a lot of people who can make a robotic application without having that history and that understanding and depth of designs available,” says Rohlf. “So, they designed something that would t a speci c need, using as much off-the-shelf technology as possible. It ends up being what we’re calling brittle here and can only do a few things. If you try to change it, it’s not going to adapt... . It’s a pitfall that buyers can fall into if they’re not thinking large enough about what they’re trying to solve in terms of automation.”

Even the most exible automated systems are constrained in the types of tasks that they can perform. When you want to get beyond that, it’s going to be more manual, because humans are a lot more exible than robots.

—Ben Armstrong, Executive Director & Research Scientist, MIT’s Industrial Performance Center

Fighting against this brittleness is the idea that while robots have certain exibility constraints, humans have far fewer. The authors of the HBR article say that while robotic automation can offer signi cant productivity gains, it also comes with risks, such as high upfront costs, in exibility in adapting to product changes, and the potential for signi cant downtime during recon guration for new tasks.

Ben Armstrong, executive director and research scientist at MIT’s Industrial Performance Center and co-author of the HBR article, says highly exible people—operators, maintenance, and similar roles—inject their own degree of exibility when working in concert with robots. This can soften that brittleness.

“Even the most exible automated systems are constrained in the types of tasks they can perform,” he says. “When you want to get beyond that, it’s going to be more manual, because humans are a lot more exible than robots.”

As the HBR article states, the cost of switching over an automated

Financial Justi cation Strategy Checklist

New robotics financial justification strategies must blend both flexibility and productivity to avoid brittle automation. To effectively justify an automation project, you need to focus on the value it brings to your business today as well as into the future.

When justifying robotics be sure the project does the following to ensure success:

1. Aligns with business goals. Don’t just highlight features of the robots. Connect it to the company’s strategic objectives, such as increasing efficiency, reducing costs, improving quality, removing dangerous tasks off workers, etc.

2. Has quantifiable benefits. Focus on measurable improvements. Can automation save X hours per week? Reduce errors by Y%? Increase production by Z%? Use data or industry benchmarks to support your claims.

3. Addresses pain points. Identify current bottlenecks or inefficiencies. How is the manual process hindering progress or straining existing workers? Show how the robots directly address these issues.

4. Reveals hidden benefits. Look beyond immediate benefits. Can robotics free up employees for higher-value tasks? Improve data collection for better decision-making?

5. Prevents automation brittleness. For maximum flexibility, identify how you may want to leverage the robot into the future. To avoid preventable brittle automation, remember the following:

• Test all the formats you may need to run in the future.

• Train employees on how to interact with the equipment as well as how to feel comfortable with it.

• Understand your end goal, future plans, and even your workforce’s level of robotics knowledge.

• Be sure to have a crew that is able to make small adjustments to the robotics on a production line to meet new requirements.

• Leave space for future automation.

• Consider Robots-as-a-Service (RaaS), where you don’t pay for the robot, you pay for its outcome or productivity. PW

system to do something new is usually much higher than switching over a team of human workers. One example in the article is of Elon Musk when he tried to revive the idea of a lights-out factory in 2017 for his Tesla production site in California. After various production struggles, Musk abandoned some of his automation investments and instead upped his skilled workforce, declaring that “humans are underrated.” While exibility in robotics means that the robot can adapt to changes, handle new tasks, and be redeployed when needed, an underrated element of exibility is having the right people in place to easily make line changes.

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“You need to have a mindset of, ‘Do I have a crew that is able to make small adjustments for the robotics on a production line to meet new requirements?’” says Maged Mikhail, Purdue Northwest associate professor, Mechatronics Engineering Tech. “We need to consider training and having an internal crew that is capable of making changes, instead of asking people from a robotics company or an outside professional. This will make the cost high, and the system will not be sustainable for the future.”

Integrators take a phased approach

Phased approaches are common in robotic packaging automation installations for a lot of reasons. First, as Tom Wiersma of integrator IPM reminds us, unlike the frequently green eld automotive and aerospace industries that the HBR article references, most CPG operations are brown eld. The brittleness that most integrators have to deal with is prebuilt into the plant when they arrive.

Phases are also important for integrating robots into packaging since the industry is always changing to meet consumer demand. That’s why integrators are always balancing between solving their customers’ stated needs of the day while anticipating future ones. Gemma Ross, vice president of operations at systems integrator Osaro, uses the concept of leaving “space” for future phases.

“If you need a robot at the end of the line to close a box, or to put it onto a pallet, as an integrator, I need to leave enough space to install future automation,” Ross says.

Another purpose for leaving space for future automation is because some end users of robots can’t distinguish between what they need and what they want. “When we have someone come to us and say, ‘We need this,’ we ask, ‘Do you really need that, or do you want that as a preference?’” says Rob Fell founder and president of systems integrator Iris Factory Automation. “Through spirited conversation, we can come to agree that a thing that was on their needs list is really more of a want. And if it comes at a considerable price tag, they usually say it’s not worth it.”

It’s all math, after all

Wiersma of IPM adds a different dimension to the brittleness charge that his fellow integrators face: the sticker shock some decision-makers can experience when an unengaged decision-maker gets the bill for a robotic system designed to be less brittle.

“There are likely to be eight to 10 decision-makers or decision-inuencers on any robotic packaging automation project,” Wiersma says. “Only four of them, or some subset, are likely to be actively involved. And brittleness is sometimes introduced when the remaining four don’t get involved until the budget needs to be approved. So, you’ve worked with the customer to engineer brittleness out of the project. But then the budget is rejected by someone who didn’t know why we needed to build in that exibility. Sometimes that means we’ll start all over again or go back to some earlier con guration that was less exible, even though you’ve since engineered your way out of that brittleness. Well, you can’t engineer your way out of it without full engagement and buyin up and down the decision-making spectrum. They have to know why we’re doing what we’re doing and why it costs more.”

Taking a holistic approach

Part of a successful robotics integration is letting your integrator know your end goal, future plans, and even level of robotics knowledge.

“I hate to put it on a customer, but not all customers are ready for it,” says Craig Souser, president and CEO, JLS Automation, a packaging

machinery OEM and integrator. “And we have had, I’ll call it, failures— projects that did not go according to plan. Some of it was on our end, but also, the customer just tried to swallow more than they could handle. They weren’t ready, and they didn’t support it.”

Skirting around brittle automation is the idea of Robots-as-a-Service (RaaS) where you don’t pay for the robot, you pay for its outcome or productivity. The robots become your labor force, and you pay the RaaS company for the work itself, not the equipment. As your needs change, you just rent or lease another robot; it’s not your job to redeploy it, since it’s not your asset. This reduces the time it would take to recon gure a robot to handle a new task. Instead of trying to make the robot exible, you gain exibility by adopting all new robotics more suited to the new task. While there is still a time and cost to deploying robots this way, the freedom to rent new robots (swapping out the old) gives you more exibility to adapt to changes in your business.

Says Josh Kivenko, chief marketing of cer, Vecna Robotics, “We do not sell a robot, we sell a service, and the currency is uptime, performance, and utilization. This perspective encourages a more exible and invested relationship between vendors and customers that often leads to more exibility.”

As with anything, keep in mind that with RaaS, there are limitations. One such obstacle includes the amount of customization that is required for the platform and robotic eet to meet the speci c needs of your company. The implementation of both physical robots and the software components can be complex. As such, the RaaS model requires signi cant training to ensure the proper use of the robotic units. You will also face a greater dependence on the provider for access to the robot, so if the provider experiences technical dif culties or goes out of business, you’re left without access to the robot.

Open, honest, and above-board communication in specifying a project is key to avoiding surprises or disappointments. And a mix of humans and robotics offers the antidote to brittleness, delivering the right amount of productivity coupled with the right amount of exibility.

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Financial Justification Strategies

Positive-sum automation

In the HBR article, the idea of positive-sum automation is presented as an alternative to zero-sum automation. Positive-sum automation is a concept that focuses on augmenting human capabilities with robots, rather than replacing humans altogether. This approach advocates for the development and implementation of robotic systems that are intuitive and exible, allowing workers to easily interact with and even recon gure automation tools as needed. Such systems promote a working environment where human creativity and problem-solving skills complement the ef ciency and consistency of robots. But do CPGs, OEMs, and systems integrators look at automation this way?

“Automating dangerous tasks is almost shoulder to shoulder to reducing costs for the ‘why’ behind adding automation,” says Misa Ilkhechi, co-founder, of Formic, a RaaS provider. “It may not be clear and upfront that it is, but we nd it out as we dig in. Customers automate to move ergonomically challenging tasks off workers, too.”

Contrary to the fear of automation leading to job displacement, the industry’s experience suggests a complementary relationship between human labor and robots.

“With automation, companies can upskill human workers, getting more output with the same amount of labor. Plus, a company that has automation is generally more attractive to potential workers looking for a job. It’s more sustainable long term,” Ilkhechi observes, highlighting the potential for automation to enhance the value of human work and make manufacturing jobs more attractive, thereby addressing talent acquisition and retention challenges.

The Value of Empowering Your Workforce

Plant-floor accessibility to robotic functions holds a lot of promise in democratizing robotics and tapping into a bottom-up operator expertise. The HBR article lobbies for robotics systems and HMIs that empower and enable line workers to configure and troubleshoot the robot on their own, without calling for an engineer or technician.

The goal is that the automation can be flexibly tasked, directed by line workers to enhance and accelerate innovation without slowing down or halting production. PW

“These are all intertwined issues,” says Sean Dotson, industry consultant and founder of Automation AMA, a consulting agency that helps companies adopt automation. “So, why can’t you get people to work? Well, because it’s boring, because you’re putting two things together all day long, and nobody wants to do that. It might also be a safety thing. Nobody wants to do this task because they get carpal tunnel. So, it’s all kind of intertwined. But I rarely see companies saying, ‘Hey, we need to automate this because people are getting carpal tunnel.’ Some companies will, but usually it’s secondary with [leaders] saying, ‘Yeah we don’t want them to get carpal tunnel, but we can also increase our productivity.’”

Improving workers’ jobs

When looking at areas to automate, Travis Powell, engineering team leader—automation, Schreiber Foods, shares that his company factors in several of these justi cations. “A lot of our justi cation is increasing productivity, but it’s also nding ways to make things safer,” he says. “It might even be something that we’re looking at to automate because we don’t want people to have to handle product.

“Sometimes, there are just things that are going too fast for a person to be able to do, and the only way to do it would be to automate it. And one of the areas that we look to automate are areas where we have a high turnover ... a really cold area or something that’s heavy and a very repetitive motion. Robotics can help ll in labor gaps, but also remove tasks off employees so they can focus on something else.”

“For years we dealt with, ‘Oh you put robots in; you don’t like people,’” says JLS’s Souser. “But time and again, we’ll deploy a robotic system, and operators who worked that line before will come over and thank us for taking that miserable job away.”

But more than helping line workers enjoy their work more, many of the experts we spoke with emphasized the reality that robotics often are justi ed and implemented because of improved safety.

“I think the best part is, we’re noticing people not trying to stick their hands in where they shouldn’t into a machine,” says Eric Latsch, VP

SSV

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of operations, Napco, a private-label coffee roaster. “We’ve had people take the guarding off in the past and have an accident, and we had to tell them, ‘You can’t take stuff off.’ Well now, if the robots are handling a lot of it, they don’t even get close. So that part of it is maybe not realized at rst, but not having injuries from packaging equipment for two and a half years, that’s very good.”

Some experts we spoke with even told us examples of how adding in automation did not necessarily improve productivity or come up with an impressive ROI, but rather was adopted simply to keep workers safe.

“We’ve had a couple of projects come through BluePrint over the past few years where we were scratching our heads trying to understand the ROI because it might only be running one or two products a minute, but it’s a giant, heavy bag that people can’t pick up all day,” say Barrett Gray and Scott Williams, sales managers at BluePrint Automation, a manufacturer of secondary packaging equipment. “So, they have to get a robot for it. In terms of just cost, it probably didn’t make sense, but they had to automate to keep people safe.”

Mike Reilly, vice president, engineering and quality at MSI Express, a contract manufacturing and packaging company, says that safety and quality must go hand in hand. “I would say safety and quality don’t t into the normal ROI model, or probably a better way to say that is that ROI goes out the window,” he says. “I could nd out the total cost of replacement employees or what the cost of an OSHA claim is. I can do that. But if it’s going to save resources, it’s going to keep people on the job, and I’m not going to hurt anybody, we’re not going to spend a lot of time on our ROI discussion.”

Looking at waste reduction

As stated, companies are moving from a purely productivity justication to some more nuanced priorities, like worker safety, taking over undesirable tasks, improving process reliability, and reducing waste.

“There is a signi cant appetite for these items, but they rarely justify the project on their own,” says Rick Gessler vice president of engineering, Delkor Systems, Inc. “Delkor has found that waste reduction is a signi cant factor in robotic systems. While a company is considering automation, they should look at the entire process to see what waste reduction opportunities exist.”

By focusing on making processes in the work environment better, robotics can help improve the end product as well.

“What I’ve been trying to retrain everybody on is a focus toward the

A Checklist of Today’s KPIs

The value of productivity is changing. Traditional thoughts around productivity merely referring to output is the way of old. While “productivity” may be the big driver of automation, labor issues are a close second. But in reality, there is a whole list of factors to consider that lends itself to positive-sum automation. As you prepare for your next automation project, consider how robotics can help you in these areas:

1. Improve worker safety and ergonomics. Consider how the robot may remove strenuous tasks off workers. Does it prevent workers from handling dangerous materials or being exposed to extreme temperatures?

2. Provide more engaging work for employees. What new tasks can workers engage in now that the robot is performing the mundane tasks? Is there a higher-level position for the worker to move into? Where can workers use their specific strengths to complement the robots’ high efficiency?

3. Optimize your facility space. With modular robotic systems that can be scaled up or down easily, you can optimize space usage as demand fluctuates. Consider using vertical space in your plant with a robot system that can access high areas of storage or mobile robots that can move around the plant as needed.

4. Boost line efficiency. Consider that robots perform tasks more quickly than human workers, increasing the overall speed of production lines. Plus, automated systems can reduce downtime associated with human factors such as fatigue, illness, and shift changes.

5. Reduce waste. Automated systems ensure consistent production quality, reducing the number of defective products that need to be discarded. Additionally, automated systems can streamline production processes, reducing the energy required for manufacturing and associated waste.

6. Improve process reliability. Robots execute tasks with high precision, ensuring that each action is performed exactly as programmed, reducing variability and increasing consistency. Also, robots collect and analyze large amounts of data from the production process, providing insights that improve reliability through better-informed decisionmaking. PW

quality side—let’s use it to enhance what we’re doing, make a better product,” says Napco’s Latsch. “It may not be faster, it may not be on the same level, but it’s going to come out with fewer defects, and focus more on that.”

Justifying automation adoption must consider a number of factors to ensure that today’s robots are improving the safety of plant employees and empowering them to take on more meaningful work

“The further down into the organization you can allow [autonomy] to happen, the better off you are,” says Reilly of MSI Express. “But there must be a certain level of training that lets people know the conse-

quences of making changes. ... It’s easy to say, but it’s really hard to do. But if you’ve got a group of employees that feels empowered to be part of decision-making that affects their world, it’s game-changing stuff.”

A nal takeaway is that automation and robots are tools meant to complement human labor, not replace it.

“Ultimately the automation that is most successful is viewed as a tool and a way to augment the process for people,” says Rohlf of BW

Integrated Systems. “In the article, they talked a lot about the lights-out business model, and I really don’t see that being what most CPGs are shooting for. Maybe someday, in the world of AI in the future, we might feel differently. But in the world we’re dealing with today, people will be involved in making decisions and have to safely interact with equipment. The bottom line is, how is this robot going to enable people to achieve the goals of the business?”

Key performance indicators for automation

To paraphrase a key point of the HBR article, today’s nuanced motivations behind automation translate to nuanced success measurements. Moving past justifying automation purely on a productivity (output) basis, today’s KPI’s (key performance indicators) focus on three levels: the machine, the system, and the team. These success metrics not only measure cost savings or productivity gains, but also consider improvements in quality, exibility, and worker satisfaction.

“How companies measure the success of their technology investments re ects their strategic priorities,” says MIT’s Armstrong. “For companies that are trying to improve workforce retention by investing in robots to improve ergonomics, the ROI will be calculated by estimating the bene ts of longer worker tenure. For other companies, which are focused on the speed of a particular process or the ability to extend runtime in lieu of a third shift, more traditional productivity calculations (output per worker hour conditional on capital expenses) might be the most appropriate measurement.”

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No matter how you calculate it, focusing on the team, the machine, and the system as a whole allows those justifying the robotics to factor in more than just one improved outcome or another, and instead focus on the success of the automation project on a larger scale.

“What we advocate for is a more holistic view of investing in new technology,” continues Armstrong. “Instead of focusing on whether technology can perform a particular task better than a human worker, we think the focus should be on whether the whole system works better with automation than it does without automation.”

Success at the team level

Adopting robotics helps increase worker safety on the job as well as improve workers’ daily lives. The HBR article suggests a way to qualify success at the team level by asking yourself a few questions: Does the automated system make the team better at their work? Are team members performing at a higher level than they did previously? Can they apply their skills more creatively?

Rohit Kadam, director of the Robotics Division at the International Society of Automation (ISA), highlights the importance of measuring success at the human level. “I think what’s important is how much the humans are bene ting from the machine or the robot that is actually helping them to do what they’re doing,” says Kadam. “The way you can measure the success of having automation is not by looking at the productivity itself, but rather the satisfaction of the people who are working with that machine.”

“We have something called metabolic cost of working, which tells us, if a human is doing certain tasks throughout the day, how much energy they’re spending in trying to do that task,” continues Kadam. “So that could be one of the metrics—you have a robot now to help you to carry out the same task or part of those tasks, so your metabolic cost of working is going to be lower than what it used to be before the machine was there to help you out.”

The reality is that adding robots may mean less energy burned by human workers, but it’s important to note that the human workers are still there. Many companies we spoke with shared experiences in which line workers were then able to do higher-skilled work, so the measured success then becomes that increase in job satisfaction.

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Success at the machine level

In addition to the team, success of the machine is realized by how long it takes the robot to learn something new. While robots may be more ef cient when up and running, humans tend to be more exible when switching between tasks or products.

“It’s not necessarily how long it takes for the robot to learn a new task, it’s how easy it is to make changes,” says Powell of Shreiber Foods. “Nothing’s going to beat a person for making changes quick, on the y. You can audibly tell a person, ‘Hey only put 10 in there instead of 12,’ and they can start doing that.”

But while humans may be faster to adapt to a system change, the results are not as consistent and reliable as a robot.

“I will say, if you make a change on an automated system, it’s going to be 10 pieces in that box, consistently, all the time. If you tell a person, you might get a box every once in a while that has nine, and you might get one that has 11,” says Powell

Billy Goodman, managing director, Cama North America, shares that the team as a whole gets better success from having robots in a plant. “The effectiveness and the repeatability that a machine will do is immediate—if it’s maintained; I will always throw that out as a caveat,” he says.

The operation as a whole

Measuring the success of the system must look at both the human element and the equipment, and consider the operation as a whole.

“You should have a baseline to compare how things were going before you installed the machine. Compare those success metrics at each level, trying to gauge what things have improved and what things are holding you back,” says ISA’s Kadam. “My feeling is, you’re going to nd that working collaboratively with the machine or the robot is going to be much more effective than trying to either fully automate the system or having only humans do that work.”

Napco’s Eric Latsch shares his insights into how people plus robots help increase the success of the system. “We have a similar number of employees overall as we did before installing robots. But we were producing half the K-cups per day that we’re producing now. There’s also

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a greater consistency in our product, having a higher quality. We have fewer complaints now than we did two years ago, for sure.”

Sometimes measuring success is looking at whether or not the robot will t into existing operations. It may mean holding off on the robot until the team can better handle it.

“We look across the board at: Can we leverage this piece of equipment or this robot to increase the performance of the entire line? And if we are going to put something new in, how is it going to affect everything else around it?” says Alicemarie Geoffrion, president of packaging for DHL Supply Chain, North America business unit. “So maybe we have this awesome piece of equipment that we want to put in but because we can’t move fast enough around other things, it’s not going to be effective.”

Today’s nuanced motivations behind automation translate to nuanced success measurements that take into account several factors. Does the robot help human workers perform their jobs better? Is the line able to quickly switch from task to task? Is there greater consistency and quality in your products? Many CPG companies are taking a more enlightened approach to KPIs that measure more than output, and instead focus on the machine, the team, and the operation as a whole. PW

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ROBOTICS TECHNOLOGY

On the following pages is a compilation of robotic packaging technologies, organized by category. Visit the pwgo.to link(s) with each item for more information.

INDUSTRIAL ROBOTS

‘Hollow-Wrist’ 6-axis Robots

The new S-Family of 6-axis articulated robots features payloads from 13 to 18 kg and a reach of 1,700 mm and is engineered for applications requiring accuracy, repeatability, and speed. The robots ensure protection from water, dust, and other contaminants and include an IP68 hollow-wrist design, where the electrical and auxiliary cabling runs inside the wrist, allowing for greater agility while minimizing the risk of damage.

Comau pwgo.to/8343

INDUSTRIAL ROBOTS

Heavy-Payload 6-axis Robot Family

The new RV-35/50/80FR series has a maximum reach of 2,100 mm and a maximum payload of 80 kg, making it ideal for palletizing and machine-tending applications. The series connects to a range of factory automation equipment to integrate robot functionality with IT systems and is engineered to work seamlessly in manufacturing environments through a number of safety functions, including position and speed monitoring.

Mitsubishi Electric Automation, Inc. pwgo.to/8345

INDUSTRIAL ROBOTS

6-Axis Robots with Safety Technology

Epson’s new C-B Series 6-axis robot handles 4- to 12-kg payloads with a SlimLine compact wrist design, allowing easy access within con ned spaces. Complete with integrated SafeSense technology, the C-B Series allows for safe human-robot interaction without a safety fence through available safety-rated speed and position monitoring, when combined with a proper risk analysis.

Epson Robots pwgo.to/8344

INDUSTRIAL ROBOTS

AI-Driven, Cognitive Robots

Industrial automation company Omron has collaborated with cognitive robotics provider Neura Robotics GmbH to engineer the Omron intelligent Cognitive Robot (iCR) series. The iCR leverages Neura’s integrated sensors and AI technologies and is available with an optional 3D vision sensor, an intuitive interface, and an advanced safety architecture.

Neura Robotics GmbH pwgo.to/8346

Omron Automation pwgo.to/8347

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INDUSTRIAL ROBOTS

Food Safety-Rated 6-axis Robot

A new edition to Stäubli’s 6-axis TX2 series, the TX2-200 has a payload up to 170 kg and a reach of 2,609 mm. Designed for the food industry, the robot features an enclosed structure and smooth contours and is compliant with the requirements of the Food Safety Management Systems (i.e., HACCP) and GF SI recommendation article J1 & J2. Stäubli’s HE range is natively designed to be compliant with EHEDG guidelines and EC standards.

Stäubli Robotics pwgo.to/8397

INDUSTRIAL

20-kg SCARA Robots

Distributed in the U.S. by TM Robotics, Shibaura Machine has added two new models to its THE SCARA range. The THE800, designed for assembly and inspection processes, has a maximum payload capacity of 20 kg and a maximum cycle time of 0.41 sec. With a 1-m reach, the THE1000 is also designed for assembly and inspection, but of larger components. It has a 20-kg payload and a maximum cycle time of 0.44 sec.

TM Robotics, Inc. pwgo.to/8348

INTEGRATED

Adaptive Robotic Automation Platform

The new Motoman NEXT platform is said to be the rst industrial robot to have autonomous adaptivity and an open development environment that facilitates increased communication and expandable functionality to equip robots with the ability to execute challenging tasks autonomously in unstructured environments. Ranging in payload capacity from 4 to 35 kg, the platform comprises ve industrial and two collaborative robots.

Yaskawa Motoman pwgo.to/8349

Conveying Systems for Pick-and-Place Robots

Key Technology’s new vibratory conveying systems feed pickand-place robots on packaging lines. Each series of integrated conveyors meters, separates, singulates, and/or aligns product, depending on application, for optimal separation, speed, and orientation for presentation to the robotic system for pickup. By minimizing hand packing, these systems are said to increase production, reduce labor, and improve sanitation.

Key Technology pwgo.to/8350

INTEGRATED SYSTEMS: PRIMARY PACKAGING

INTEGRATED SYSTEMS: PRIMARY PACKAGING

Robotic Bottle Unscrambler

Omega Design’s parallel-kinematic, multi-axis pick-and-place robot module separates, orients, and positions bottles onto a conveyor or into stabilizing packs. Recommended for applications running complex or multiple bottle shapes, the system features a dual-infeed system to present two containers at once to the unit’s robotic arms from a single hopper, allowing for throughputs said to be unobtainable by conventional methods.

Omega Design pwgo.to/8351

INTEGRATED SYSTEMS: PRIMARY PACKAGING

Entry-Level Robotic Bagger

Premier Tech has updated its Chronos OMR Series robotic baggers, formerly the PTH and PTW Series, to include a 30% increase in the robot’s payload for higher throughput and a 98% uptime. The bagger operates at speeds to 20 bags/min, adapts to frequent recipe and bag size changes, delicately handles both the products and their bags, and uses advanced gusset control to maintain the bag’s position during lling and sealing.

Premier Tech pwgo.to/8352

Continuous-Motion Robotic Capper

The 40-pack/min Attilus continuous-motion capping machine from Shemesh Automation integrates a robotic sorter based on a delta robot and an advanced vision system to sort and orientate even complex screws, triggers, pumps, and other caps. The capper also uses a servo-driven pick-and-place 2-axis gantry robot to track and deliver caps to the bottles while in motion. Programming is done via a Siemens AB PLC and HMI.

Shemesh Automation pwgo.to/8353

Robotic Pouch Loading/Unloading System

Allpax’s customizable, scalable system for loading/unloading pouches to a retort uses delta robots to organize and load unprocessed pouches onto self-stacking trays at speeds to 200/min. A 6-axis robot stacks the trays, which are then conveyed to a shuttle system feeding the retorts. Post-retort, the shuttle delivers the trays to an unloading cell, where another 6-axis robot de-stacks and transfers the pouches to a conveyor.

Allpax, a ProMach brand pwgo.to/8354

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INTEGRATED SYSTEMS: CARTON/CASE LOADING

Robotic Case Packer

BluePrint Automation’s enhanced Spider 200i case packer uses a multi-axis robot to pick bags on the y and place them into a cassette, forming vertical pack patterns when pushed into a tipped case. The system allows various product sizes and case types, including RSC, L-Lock, and 1x display, to be run on the same line. Also new is a higher-capacity automatic horizontal case-blank magazine with three load zones for 150 cases.

BluePrint Automation pwgo.to/8355

INTEGRATED SYSTEMS: CARTON/CASE LOADING

Robotic Top-Load Cartoner

Cama’s MTL monoblock top-loading cartoner uses robots to form, load, and close cartons and features B&R’s modular ACOPOStrak magnetic track system for a monoblock that can serve three or more upstream feeds for similar products with different synchronizations and manage buffers automatically. The cartoner uses AI to access maintenance, changeover, and spare parts and reduces changeover time from 30 to 12 min.

INTEGRATED SYSTEMS: CARTON/CASE LOADING

Cama Group pwgo.to/8357

Case Packer with Robotic Laner

The XCP Series of three continuous-motion case packers from Brenton was engineered to address ease of operation, troubleshooting, and access. The series can run wraparound cases and trays for products in bottles, jars, canisters, cups, and other rigid packaging for a range of applications at speeds from 30 to 70 cases/min. It also features a robotic laner, developed in-house, that can handle both round and square products. Brenton, a ProMach brand pwgo.to/8356

INTEGRATED SYSTEMS: CARTON/CASE LOADING

Robotic Case Packer for Confectionery

Aimed at the confectionery industry, Delkor’s robotic HSP Series case packer can change over the full range of shipper styles used by the industry, including brown box, retail-ready, and club-store stackable trays, in ve to 10 min. The series uses the high speed of delta robots and the long travel reach of gantry robots to pack deep and wide cases at speeds to 340 packs/min, with vision-based adjustment for skewed products.

Delkor Systems, Inc. pwgo.to/8358

INTEGRATED SYSTEMS: CARTON/CASE LOADING

Robotic Carton/Case Packer

The new Celestion MTX TopLoad platform from R.A Jones handles a range of products, including pouches, wraps, round products, and kits, transforming paperboard or corrugated blanks into consumer-ready packages. The platform uses 4-axis delta robots to form cartons, while 2-axis single or tandem robots or multiple vision-guided robots are used for loading. The closing module uses a 3-axis articulating robot.

R.A Jones, a Coesia company pwgo.to/8359

INTEGRATED SYSTEMS: CARTON/CASE LOADING

Robotic Case-Packing Cell

ValTara’s PKR-Dual Delta Robot case-packing cell uses two delta robots with Codian robot mechanics that work in tandem to pick and place products into cases speeds to 85 bags/min. The system can handle a variety of package types, including bags, pouches, cartons, and trays and can t into virtually any existing production line or can be integrated as part of a complete packaging solution.

ValTara S.r.l., a Paxiom Group company pwgo.to/8360

Long-Reach, High-Payload Cobot

Said by Doosan to be the “longest-reaching cobot to date,” its new P3030, part of the P-Series (Prime Series), has a payload of 30 kg and a reach of 2,030 mm, which allows it to palletize boxes from oor to 2 m high, stacking up to 10 layers around 8 in. tall, using a simple, xed base without a lift. Safety is assured with the highest PL (e) and Cat 4 safety ratings for a maximum-powered and maximum-safety user experience.

Doosan Robotics pwgo.to/8361

Food Safety-Certified Cobot

The EndFlex Z.Zag six-axis cobot features a maximum payload of 30 kg, a 1,700-mm maximum reach, and 0.05-mm repeatability, as well as advanced safety features, a compact footprint, and a lightweight and mobile design. The cobot is IP67 rated for wet environments and uses NSP H1-certi ed food-grade grease for food or consumer product packaging environments. Applications include palletizing and depalletizing.

EndFlex LLC pwgo.to/8362

COLLABORATIVE ROBOTS

COLLABORATIVE ROBOTS

UP TO REDUCED CARBON FOOTPRINT ALTERNATIVES

Fossil free energy reduces the environmental impact of fresh fiber paperboard and enables a lower footprint. At Metsä Board, 87% of our total energy consumption is fossil free, with an aim to reach 100% by 2030.

MORE THAN YOUR AVERAGE PAPERBOARD

COLLABORATIVE ROBOTS

Food-Grade Cobot

According to Fanuc, its new CRX 30iA food-grade cobot “features the longest reach and highest payload in its class”—1,889 mm and 30 kg, respectively—and is engineered for food and beverage processing operations. The cobot is IP67 rated, making it suitable for wet environments and operations with stringent hygienic requirements, and features NSF-H1 food-grade grease along with epoxy paint and rust/chemical-resistant plating.

Fanuc America pwgo.to/8363

COLLABORATIVE ROBOTS

High-Payload AI Cobot

Techman’s TM30S 35-kg-payload AI cobot—a higher-payload version of its TM AI cobot series—uses a 3D camera and AI recognition technology to instantly detect size and position information. This allows the cobot to arrange items without the need for pre-speci ed stacking patterns, handling complex scenarios like tilting, tting, and tape wrapping for AI mixed-case depalletizing, as well as pick-and-place applications. Techman Robot pwgo.to/8365

COLLABORATIVE ROBOTS

‘World’s First’ 7-axis Cobot

Kassow’s 7-axis robot—said by the company to be the world’s rst—includes ve models available in two versions: a classic variant with a separate controller and the Edge Edition, in which the controller is integrated into the base of the cobot for space savings and simpli ed integration. At 160 x 200 mm, the compact cobot can be used for applications such as palletizing, labeling, dispensing, and packaging, among others.

Kassow Robots pwgo.to/8364

COLLABORATIVE ROBOTS

30-kg-Payload Cobot

Universal Robots’ new UR30 30-kg payload cobot is said to feature an “extraordinary lift” and “superior motion control” for perfect placement of large payloads, allowing it to work at higher speeds and lift heavier loads. It also features a small footprint that allows it to t into virtually any workspace and a weight of just 63.5 kg, for mobility across workcells. Applications include material handling and palletizing.

Universal Robots pwgo.to/8366

"GUFSZFBSTPGTFMMJOHJOUIF6OJUFE4UBUFT 5FDIOJDBM

Mobile Cobot Cell

According to Zimmer, its compact, mobile ZiMo cobot cell allows for rapid deployment of automation and intuitive operations in small and medium enterprises. The platform includes a range of EOAT options, such as a small-part gripper and Zimmer’s Match robot ecosystem, which allows for both vacuum and mechanical gripping. An intuitive HMI enables users with no prior programming knowledge to quickly set up the system.

Zimmer Group pwgo.to/8367

INTEGRATED SYSTEMS: PALLETIZING

Portable Robotic Palletizing Workcell

From beRobox, the PALTZ.i35 portable, industrial palletizing workcell can be integrated into operations in less than 15 min; is powered by the company’s STACKiT software for straightforward operations; features advanced robotics and intelligent software for palletizing at speeds to 12 cycles/min; has a payload of 32 kg; and, without any anchoring to the oor and a collapsible fencing kit, it’s portable.

beRobox pwgo.to/8369

INTEGRATED SYSTEMS: PALLETIZING

Cobot Palletizer, Stretch Wrapper

AAA20 Group has integrated its Collaborative Palletizer Robot with an automatic stretch wrapper. The system features the choice of a CP-100 or CP-200 cobot, with gripping capacities of 22 and 44 lb, respectively. The system reduces the risk of pallet failure during internal transportation; as a result, the task of transporting loose pallets to the stretch-wrapper location is eliminated, increasing ef ciency and cost savings.

AAA20 Group, LLC pwgo.to/8368

INTEGRATED SYSTEMS: PALLETIZING

Multi-pick Cobot Palletizer

Equipped with a Universal Robots’ UR20 cobot arm, Columbia/ Okura’s miniPAL+ cobot palletizer has a 20-kg lifting capacity and a load height of 2,032 mm. Its exible tooling allows for multipick options, and dual pallet-building locations result in reduced time when one pallet load is completed and needs to be removed from the cell. The miniPAL+ has a footprint of 10 x 11 ft and uses Rocketfarm intuitive pallet-building software.

Columbia/Okura LLC pwgo.to/8370

INTEGRATED SYSTEMS: PALLETIZING

Cobot Palletizing Workstation

The CR20A cobot palletizer from Dobot has a maximum payload of 20 kg and a working range up to 1,700 mm. The cobot’s column height can increase by 900 mm, while its palletizing height can reach 1,200 mm. Through a simple, guided interface, Dobot’s wizard-style con guration process allows users to de ne the entire work ow, from pick-and-place operations to complex material handling tasks, without programming expertise.

Dobot pwgo.to/8371

INTEGRATED SYSTEMS: PALLETIZING

INTEGRATED SYSTEMS: PALLETIZING

Install-Ready Cobot Palletizer

ESS Technologies’ Pacteon Install-Ready Collaborative Palletizer is an off-the-shelf system that incorporates a Fanuc CRX-25iA cobot and offers one or two pallet positions, each with advanced safety sensors. Pacteon Group custom-engineers vacuum-style end effectors to pick one or two cases, depending on payload and speed. The system can handle unit load heights to 1,524 mm and payloads to 13.6 kg and has a 1,889-mm reach.

ESS Technologies, a Pacteon Group brand pwgo.to/8372

INTEGRATED SYSTEMS: PALLETIZING

Turnkey Cobot Palletizer

Iris Factory Automation’s RPZ-20c cobot palletizer combines Universal Robots’ UR20 20-kg-payload cobot with Iris’ hardware and software for a system designed for users with limited oor space, low-volume/high-mix production, and limited in-house technical personnel. Located in the center position with a 1,778mm reach, the cobot can ll an entire pallet from the bottom right corner to the top corner as necessary.

Iris Factory Automation pwgo.to/8373

Cobot Palletizer/Case Packer

Proco’s cobot palletizing system automates palletizing of trays and tier sheets up to 2,642 mm high and reduces the need for manual labor, resulting in lower manufacturing costs. The cobot system can also be easily con gured into a case packer for seamless integration into existing production lines. Says Proco, “Combining the palletizing and case-packing processes also optimizes warehouse space utilization.”

Proco Machinery Inc. pwgo.to/8374

INTEGRATED SYSTEMS: PALLETIZING

INTEGRATED SYSTEMS: PALLETIZING

‘Lean Robotics’ Cobot Palletizers

Robotic Palletizers

Robotiq’s AX20 and AX30 cobot palletizers, leveraging Universal Robots’ UR20 and UR30 cobots, respectively, can handle payloads to 30 kg and pallet heights to 2,743 mm. Based on Robotiq’s Lean Robotics palletizing approach, the series is designed with a lift mechanism to increase reach and pallet height capabilities, allowing for a broader range of applications, including those requiring taller pallets or a more extensive reach.

Robotiq pwgo.to/8375

E-COMMERCE

Mixed-Case Cobot Depalletizer

CMES Robotics’ Mixed-Case Depalletizing Solution incorporates Doosan Robotics’ H2017 6-axis, 20-kg-payload cobot and beRobox’s proprietary STACKiT software platform for plug-and-play functionality. Using advanced AI vision and robotic control, the system can depalletize mixed SKUs in bags or boxes at speeds to 600 pieces/hr without any pre-sorting or conventional separating tools.

CMES AI Robotics pwgo.to/8377

RoboTier robotic palletizers from TopTier include the new EasyStack Pro HMI user interface for ease of programing and a Fanuc robot. The systems achieve functionality by using a 240-deg arc of the robotic arm for placing the pallet, picking the product, positioning tier sheets, and placing the pallet on the discharge conveyor. RoboTier operates at speeds to three layers/min and can be con gured with single or multiple lanes.

TopTier Palletizing Solutions pwgo.to/8376

E-COMMERCE

Robotic Bin-Picking System

Movu eligo, developed by Movu Robotics and Righthand Robotics, is a fully integrated bin-picking solution that can piece-pick from a single-SKU source bin and place individual items into multiple mixed-SKU destination bins. The Movu eligo operates at speeds to 600 items/hr, can pick and place a wide variety of SKUs up to 2 kg and with dimensions from 1 to 30 cm, and uses intelligent grippers that are said to be 100% accurate.

Movu Robotics pwgo.to/8378

fresh

FlexPak Services’ mission is to advance the quality, performance, and convenience of flexible packaging through our advanced laser technology and industry expertise.

EASY-OPEN FEATURES

Easy-tear pouches leave as little as possible between your customers and their snacks.

DEGASSING VENTING

Keep your co ee fresher for longer while using substantially less plastic than a conventional button valve.

BREATHABLE FEATURES

Perfect for produce and any other foods that need to take a breather from time to time.

Mixed-Case Robotic Depalletizer

Designed for applications where pallets of various-sized cases must be unloaded, Osaro’s Robotic Depalletization System is equipped with the company’s SightWorks Perception Software, which allows the robot to recognize, select, and grasp various sizes and materials of packages on a mixed-case pallet. The system quickly determines which case should be picked rst and selects the appropriate endof-arm tool to grasp each.

Osaro pwgo.to/8379

Carbon Vacuum Gripper

Coval has redesigned its CVGC carbon vacuum gripper for greater versatility, with each customer able to con gure it to their needs. The CVGC is equipped with a multi-stage vacuum pump for increased power that, when combined with the lightness of the carbon ber casing, means it can carry heavier loads. It’s available in three sizes, two types of gripper interfaces, and with or without an integrated vacuum generator.

Coval Vacuum Technology Inc. pwgo.to/8381

AI-Driven Cobot Pick Tool

A new automated picking tool from a trio of companies combines Siemens’ SIMATIC Robot Pick AI pre-trained, deep learning-based vision software, Universal Robots’ UR20 20-kg cobot, and Zivid’s 2+ M130 camera, said to be the rst 3D sensor “capable of imaging everything,” including transparent and translucent lms. The system was developed as a solution for picking items of varying shape, size, opacity, and transparency.

Siemens AG pwgo.to/8380

Gripper Cleaning Station

Designed for its gecko-inspired Grav Enhanced Gripper, Flextiv’s new Cleaning Station cleans the gripper in 5 sec, allowing the EOAT to handle objects in environments that are “less than pristine,” says Flextiv. During use, contaminants can build up on the Grav, reducing its friction ability. The Cleaning Station is said to ensure peak performance by maintaining the gripper’s adhesive material, boosting its lifting ability.

Flextiv Ltd. pwgo.to/8382

END-OF-ARM TOOLING (EOAT)

END-OF-ARM TOOLING (EOAT)

Vacuum Pump

The Gimatic EJ-XONE vacuum pump is designed to optimize performance and ef ciency in demanding industrial applications. Features include integrated solenoid vales for simpli ed control and an adjustable blow-off that allows the operator to ne tune performance based on requirements. The EJ-XONE is recommended for a range of applications, including high-speed pick-and-place and robot picking, positioning, and packaging.

Gimatic pwgo.to/8383

END-OF-ARM TOOLING (EOAT)

Electric Gripper for High Payloads

OnRobot offers two new electric grippers for heavy-duty cobot applications. The three- ngered 3FG25 provides 25 kg of payload in a lightweight, compact, all-electric form. The 2FG14 is a parallel- nger gripper with a 14-kg payload. Says OnRobot, “No other grippers in this payload range offer an all-around plug-andproduce experience, including ngers with multiple con gurations, ange adapters, cabling, and software.”

OnRobot pwgo.to/8384 and pwgo.to/8385

END-OF-ARM TOOLING (EOAT)

Electric Vacuum Pump for Cobots

Piab’s piCOBOT Electric vacuum pump eliminates the need for compressed air and tubing, which the company says allows for unrestricted cobot arm movement and simpli ed installation. Based on the company’s piCOBOT, introduced in 2022, the electric version is small, mounts directly on the cobot arm, and is energy ef cient. The electric package contains plug-and-play software to t Universal Robots’ UR e-series cobots.

Piab USA pwgo.to/8386

Vacuum Pouch Gripper

The new PSSG sack gripper from Schmalz is designed to grip pouched goods powerfully yet gently and has a berglassreinforced plastic yweight that enables short cycle times, increasing the robot’s performance and productivity. Moving porous, bag-like workpieces as well as suction-tight bags, the PSSG is compatible with all lightweight robots and has a maximum suction area of 405 x 305 mm and a load capacity up to 50 kg.

Schmalz Group pwgo.to/8387

CONTROLLERS/SOFTWARE

CONTROLLERS/SOFTWARE

Next-Gen Robotics Control Platform

The result of a $17 million strategic investment, ABB’s new OmniCore robotics control platform is said to be a step change to a modular and future-proof control architecture that will enable the full integration of AI, sensor, cloud, and edge computing systems. OmniCore features more than 1,000 hardware and software features and delivers accuracy at a level of < 0.6 mm, with multiple robots running at speeds to 1,600 mm/sec.

ABB Robotics pwgo.to/8388

CONTROLLERS/SOFTWARE

Robot User Interface

Using Mujin’s new MujinPack, users can auto generate palletpack patterns within a SKU-based library, which supports editing, maintaining, and exporting for multi-size management of robotic palletizers. Says Mujin, “End-of-line palletizing is one of the fastestgrowing markets within manufacturing, and this new user interface offers a new way to more ef ciently build and manage your palletizing cells.”

Mujin pwgo.to/8391

Remote Robot Monitoring, Error Recovery

Kawasaki and Olis Robotics have partnered to offer customers remote monitoring and error recovery that is said to reduce troubleshooting and downtime costs by up to 90%. Users connect directly to their robots through an on-premise device via a secure connection, which the companies say avoids the risks and complexities of cloud-based systems.

Kawasaki Robotics Inc. pwgo.to/8389

Olis Robotics pwgo.to/8390

CONTROLLERS/SOFTWARE

AI, Cloud Computing for Robot Cell Design

The addition of a suite of AI-powered capabilities to Vention’s Manufacturing Automation Platform (MAP) lets users design, automate, order, deploy, and operate automated equipment and robot cells in the cloud. The latest version of Vention’s MachineBuilder cloud-based 3D design software includes intuitive, smart design tools that empower teams to work faster and more con dently with hundreds of machine design templates.

Vention pwgo.to/8392

DO NOT MISS THE ALL NEW

AUTONOMOUS MOBILE ROBOTS (AMRS)

1.5-ton Mobile Platform

Kuka’s new KMP 1500P mobile platform offers a payload of 1.5 tons, an IP54 rating, and precise positioning to transport materials inside production facilities. The robot integrates advanced safety features and KUKA.AMR work ow-based eet management software to optimize intralogistics within Industry 4.0 environments. The KMP 1500P is said to be an essential aid for picking goods and supplying materials to lines and cells.

Kuka pwgo.to/8393

AUTONOMOUS MOBILE ROBOTS (AMRS)

AUTONOMOUS MOBILE ROBOTS (AMRS)

AMR Pallet Jack

The MiR1200 AMR pallet jack has an AI-powered pallet detection system that recognizes pallets rapidly and precisely; uses industrialgrade components and a rugged design for an IP54 rating, protecting against dust and water; uses 3D object detection to navigate through obstacles; features a Manual Tiller for semiautomated handling; seamlessly integrates with MiR Fleet software; and includes 360-deg safety features.

Mobile Industrial Robots (MiR) pwgo.to/8394

AUTONOMOUS MOBILE ROBOTS (AMRS)

Mid-range AMR Series

Omron’s new mid-range AMR series, the MD-650 and MD-900, uses mobile robotic equipment from ROEQ and is suitable for material movement and other mid-size transport processes. Features include a top speed of 2.2 m/sec (MD-650), max payloads of 650 and 900 kg, a 10-hr runtime, ultra-fast 20-min charging, a 360deg safety-rated system with automatic footprint switching, and Omron’s on-board navigation system.

Omron pwgo.to/8395

Narrow-Footprint, 1,200-kg AMR

The Otto 1200 from Otto by Rockwell Automation is said to be the “highest performing heavy-duty AMR for tight spaces.” The AMR has a narrow width of 910 mm to move payloads up to 1,200 kg in space-constrained environments and has a maximum speed of 1.5 m/sec. Patented adaptive eldset technology prevents slowdowns around turns, intersections, equipment, and people, while its service- rst design maximizes uptime.

Otto by Rockwell Automation pwgo.to/8396

Chicago

Advanced Recycling: A Pivotal Tool for Circularity

Advanced recycling technology can provide an additional avenue to meet society’s increasing demand for more PCR plastic, but challenges around feedstock, legislation, and misconceptions may slow growth.

By Anne Marie Mohan, Senior Editor

Advanced recycling has become the topic de jour in the plastics and packaging industry—so much so that several conference events have sprung up to bring industry stakeholders together to explore the topic. One of them, the Advanced Recycling Summit, produced by Smithers, took place in September in Akron, Ohio, primarily targeting chemical companies but providing brand owners with a look at the challenges and opportunities presented by the technology. In opening the event, Dr. James A. Popio, VP Materials Science and Engineering Division, Smithers, noted that the growth of the conference—from 60 attendees in 2023 to 120 this year—is evidence of the increased momentum behind the technology.

While the range of advanced recycling technologies may vary widely,

one thing the conference made clear is that there are many commonalities. Among them are challenges in sourcing feedstock and gaining market acceptance as well as the potential impact of global, federal, and local packaging regulations—challenges that are not unlike those faced by traditional mechanical recycling systems.

Yet, if these hurdles are overcome, advanced recycling can unleash a new and abundant supply of virgin-quality plastics made from materials previously bound for land ll or incineration. Emphasized Suzanne Shelton, president and CEO of marketing communications agency ERM Shelton Group, in her presentation on how suppliers and brands should frame the concept to consumers, “Advanced recycling is a pivotal, critical tool in the shift from a linear economy to a circular economy.”

According to LyondellBasell, there is a signi cant gap in the amount of PCR plastic needed by brand owners and retailers to meet their sustainable packaging goals and the amount of material that’s available.

Why is it needed?

The simplest de nition of advanced recycling is that it’s a process that breaks down plastic waste into its original components and uses those components to create new products. There are three categories of advanced recycling technologies—puri cation, depolymerization, and conversion, also known as pyrolysis (the main focus of the conference). Each one requires different inputs and results in different outputs. Feedstock for advanced recycling processes comprises plastic waste that is unable to be recycled through mechanical processes. Therefore, it complements mechanical recycling, providing another tool in the toolbox for enabling circular plastics.

As the conference presentations outlined, advanced recycling is being driven by several factors. Among them are the increase in plastic pollution; commitments made by CPG brands as part of Ellen MacArthur Foundation’s New Plastics Economy Global Commitment to reduce their use of virgin plastic materials; the growing list of states enacting EPR legislation that mandates the use of postconsumer recycled plastic content; and a growth in the global population and global wealth, which will result in more plastics in the economy.

“The demand for products that support circularity is growing, and it’s far exceeding the supply that can be met with mechanical recycling,” said Michelle Salim, NA advanced recycling commercial manager for ExxonMobil. “Society’s goal cannot be met without advanced recycling.”

Jon Konen, senior business development manager for Advanced Recycling & Bio Feedstocks North America at LyondellBasell, put some numbers to the problem of demand versus supply. According to data from LyondellBasell, there is a 50% gap between the amount of PCR retailers need to meet their 2025 goals and what’s available; for brands, the gap is 65%. “As you go beyond 2025, we tend to see these numbers grow,” Konen added. “There’s a huge shortage for both brands and retailers in meeting their recycled content obligations and what they said they would do.”

Affairs for The Kraft Heinz Company, “I pulled a quote from the Closed Loop Partners’ report, and they say that advanced or molecular recycling technologies can expand the scope of materials we can recycle, help preserve the value of resources in our economy, and bridge the gap between supply and demand for high-quality recycled plastics like food-grade plastics.

“It goes on to say that it sees advanced recycling as a vehicle to satisfy food-grade recycled content needs and complex packaging structures like exible lms, thermoforms, and other types of plastics.”

Feedstock sourcing and sorting pose challenges

Brendan Adams of The Kraft Heinz Company emphasized the importance of advanced recycling for producing PCR resin that can be used in direct food-contact applications.

This gap is the result of signi cant challenges around the collection and sorting of materials that can be mechanically recycled, along with the substantial loss of packaging materials and formats that can’t be mechanically recycled, even if the challenges with collection and sorting were solved. These latter materials are ultimately sent to land ll or incinerated. Said Konen, “We need to work on that $70 billion of value that’s lost through lack of collection and reprocessing in the industry today.”

Another roadblock for brands attempting to include more PCR in their packaging is that some mechanically recycled materials can’t be used for direct food-contact or healthcare applications due to contamination. Instead, these materials are downcycled for use in non-packaging applications such as decking and park benches.

Because advanced recycling technologies either purify waste plastic materials or break them down into their chemical components for use in creating new resins, the PCR resulting from these processes is virgin quality. Said Brendan Adams, associate director of Government

The gap between the amount of PCR needed and the amount that’s available has created a strong business case for investment. According to Konen, 50 new advanced recycling projects kicked off in 2023 alone. Considering current investments, the supply of PCR from advanced recycling is estimated to be 10 million tons—still short of the 15 million tons of demand, just from packaging. “We see that [gap] driving further investment and what’s needed to move the industry forward,” he added. LyondellBasell is currently building its rst large-scale advanced recycling facility in Germany, expected to produce 50,000 metric tons/yr of its Circulen Revive advanced recycled polymers by 2026. Meanwhile, in 2022, ExxonMobil began operation of its Baytown, Texas, facility, which can produce up to 40,000 metric tons of its Exxtend advanced recycled material. It’s also constructing a second plant, with startup scheduled for 2025. “That’s part of our plan to have more than a billion pounds of processing capacity globally by 2027,” shared ExxonMobil’s Salim Despite chemical companies’ signi cant investment in advanced recycling technologies, some never get off the ground due to dif culties sourcing feedstock, much of which has never been sorted or collected before.

According to Carson Potter, product leader for AMP, a provider of AI technology for waste and recycling companies, AMP’s clients often follow a similar pattern where they develop their own conversion technologies or license the technology, testing it and validating it using high-quality feedstocks. After moving from a venture to a pilot scale and then to scale up, a number of them get stuck in the nance stage, realizing they now need enough feedstock to justify their facility.

“That’s where we start to see a lot of the unanticipated challenges accumulate,” he said. “Another point is that when a company starts to drive more volume to a facility, they need to look for more pro table materials, which don’t always equate to the cleanest, most concentrated materials.”

Shared Brian Schellati, director of business development and process engineer for Van Dyk Recycling Solutions, a supplier of turnkey sorting systems to waste haulers and recyclers, “To build a large-scale commercial facility, there’s not enough perfectly clean material to justify a plant. So you have to expect the input material to be contaminated,

and you have to design the mechanical processing to handle that.”

As he explained, sorting plastic waste residue from MRFs is a complex process, given that the composition of a bale of MRF residue is not the same from facility to facility, or even consistent from the same facility. “The plants are very different,” he said. “Some are old, some are new, some are better than others. The MRF residue can come from different sources within the MRF. So these waste plastic plants have to expect all different types of contamination coming into these facilities.”

He then recommended sorting systems for advanced recycling feedstock preparation—including bale wire removers, bale liberators, elliptical/ballistic separators, conveyors, and optical sorters, etc.—noting that signi cant mechanical processing of materials must must be done before they are sent through optical sorters so they are fed the right way, in the right size, and without nes.

Schellati focused on the characterization of materials and using exible, modular equipment and AI capabilities to adapt to changing feedstock. “When you combine these things, you end up with a lower-cost sensor that can essentially update over time, provide you with a number of secondary characteristics, and ideally be employed liberally throughout the plant to give you a really clean idea of what’s going into the [advanced recycling] reactor and what supply quality you’re actually receiving.”

He also explained how tracking of all materials allows a company to extricate all of the value out of the non-target feedstock as well and resell those materials as commodities—in effect using “every part of the buffalo.”

He noted that “having that kind of data-driven mentality not only allows you to manage your feedstock strategy more effectively, but it also gives you a more advanced set of capabilities in terms of getting real-time daily and weekly operational status, understanding yield, understanding purity, also understanding if things are going wrong in your plant.”

Plastic waste requires a ‘moonshot’ solution

Another speaker who emphasized the role data can play in driving advanced recycling was Rey Banatao, director, project lead for X, the Moonshot Factory, more commonly referred to as Google X. Founded by data and AI company Google, Google X is a research lab that develops and launches technologies to tackle some of the world’s most dif cult problems. Driven by its chief sustainability of cer, Kate Brandt, Google’s circularity mission is to maximize the reuse of nite resources across Google’s own product and operations, internally, “but most importantly, we want to enable others to do the same,” said Banatao.

Upon learning that the top sustainability search term is recycling— “over things like climate or electric vehicles or GHGs,” said Banatao— Google saw an opportunity to contribute to circularity.

“As we leaned in further, these are the three areas that were communicated back to us. First is obviously the waste industry is a data-sparse industry in our opinion compared to other areas we work in. There’s not a lot of information out there about the quality of waste, where it’s at, how to get your hands on it, pricing, and where it ends up once it’s recycled. So the ability to identify information and follow that material

through its lifecycle is important. Then we looked at the recycling technologies themselves, and that’s why we’re really interested in advanced recycling. There’s a lot of room for improvement.

“There are a lot of nascent technologies, and even in mature technologies like pyrolysis or even mechanical recycling, there’s still room for improvement. So how can we contribute our resources and time to help accelerate improvements in recycling processes? Then lastly, all of this work and investigation generates data. How can we leverage that to provide traceability, better accountability through the industry?”

Rey Banatao shared how Google X, the Moonshot Factory, is building a molecular data platform to help with sortation of waste materials for both mechanical and advanced recycling.

As Banatao explained, Google X’s “moonshots” are big ideas requiring radical solutions. “That means the problem is so big and oftentimes is a systems problem, meaning it’s not just one intervention or solution that’s going to solve that. It’s going to require all of us working together,” he explained. “We wouldn’t be working on advanced recycling if we didn’t think it was going to be highly impactful and game changing, because we go after a 10x impact.”

Google X’s solution is using data to build a molecular data platform, aggregating the information on its infrastructure, which includes Google Cloud and Google AI, and using the data to create dynamic change. It uses analytical chemistry to train machine learning to optimize the recycling process. “We’ve been partnering with folks in this industry for a while now, and the rst experiments were on optimizing feedstock for [pyrolysis] oil quality,” Banatao explained.

Google X has tested its sorting technology in the real world, deploying it in a MRF on the West Coast to divert all land ll-bound material. It’s then sorting mechanical residue and for different advanced recycling processes. As Banatao shared, Google X is now “heading into industrial scale with some of the biggest reactors in the world.”

EPR’s role in supporting advanced recycling

Feedstock is not the only concern, however. The potential impact of plastic legislation on the advanced recycling industry is also still unknown. “Policy is really going to impact the whole fundamental possibility of what’s going to happen with plastic pyrolysis,” said Anthony Schiavo, senior director of Lux Research Inc.

In his presentation, Schiavo shared research from Lux on four key areas of regulation and predicted the future of policy for pyrolysis based on whether these policies consider pyrolysis as recycling. The four areas were the United Nation’s international legally binding agreement on plastics pollution, India’s plastic waste management rules, the EU’s Packaging and Packaging Waste Regulation [PPWR], and U.S. state and federal agency action.

Schiavo’s conclusion: “The EU is really the only group that’s moving towards a signi cant recognition for plastic pyrolysis as a form of recycling. We really don’t see momentum for the recognition of plastic pyrolysis as a form of recycling anywhere else globally, with the exception of Japan, where the laws are very loose. With this in mind, I think we need to be thinking about scaling and developing plastic pyrolysis in a landscape where there is not a lot of regulation.”

In his overview of extended producer responsibility laws for packaging in the U.S., Dan Felton, executive director of packaging advocacy organization AMERIPEN, shared that among the goals of EPR are—“depending on who you ask”—to fund existing and expanded composting and recycling programs, drive greater packaging recovery and recycling, including

through innovation, and help companies meet their sustainability goals.

Of the ve states that currently have EPR legislation, Felton shared that Maine, Colorado, Oregon, and Minnesota are “silent” on advanced recycling, while California is “unclear.” Of the four that have not addressed it, he said that “AMERIPEN takes the view that if they’re not saying anything about it, that’s probably a good thing at this point.”

While AMERIPEN doesn’t have a position on advanced recycling, Felton said that the organization never wants to see any technology “taken

Dan Felton of AMERIPEN and Jennifer Ronk of Dow discuss the impact of EPR packaging legislation on the adoption of advanced recycling technologies.

Shaping the future together

It’s important to look beyond the short term, which is why Krones is working on “Solutions beyond tomorrow”. Be it beverage and food production lines, digital services or plastics recycling: Krones’ innovative solutions combine superior performance with sustainability.

PACK EXPO 2024, Chicago, 3-6 November Hall/Stand S-2766

Krones, Inc., 414-409-4000, sales@kronesusa.com, www.kronesusa.com

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off the table that will eventually potentially lead to restrictions or bans on any packaging material, plastics included.”

Jennifer Ronk, senior sustainability manager for Dow, emphasized the important role of EPR in enabling the collection and sorting of more materials. “We have whole new ways to look at how these materials can work if we start thinking about what’s possible because of these technologies,” she said. “But unfortunately, we’ve run up against a lot of barriers. Collection has been hard, and sorting is hard. How do we get these materials back so that we can use them? That’s something policy is good at doing, when you can see a system that makes sense, it helps build that future we’re trying to get to.”

For his part, Adam Peer, senior director, Packaging, for the American Chemistry Council (ACC), focuses on educating policymakers to ensure that advanced recycling is included, or at least not prohibited, in different public policies.

Of the 50 U.S. states, 25 have laws in place that enable advanced recycling, meaning they’ve de ned it as manufacturing, rather than waste management, which results in fewer regulations. Some others are adamantly opposed to advanced recycling.

Busting advanced recycling myths

According to Robert Flores, VP of Sustainability for Berry Global, one way of overcoming negative press and opposition by policymakers is by talking about the successes achieved with advanced recycling. According to Flores, plastic packaging converter Berry is the largest resin buyer in the world, with access to more advanced recycling than any other company.

Over the past several years, Berry has worked with several CPGs and QSRs to deliver packaging with PCR content derived from advanced recycling. The rst publicly announced commercial application was a plastic tub for Philadelphia cream cheese in Europe, followed by Heinz Beans Snap Pots, a project done in collaboration with Tesco whereby store takeback material is being used to create the packaging. Another is beverage cups for Wendy’s Restaurants that use 20% PCR from advanced recycling across the entire line.

Flores also alluded to a number of other customers who are reluctant to publicize their use of the materials. “So you say, why wouldn’t these companies want to announce it?” inquired Flores. “Well, one of the key issues we’re facing is pushback on advanced recycling.”

The pushback is coming, he said, from publicity proclaiming advanced recycling isn’t real, as well as misconceptions around the technology, including that it emits harmful pollutants. “We’re

Berry is working with LyondellBasell to produce beverage cups for Wendy’s that use 20% PCR from advanced recycling across the entire line.

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telling them [partners and NGOs] that their thoughts about air emissions are overblown,” he says. “I always tell them, ‘I used to work in the chemical industry, and at my job, I had to wear a respirator because there were concerns about what I would breath in. Whereas, when you visit advanced recyclers, you don’t have to wear respirators. The air is clean.’”

He referenced advanced recycler Alterra, which hosted a tour of its advanced recycling facility during the summit, saying “they’re basically operating at less than 10% of their air permit.”

There is also pushback on the use of mass-balance accounting as a way to quantify the amount of advanced-recycled PCR used in a package. Mass balance is a certi ed protocol that tracks the amount of recycled materials used in manufacturing processes. It’s used to measure the amount of plastic building blocks from advanced recycling that are mixed with traditional materials to create new products.

Explained Flores, it allows chemical companies to mix circular feedstocks from advanced recycling with fossil feedstocks on existing assets. “Ultimately, the winning point for everyone is that we’re not the rst ones to use this,” he said. “It’s a method already in use by sustainable

forestry, cocoa, coffee, palm oil, tea, and other industries.”

The nal pushback Flores mentioned were questions on the lifecycle analysis of advanced recycling. However, he notes, the rst thorough LCA he saw was from BASF, which showed there was a signi cant greenhouse gas savings with pyrolysis versus an alternative system. An LCA from Closed Loop Partners also shows a reduction in GHGs across all advanced recycling technology categories.

At the conclusion of his presentation, Flores presented a call to action to dispel the myths surrounding advanced recycling: “We need to do a better job of telling our story because right now the anti-plastic groups, the ones that want plastic go away as a whole, they’re out there, they’re being very vocal, and they’re also spread across the nation. If we don’t tell our story, they’re the ones that really paint the picture.

“We can also talk to our of cials locally. We need to change this narrative. And just like visiting the [Alterra] plant today, you see it is real, and you see that material going to resin producers, and you see the products that ultimately end up on the shelf or in the QSRs. There are many successes. We just need to tell those more.” PW

Serialization Station for Pharma Bottles

Antares Vision Group’s Omnivision Bottle Serialization Station is a high-speed, versatile, automated solution designed to print and read unique helper codes on round, square, or rectangular pharmaceutical bottles. Booth S-3754

Antares Vision Group pwgo.to/8418

At PACK EXPO International

Top Load Carton/Tray/Case Former

Serpa’s FG1 Top Load Carton/Tray/Case Former is capable of forming cartons, cases, or trays from corrugated or chip board materials and offers quick changeovers and easy maintenance. Booth S-3650

Serpa, a ProMach brand pwgo.to/8402

At

PACK EXPO International

Rotary Horizontal Form/Fill/Seal Machine

Bartelt’s MAG Series FFS-R is a rotary horizontal form/ ll/seal machine that offers optimal exibility and ef ciency for pouch packaging, featuring modular design for quick changeovers, dynamic product settling, and a lightweight magnetic bag clamp for precision and speed. Booth S-3528

Bartelt, a ProMach brand pwgo.to/8425

At PACK EXPO

International

Fulfillment Paper Automatic Bagger

PAC Machinery’s Rollbag

R3200 can accommodate poly mailers and PAC’s Fiber ex curbside recyclable paper mailers, providing a sustainable packaging solution that also helps future-proof equipment investments in anticipation of stricter regulations on plastic packaging. Booth S-2130

At

PACK EXPO International

X-ray Inspection System

Fortress Technology’s Icon X-ray is a high-performance X-ray inspection system that enhances traceability for food manufacturers through advanced detection algorithms, internal cameras, and an integrated reject device. Booth S-1758 Fortress Technology pwgo.to/8399

PAC Machinery pwgo.to/8400

At PACK EXPO International

Robotic Palletizer

Brenton’s RL1000 robotic palletizer is a modular solution designed for high-speed layer palletizing of various packaging types, offering exibility and customization. Booth S-3662

Brenton, a ProMach brand pwgo.to/8422

At PACK EXPO International

IMAGINE COMPOSTING A PLASTIC BAG OR A COFFEE CUP

15 YEARS AGO, WE INVENTED BIODOLOMER. A bioplastic with limestone as the key ingredient. Biodolomer is fully compostable (certified by TÜV and BPI), and when decomposed, it will actually leave extra calcium from the limestone in the soil.

Biodolomer comes in granules that can be used for thermoforming, film blowing, extrusion coating, injection molding... you name it.

It does all the good stu that plastic does. But not the bad.

It contains only ingredients that are approved by the FDA. It uses less energy in production and results in up to 80 % less CO2 than traditional plastic.

You can even put it in your home compost and watch it disappear.

Biodolomer might just be the easiest way to make your brand more sustainable. For real.

At

PACK

EXPO

International

High-Speed Count Feeder

The FGCT high-speed count feeder is a key component of Syntegon’s system solution for sandwich cookies, ef ciently grouping and loading cookies into trays to minimize damage and waste. Booth S-2914

Syntegon pwgo.to/8411

At PACK EXPO International Case Erector-Palletizer

Schneider Packaging Equipment’s Collaborative Case Erector-Palletizer for automating case erecting, taping, and palletizing features a dual-purpose end-of-arm tool that eliminates a separate forming xture and provides fast, tool-less changeover. Booth S-3300

Schneider Packaging Equipment, a Pacteon Group brand pwgo.to/8427

At PACK EXPO International Sustainable Auto Dispenser

The high-speed Pregis EasyPack GeoTerra Auto Dispenser utilizes GeoTerra paper to provide light-cushioning and interleaving protection while improving ef ciency and reducing environmental impact. Booth S-3574

Pregis pwgo.to/8416

At PACK EXPO International Conveyorized Metal Detector System

Loma Systems’ IQ4 Conveyor combines a user-friendly touchscreen interface, advanced detection technology, and robust construction to provide ef cient and reliable contaminant removal in food processing environments. Booth S-3916

Loma Systems, an ITW company pwgo.to/8429

At PACK EXPO International Robotic Case Packer

ESS Technologies’ compact Model V30 Robotic Case Packer loads cartons or bottles into various case types and features a removable case magazine for easy installation and integration with serialization track-and-trace systems. Booth W-16041

ESS Technologies, a Pacteon Group brand pwgo.to/8427

At PACK EXPO International Thermoformer

Ossid’s Reepack ReeForm Series is a versatile packaging machine designed to suit various production needs, from entry-level to high-capacity applications, offering features like a stainless-steel frame, user-friendly controls, and energy-ef cient operation. Booth S-3530

Ossid, a ProMach brand pwgo.to/8413

At PACK EXPO International Case Packer

Enhanced by Delkor’s corrugated warp correction technology, the compact EVO case packers delivers high payload, reach, and speed and is capable of handling a wide range of package formats and weights. Booth N-5325 Delkor pwgo.to/8419

VIBAC: YOUR 100% VERTICALLY INTEGRATED PACKAGING PARTNER.

WE’RE EXCITED TO ANNOUNCE OUR PARTICIPATION AT PACK EXPO CHICAGO FROM NOVEMBER 3 TO 6, 2024.

FIND US AT BOOTH LU 7228

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High-performance hot melt adhesive tapes

Natural rubber adhesive tapes

Reliable acrylic adhesive tapes

Filament tapes and Industrial tapes range

Double-sided tapes

Water-activated tapes

Sustainable PSA tape solutions

Paper adhesive tapes

General-purpose masking tapes

Our products come in a variety of sizes and configurations to suit your specific requirements! Visit us to explore the latest innovations and discover how Vibac can enhance your packaging solutions!

At PACK EXPO International

Blister Machine

Pharmaworks’ enhanced TF1e is a versatile packaging solution for pharmaceutical, biotech, and consumer goods manufacturers that offers autoadjusting stations, an extended heater station, and increased thermoforming depth to accommodate challenging materials and medical devices.

Booth W-16017d

Pharmaworks, a ProMach brand pwgo.to/8405

Case Packing System

The tna ropac 5— a high-performance system that includes a bag conditioner, case packer, case erector, and checkweigher—is capable of packing up to 200 bags per minute on a single infeed con guration. Booth N-5120

TNA Solutions pwgo.to/8412

At PACK EXPO International

Vertical Form/Fill/Seal Pouching Machines

Amcor’s Liqui ex intermittent or continuous motion vf/f/s pouching machines create strong, abuseresistant, zero-headspace pouches with superb seal integrity for products such as soups, sauces, dressings, and condiments. Booth S-3705

Amcor pwgo.to/8430

At PACK EXPO International Horizontal Flow Wrapper and Desiccant Feeder

Campbell Wrapper Corporation’s Revolution horizontal ow wrapper features advanced technology, customizable options, and a sanitary design, making it ideal for food, medical, consumer products, and more. Booth S-1700

Campbell Wrapper Corporation pwgo.to/8398

At

PACK EXPO International

Liquid Nitrogen Dosing System

Vacuum Barrier Corporation’s NITRODOSE

OEE and Data Collection Software

Wintriss Controls Group’s ShopFloorConnect improves manufacturing ef ciency through real-time data collection, detailed reporting, and the new SFC ShopFloor Tracker compact hardware device, which provides automated data tracking. Booth LU-8431

Wintriss Controls Group pwgo.to/8404

G3 SERVODOSER, a system designed for fast, precise delivery of low-pressure liquid nitrogen in beverage applications, can adjust liquid nitrogen ow rate without nozzle changeover. Booth S-2679

Vacuum Barrier Corporation pwgo.to/8401

At

PACK EXPO International

Moisture Control Inspection System

Yoran Imaging’s Process Analytical Monitoring (PAM) Moisture Control system utilizes thermal imaging technology to provide complete moisture monitoring and process optimization for food packaging lines. Booth LU-8857

Yoran Imaging pwgo.to/8420

At PACK EXPO International

At PACK EXPO International

Labeler and Beltorque Capper

At PACK EXPO International Small-Batch Blister Machine

Maruho Hatsujyo Innovations’ Eagle-LP blister machine is a compact and affordable solution for small-run blister packaging applications. Booth W-15058

Maruho Hatsujyo Innovations (MHI) pwgo.to/8451

NJM’s new automated adjustments feature on its BRONCO 130 labeler and beltorque capper offers pharmaceutical and biotech manufacturers a simpli ed and ef cient way to changeover between different package sizes and formats, reducing time and labor costs. Booth S-3548

NJM, a ProMach brand pwgo.to/8406

Labeler for Spirit and Liquor Bottles

PACK EXPO International Vertical Chub Filler

ProSys Fill’s VCF chub ller offers high-speed, accurate, and ef cient vertical lling of self-leveling to highly viscous products with a discharge chute and programmable logic controller for easy operation and maintenance. Booth S-3656

ProSys Fill, LLC pwgo.to/8428

X-ray Inspection Systems

ProSpection Solutions has partnered with System Square to bring their X-ray and high-resolution dual-energy technology to the U.S. in the SXM2 Series X-Ray and the SXS2 Series X-ray Seal Inspection Systems, which utilize high-precision dual-energy sensors and AI to detect foreign materials and inspect package seals. Booth N-6386 (System Square)

ProSpection Solutions and System Square pwgo.to/8426

Empty Can Vacuum Transfer System

Descon Conveyor Systems’ integrated Single-Lane Empty Can Vacuum Transfer with Laser Coding and Code Inspection offers high-quality laser coding of empty cans while preventing line stoppages by automatically removing defective cans before lling. Booth S-3300

WLS’s VR-72, a high-speed, modular labeler designed for the precise application of wrap-around and frontand-back labels on spirit and liquor bottles, offers accurate placement, quick changeovers, and a compact footprint. Booth S-3548 WLS, a ProMach brand pwgo.to/8407

Descon Conveyor Systems, a Pacteon Group brand pwgo.to/8427

for the right packaging solution.

At PACK EXPO International

A CUTTING EDGE AND SUSTAINABLE

ALTERNATIVE TO THE TRADITIONALPET

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At Alpek Polyester, we are more than the world’s second largest producer of PET Resin, we are producers of the innovative Direct-to-Sheet, Octal DPET®

Ċŀŝ ŭĒ÷ ŚÏëĨÏċėĶċ ÏĶñ Ē÷÷ŭɒŚŝŀñŵëŭŤɑĊŀŝɑŭĒ÷ɑŚÏëĨÏċėĶċɑÏĶñɑ thermoform markets.

Thisuniquetechnology This unique technology delivers delivers exceptional consistency and claritywithenhancedmechanical clarity with enhanced mechanical properties,resultingin properties, resulting in increased increased productivity for Therm for Thermoformers formers whileallowingdesigner while allowing designers the he ƣ÷ƓėêėīėŭƔŭŀÏëĒė÷ƍ÷ŤŭŵĶ ƣ÷ƓėêėīėŭƔɑŭŀɑÏëĒė÷ƍ÷ɑŤŭŵĶĶėĶċɑŚÏëĨÏċ÷ɑ Ķċ ŚÏëĨÏċ÷ designsthatmaintain the designs that maintain their shape.

Octal rDPET® Ē÷÷ŭėŤÏƍÏėī ɑ Ē÷÷ŭɑėŤɑÏƍÏėīÏêī÷ɑƎėŭĒɑ ī÷ ƎėŭĒ integrated post consumer re integrated post consumer recycle ycle

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At PACK EXPO

Case Packer

The SOMIC 434 is a versatile case packer designed for ef cient and reliable packaging of various products, offering advanced features like a quick changeover system, improved accessibility, and enhanced visibility in a compact footprint.

Booth N-6148

SOMIC Packaging, Inc. pwgo.to/8322

At PACK EXPO International Vision Guided Robotic Loader

Bradman Lake’s VGR Vision Guided Robotic Loader is a versatile machine that can load products into cartons or the infeed of a multi-pack ow wrapper, offering exibility and ef ciency in packaging operations. Booth S-2058

Bradman Lake pwgo.to/8424

At PACK

Palletizer with AMR

Using an articulated arm robot to stack cases on an AMR, the BA Palletizer from Motion Controls Robotics streamlines automated material handling, combining palletizing with exible, autonomous transport. Booth N-4625

Motion Controls Robotics pwgo.to/8408

International

EXPO International

Small-Batch Blister Machine

At PACK EXPO International

Rotary Stretch Wrapper

Orion’s MA Fully Automatic Rotary Stretch Wrapping System offers lead times of 12-14 weeks for those needing a stretch wrapper installed quickly. Booth S-3662

Orion Packaging Systems, a ProMach brand pwgo.to/8453

Cama North America’s MTL monoblock features a B&R ACOPOStrak magnetic track system and offers increased productivity and exibility for packaging operations, handling up to 1,800 products per minute and managing multi-con guration packs. Booth N-5152 Cama North America pwgo.to/8454

Horizontal Flow Wrapper and Desiccant Feeder

Shubert North America’s lightline Casepacker is a pre-con gured, compact machine that provides cost-effective and quick delivery options for manufacturers seeking dependable robot-assisted technology. Booth N-6151 Schubert North America pwgo.to/8452

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Speci cally designed to meet the rigorous demands of packaging equipment applications. Motion Control and Power Transmission Drive Components

At PACK EXPO International

KEEP IT CLEAN

In Memoriam

Packaging World remembers Lloyd Ferguson, who co-founded Summit Media Group with Joe Angel (former president of PMMI Media Group, now with PMMI) and Chuck Winnicky (deceased) in the summer of 1993. The trio assembled a small but passionate crew of publishing professionals to launch Packaging World soon after.

See our solutions up close at Pack Expo in Chicago. Booth S-2138

From left, Winnicky, Ferguson, and Angel founded Summit Media and Packaging World.

An astute businessperson, Ferguson’s success was anchored by his biggest champion and wife of 57 years, Martha, who survives him. Lloyd Ferguson demonstrated compassion and care for the people with whom he worked and had a gift of motivating and lifting people. In 1978 he and two other publishing executives from Penton Publishing, Bill D’Alexander and Jack Daniels, bought the publication Packaging Digest, and formed Delta Communications. Leaning on his many years as a successful publishing sales executive, he and his partners grew Delta until selling it in 1986. Ferguson retired from publishing in 1989, only to be brought back to the world of B2B media in 1993. That’s when he, Angel, and Winnicky saw, as Ferguson put it, “not just a window, but a garage door” of opportunity for a new company, Summit Media Group, and a new media brand, Packaging World, which launched in January 1994. It was critical that the new publication have editorial credibility, so they recruited two of the best packaging editors in Pat Reynolds (contributing editor) and Arnie Orloski (deceased).

Ferguson retired in 2013 and passed the reins to Angel. Summit Media Group was then acquired in 2014 by PMMI to become PMMI Media Group. Visit pwgo.to/8479 for further remembrances from colleagues.

Companies

Argus launches the Argus Polyethylene Transaction Index to provide increased market transparency and support fair pricing in the U.S. domestic market.

Soft Robotics divests its gripper business to Schmalz and rebrands as Oxipital AI with a focus on AI vision solutions, while Schmalz expands its gripper portfolio by acquiring the mGrip product family.

BW Flexible Systems announces a partnership between its Streamfeeder product line and Postmatic in an effort to increase manufacturing capacity in the packaging and mailing industry.

General Packaging Equipment Co. celebrates 70 years of providing durable solutions in vertical form/ fill/seal technology for a wide range of industries.

People

Patrick Harp joins Formost Fuji as regional sales manager for the South-Central region and major accounts coordinator, a new position designed to enhance customer communication.

Tim Patt is appointed regional sales director at Dorner, where he will lead a team of regional managers to expand the company’s business in automation, industrial, and sanitary conveyors.

Morrison Container Handling Solutions names Jason Hansen its West Coast sales manager, responsible for delivering Morrison’s ‘Support Built In’ to customers in California, Nevada, and Arizona.

Pepijn Dinandt takes the helm as chief executive officer at Flint Group, where he will drive the company’s growth and sustainability initiatives.

Combi Packaging Systems hires Mike Cargill as director of technical services and aftermarket support to enhance customer success and streamline packaging operations.

Chad Brewer brings over 25 years of experience in label print production to AGH Labels North America, where he is named director of client solutions.

www.clysar.com

Columbia Machine, Inc. www.palletizing.com

www.columbiaokura.com

CTM Labeling Systems www.ctmlabelingsystems.com 204

Delkor Systems, Inc. www.delkorsystems.com

Diagraph Marking & Coding, An ITW Company www.diagraph.com 167

DieQua Corporation www.diequa.com 224

Dorner Mfg. Corp. www.dornerconveyors.com 97

DTM Packaging, a Massman Company www.dtmpackaging.com 41, 42, 45

Douglas Machine Inc. www.douglas-machine.com 195

Eastey www.eastey.com 73

Econocorp, Inc. www.econocorp.com 55

EDL, a Massman Company www.edlpackaging.com 41, 43, 45

Encoder Products Company www.encoder.com 173

Enercon Industries Corporation www.enerconind.com 181

Fallas Automation Inc. www.fallasautomation.com 19

FANUC America Corporation www.fanucamerica.com

March 10-12, 2025

Atlanta, GA Discover food packaging and processing technologies you ZRQōWƓQGDWRWKHUIRRGLQGXVWU\VKRZV'R]HQVRILQGXVWULHV converge at PACK EXPO Southeast 2025, revealing innovative solutions to transform your entire food production line. 'RQōWPLVVWKLVH[WUDRUGLQDU\RSSRUWXQLW\IRU\RXUEXVLQHVV

Multivac, Inc. www.multivac.com

Nercon Conveyor Systems www.nerconconveyors.com 18, 226

New England Machinery, a Massman Company www.neminc.com 41, 42, 45

Nita Labeling Systems www.nitalabeling.com

Niverplast NA Inc. www.niverplastna.com

Nordson Corporation www.nordson.com/en

Novanta www.novantaphotonics.com

nVenia, A Duravant Company www.nvenia.com

Omori North America Inc. www.omori-na.com

Discover every new packaging and processing trend out there and explore solutions from more than 2,500 exhibitors, all under one roof. PACK EXPO International is where you can discuss real-world problems with experts and land on innovative ideas.

By Rob Kaszubowski, CPPL

Packaging Consultants Council is Back

The Institute of Packaging Professionals

(IoPP) has relaunched the Packaging Consultants Council (PCC) as a chartered unit of the organization.

The PCC is composed of individual consultants and boutique packaging consulting firms sharing a passion for packaging and problem-solving. These groups and individuals offer a diverse range of professional services to the packaging industry, including advisory consulting, fractional engineering support, and full-scale project assistance. Additionally, many of the consultants are qualified to serve as legal expert witnesses.

Besides the PCC, IoPP has a number of technical committees that operate in various corners of the packaging industry. Included are the Chemical Packaging Committee, the Food Safety Alliance for Packaging, the Pharmaceutical and Medical Device Labeling Committee, the Technical Bag Committee, the Drug and Pharmaceutical Packaging Committee, the Medical Device Packaging Technical Committee, and the Sustainable Packaging Committee. Like the PCC, each of these committees is made up of and led by IoPP members.

PCC bene ts

PCC members bring decades of experience spanning across multiple industries, including consumer packaged goods, food and beverage, cosmetics, consumer durables, medical devices, pharmaceuticals, and more. In addition, the council’s background touches on a wide array of packaging materials, processes, equipment, and supply chains.

A primary objective of the PCC is to create value for members and the packaging industry by improving individual member performance and contributions.

One goal of the group is to raise awareness of the packaging industry and the value that packaging engineers and professionals can bring to an organization. Since packaging impacts many aspects of an organization and its value chain, the PCC believes there are additional benefits to building, sharing, and expanding our professional networks. These networks serve as connectors and channels for solving complex problems, discovering new industry technologies and available resources, and ultimately drawing upon the collective experiences of the group to learn and progress more efficiently.

With a new, simplified web landing page (see pwgo.to/8476), the PCC aims to offer information and tools that help companies find qualified packaging experts to address their various needs and challenges. In addition, the council strives to establish strong ethical

standards among professional packaging consultants and expand our collective network and the packaging community as a whole.

Value of fresh perspective

There are some considerations for selecting a packaging consultant, as adding a consultative resource to your team can provide a different viewpoint and a wealth of knowledge. This can serve as a catalyst for achieving tangible results.

Packaging consultant services are particularly beneficial in these common scenarios:

1. Getting a fresh perspective.

• Consultants have a unique opportunity to collaborate with a diverse array of organizations. This provides them with invaluable insights into best practices and processes employed in similar or related industries.

• You can revitalize your packaging team and operations by introducing fresh ideas.

• It’s your opportunity for independent advice and opinions from someone who can see outside of the forest.

2. Accessing industry expertise and talent. This is useful when:

• You’re seeking external assistance to help you identify new markets or strategies.

• Technical domain expertise is essential for delving into complex issues and supporting new initiatives effectively.

• Your team excels at what they do, but you need a strategic vision to help guide a project, a program, or a transformation.

• You need to bring your staff up to speed in a new area of packaging.

3. Resourcing capability gaps or taking on new challenges. This is a consideration when:

• Business needs arise, but internal resources are constrained.

• You have experience or knowledge gaps within your internal teams and resources.

• You need to meet tight deadlines or have spiking short-term workloads.

If you’re an active packaging consultant looking to expand your network or an organization needing support on a current or upcoming packaging project, the PCC would love to hear from you. If you need the fresh perspective of a consultant, we’re here to help you.

The Packaging Consultants Council is passionate about packaging, solving problems and growing the packaging community. PW

You can submit inquiries to the PCC through the IoPP website.

The author, Rob Kaszubowski is Managing Director for Packaging Optimization, at NTT Data, formerly Chainalytics, and President of the Packaging Consultants Council, a chartered unit of IoPP, www.iopp.org. He is an IoPP Certi ed Packaging Professional Lifetime, and also is an active member of the University of Wisconsin-Stout Packaging Advisory Council.

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