29 minute read
Automation Technology
Photoelectric Sensors Current Sensor
Carlo Gavazzi’s EISH Series ON/ OFF current sensor is designed to monitor critical loads such as fans, water pumps, lighting, and motors. Carlo Gavazzi pwgo.to/7260
AutomationDirect’s Wenglor photoelectric sensors can detect dark and shiny objects up to 400mm away and are IO-Link V1.1 compatible available in 50x20x50mm or 32x12x16mm body sizes with an M12 or M8 quick-disconnect. AutomationDirect pwgo.to/7259
Direct Drive Linear Actuator
The compact SDLM-051-070-01-01 Direct Drive Linear Actuator from Moticont features integrated position and temperature sensors for increased throughput. It is 2 in. in diameter, with a housing length of 2.75 in. Moticont pwgo.to/7113
Reference Diffuse Sensor
The DRT25C.R dynamic reference diffuse sensor from Leuze detects various lm-wrapped bottles and cans fault-free. Leuze Electronic pwgo.to/7112
Margaret Knight’s at-bottomed bag machine patent model. Courtesy of the Smithsonian, National Museum of American History.
PACK to the Future: The Story Behind the Historical Exhibit at PACK EXPO Las Vegas
Take a journey through the history of packaging, explore milestones that shaped the present, and learn more about industry trends influencing the future.
By Matt Reynolds, Editor
Be sure to visit PACK to the Future, a packaging exhibit that has been nearly two years in the making, on display at PACK EXPO Las Vegas and Healthcare Packaging EXPO, September 27-29 in the North Hall of the Las Vegas Convention Center.
The exhibit traces the evolution of modern packaging from its roots in the Industrial Age to the present and explores current trends that are shaping the near future. The largest feature of the near 10,000 square foot exhibit is a timeline of packaging facts, images, artifacts, and machines spanning 250 years from the mid-1700s to the early 2000s. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) contributes an educational display on regulations that transformed package labeling. Presentations by packaging industry experts and business leaders on topics such as sustainability, smart packaging, and new technologies occur hourly each day on the PACK to the Future stage (schedule on page 136).
From the beginning PMMI and curators of the exhibit Jack Aguero, president, Aguero Associates, and Brent Meyer, president, Meyer Communications, wanted PACK to the Future to be more than a “once-upona-time-in-packaging” citation of dates. They saw the project as a way to share some interesting educational stories and showcase many of the people who helped make the packaging industry what it is today.
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Meet the Curators and Advisors
Jack Aguero
Jack Aguero has been in the packaging industry for 25 years. He served on the board of PMMI and was Chairman of their Business Intelligence Committee. He is also on the Board of Directors of Septimatech, a PMMI member company, and an advisor to OMAC, the non-profit which created the ISA standard called PackML. He and Brent Meyer helped create the Robotic Zone exhibit for PACK EXPO Las Vegas 2019.
Brent Meyer
Brent Meyer has worked in the packaging industry for more than 15 years. He advises and provides communication support for multiple companies in packaging, health care, manufacturing, professional services, and B2B. He is an advisor to OMAC and has worked with Jack Aguero on multiple projects including the Robotic Zone exhibit for PACK EXPO Las Vegas 2019.
PACK to the Future Advisory Board
Mark Green, President,
Mark Green & Associates Rebecca Oesterle, Chair Board,
Institute of Packaging Professionals Paul Pezzoli, Vice-President (retired),
Kellogg Company David Smith, President,
David S. Smith Associates Chuck Yuska, President (retired), PMMI Ronald Yakubison, Executive Director,
Global Packaging Technical Operations,
Merck & Company Pat Reynolds, Editor Emeritus,
PMMI Media Group Sean Riley, Senior Director, PMMI,
Media and Industry Communications Ken McGuire, Research Fellow,
The Procter & Gamble Company Bill Crist, CEO (retired) Kliklok-Woodman, a Syntegon Technology Company Yours Truly, Matt Reynolds, Editor,
PMMI Media Group
Listen to a conversation between Jack Aguero and PMMI’s Sean Riley about the nearly two-year process of delivering a curated packaging history exhibit to PACK EXPO Las Vegas at pwgo.to/7246
Aguero and Meyer are quick to point out that PACK to the Future couldn’t have happened without the support of numerous people and organizations within and outside the packaging industry. An 11-member Advisory Board with packaging bona des provided guidance and opened doors to their contacts at CPGs, machinery and materials companies, trade organizations, and universities. The 28 historic packaging and processing machines, dating from the late 1800s through the 1980s, are all contributed by machinery manufacturers. Hundreds of photos, facts, and stories are available for the exhibit because archivists at CPGs, museums, and other organizations generously shared content and time to work with Aguero and Meyer.
“A constant throughout this project has been the extraordinary enthusiasm and the willingness of people to give their time and share their resources and knowledge,” Aguero says. “I think it’s a testament to the people in our industry and the importance of these stories.”
PACK to the Future Contributors
The following organizations provided information, images, machines, or artifacts for the exhibit. Without their cooperation, support and enthusiasm, PACK to the Future wouldn’t have been possible.
All-Fill Inc. Amazon Amcor plc Anheuser-Busch Anritsu In vis Avery Dennison Corporation BestPack Packaging Systems Boston Dynamics, Inc. Bush Brothers and Company Campbell Wrapper Corporation Can Manufacturers Institute Canovation Collectors Weekly Columbia/Okura LLC. The Coca-Cola Company Cozzoli Machine Company Detre Library & Archives,
Senator John Heinz History Center Diagraph Marking & Coding, an ITW Company Drop Water Felins USA, Incorporated General Mills, Inc. George Eastman Museum Glass Packaging Institute Google Patents Graphic Packaging International Heat and Control, Inc. The Hershey Company Hormel Foods Corporation HP Inc. IoPP-Institute of Packaging Professionals The J. M. Smucker Company Johnson & Johnson Kellogg Company Kliklok LLC, A Syntegon Company Library of Congress Merck & Co., Inc. Michigan State University MSSC LLC. Multivac, Inc. New England Machinery, Inc. New York Public Library NJM Nord Gear Corporation Ohio State University Old Dutch Foods, Inc. Omega Design Corporation Omron PAC Machinery PDC International Corporation Polypack, Inc. The Procter & Gamble Company R.A Jones, a Coesia Company Rovema North America, Inc. Schneider Electric Schubert North America, LLC Science Museum Group Collection Septimatech Group, Inc. Smithsonian, National Museum of American History SNAC International Spee-Dee Packaging Machinery, Inc. Tetra Pak Urschel Laboratories, Inc. U.S. Bottlers Machinery Co. U.S. Food & Drug Administration Wikipedia WIPOTEC-OCS, Inc. Wrapade Packaging Systems, LLC.
From PACK to the Future: A Sneak Peek
Aguero credits this enthusiasm as one of the major reasons PACK to the Future stayed on track during the uncertainty created by the pandemic. The exhibit was originally planned for PACK EXPO International in 2020 but was postponed due to the pandemic. The delay created both challenges and opportunities.
“One of the biggest challenges on the project was that during the pandemic many people couldn’t access their archives or content in their of ces,” Aguero says. “Despite the personal and professional uncertainty, they stuck with us and followed through.”
“The delay also gave us an opportunity to continue researching and locating new sources and information,” adds Meyer. “This extra time helped us ll in some gaps and uncover some great content. It was during the pandemic that Merck introduced us to contacts at the Smithsonian.” “Packaging has played a crucial role in the development of trade, commerce, the preservation of food, medicine and development of other products,” Aguero says. “Packaging and the development of civilization are intertwined. The betterment of mankind through packaging is a consistent theme. We hope people get the sense of that as they walk through the exhibit.” “There are numerous innovations in materials or machinery that made food, healthcare and other products safer or even possible,” adds Meyer. “Gail Borden’s development of sweetened condensed canned milk was in direct response to his desire to save the lives of children Corking tables at H.J. Heinz Company, 1901. Courtesy of H.J. Heinz Company Photographs, who didn’t have access to fresh milk. Borden Detre Library & Archives, Senator John Heinz History Center. and numerous people like him asserted themselves on the present to make the future better.” One of the things that stands out in the exhibit is the prominent role women played in packaging from the very beginning. Margaret Knight, the rst women to receive a U.S. patent, designed the rst machine to make at-bottomed paper bags in the 1870s. Before her invention, at-bottomed bags were made by hand. The existing bag making machines, considered the rst dedicated packaging machines, only made envelope-style bags which were limited in what they could hold. Knight, known as the “female Edison,” received 26 patents in her life in packaging and other industries.
Women packaging Kellogg’s Corn Flakes in 1931. Image courtesy of Kellogg’s Historical Archives.
Many people are aware that large numbers of women entered the workforce during the World Wars but aren’t aware that women began working in large numbers during the Industrial Age. Packaging was considered a well-paying job for women compared to many options. In the late 1800s and early 1900s many of the roles were lled by women. By 1907, more than one-third of the employees on Kellogg’s packaging lines were women. This was common in other companies as well. Heinz offered free weekly manicures and hot showers for women who worked their packaging lines in the late 1800s and early 1900s. It helped ensure food safety and was seen as a perk not offered by many jobs of the day.
Later in the mid-1900s, the numbers of women in the packaging industry dwindled. The return of women to packaging has slowly been increasing again in recent decades, particularly in leadership roles. PMMI will host a Packaging and Processing Women’s Leadership Network breakfast on Tuesday at PACK EXPO.
Aguero and Meyer also found that inspiration for packaging machinery and innovations didn’t always come from within the industry. Otto Rowedder, who invented the rst machine to slice and wrap bread in 1927, was a jeweler. Clarence Birdseye, who invented the process and machinery for Quick Freezing, was a fur trader in Canada when he discovered that sh that was frozen almost immediately after being caught retained its avor when thawed. John Van Wormer, the person who in-
Read more about the Packaging and Processing Women’s Leadership Network Breakfast, held during PACK EXPO Las Vegas, on page 94.
PACK to the Future Presentation Schedule
The PACK to the Future Stage is located at N-9830. Presentations occur hourly on each day of the show. MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 27
No Strings Attached: When Packaging Machinery Goes Wireless The Evolution of Pharmaceutical Packaging - Past, Present, and Future Using AI to Achieve the Next Level of Operational Ef ciency for your Packaging Machines
10:30 AM - 11:00 AM 11:30 AM - 12:00 PM 12:30 PM - 1:00 PM Unpacking the Cannabis Opportunity 1:30 PM - 2:00 PM Innovative Heating and Sealing Systems Needed on Packaging Machinery to Process Sustainable Materials 2:30 PM - 3:00 PM Pain Points for Brand Owners: How Can Smart Packaging Make a Difference? 3:30 PM - 4:00 PM TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 28
Re-Positioning Packaging as the Environmental Solution How can the Industrial Edge Deliver New Insights for Packaging Machines? Building a Stakeholder Coalition for Policy Progress: The Recycling Leadership Council The Transition of Packaging to a Digital World Through Data No Strings Attached: When Packaging Machinery Goes Wireless WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 29
Next Generation Industrial LiDAR Sensing Technologies Coming to the Packaging Industry Seeing Through Walls: Harnessing Augmented Reality to Improve Machine Maintenance and Repair
10:30 AM - 11:00 AM 11:30 AM - 12:00 PM 12:30 PM - 1:00 PM 1:30 PM - 2:00 PM 3:30 PM - 4:00 PM
10:30 AM - 11:00 AM 11:30 AM - 12:00 PM
vented the paperboard milk carton and the machine to form, ll, and seal them in the 1920s was a toymaker. Fred E. Lins was a sausage maker who became a packaging machinery manufacturer after his FELINS string tying machine became a success in the 1920s. An early FELINS string tying machine is on display in the exhibit. The Swedish inventor of Tetra Pak, Ruben Rausing, was watching his wife make sausages by tying off the ends in the 1940s and wondered whether a similar system could be applied to milk. He came up with the iconic aseptic triangular tetrahedron paperboard-based package to store liquids without refrigeration.
Throughout the historical timeline there are threads of continuity, innovations that are still being used today, signs of gradual improvements, examples of persistence overcoming initial failures, and ideas waiting for technology to catch up. The rst self-heating can was developed for soldiers during WWII but was deemed unsafe for the general public. Today mass produced self-heating packages are on the verge of reality. Paper bottles were rst developed in the early 1900s and are now seeing a resurgence in the effort to improve sustainability.
“A surprising part of the story of packaging is how much our industry continues to resurrect a good idea whose best times may be yet to come,” Meyer says. “As we move toward a future with reusable containers and more natural textile, plant, or ber-based materials, we are coming full circle by taking many of the concepts used in early packaging that were sustainable and making them better.”
“The ability of humankind to make things, faster, easier, ef cient, convenient, and more sustainable is the story of packaging,” Aguero says.
In 1951, Tetra Pak launched their innovative tetrahedron package and machine that formed, lled and sealed a tube of milk in one continuous motion. Tetra Pak launched the rst machine for aseptically lling bacteria-free milk in 1961. Images courtesy of Tetra Pak. “As people walk the exhibit and listen to the speakers, we hope they not only take pride in what they see, but possibly experience the next great innovation in packaging.” Aguero and Meyer point out that it’s impossible to fully tell all the stories they found or completely share the wealth of content in a temporary exhibit at PACK EXPO Las Vegas. PMMI is looking at repeating PACK to the Future at PACK EXPO International in Chicago in 2022. An audio tour that expands on some of the existing content is also in discussion. But even in its current, inaugural format, the exercise has proven fruitful and rewarding. The two hope the exhibit conveys that “The Story of Packaging” is the story of people who saw a better way and made it happen—men and women who were makers and inventers, visionaries and innovators, risk takers and entrepreneurs. It’s a story about human imagination, competition, and cooperation, a story that’s shaped by, and a shaper of, progress. The two ask you take a brief journey through some of the achievements and turning points and continuity that brought us here today. It is more than a collection of facts; it is a record of people who asserted Modicon created the rst programmable logic controller themselves on the present to change the future. “It is your story,” Aguero and Meyer conclude. “See your there.” PW (PLC) in the United States in 1968. See it in PACK to the Future machine exhibit courtesy of Schneider Electric. PACK to the Future is just one example of the new and exciting programming at PACK EXPO Las Vegas 2021. Read a full preview Image courtesy of Schneider Electric. of the show and all it offers on page 90.
Functional Pack Design Evolves as Café Egg Bites Hit Retail Shelves
The foodservice channel hatched the egg bites trend with sous vide, but Vital Farms advanced it with a new retail pack format allowing for in-pack baking in CPET trays at the production facility. Consumers simply microwave the MAP trays at home.
Shelf life maximization Retail-Ready Packaging (RRP)
By Matt Reynolds, Editor
Prior to the pandemic, a new breakfast trend had been sweeping the U.S. Popularized by major café chains in quick service or foodservice settings, sous vide-cooked mini-omelets called egg bites containing classic but elevated ingredient pairings were quickly becoming a breakfast staple for busy café patrons on their way into the of ce in the morning. The pandemic temporarily disrupted the foodservice category, but the secret was out about sous vide egg bites—the market had been created, the demand had been nurtured, and Americans needed it lled.
Meanwhile, keenly watching this foodservice trend unfold was Vital Farms, a Certi ed B Corporation that offers a range of pasture-raised foods nationwide. The company was founded in 2007 by husbandand-wife Matt and Catherine O’Hayer with 20 Rhode Island Red hens, a 27-acre plot of pasture in Austin, Texas, and an unwavering commitment to animal welfare. The pair aspired to produce ethical food and a sustainable business. Instead, they built a transformational one. Today, Vital Farms partners with over 200 small family farmers to produce egg
Vital Farms’ Egg Bites use a unique packaging and processing approach, baking the product inpack prior to MAP sealing.
The lidding material is a polyethylene-based multilayer structure with an EVOH barrier. The lidding is exographically printed in four colors and uses a transparent window to display the egg bite within. Nutrition Facts straddle the bottom of two egg cups on the back of the pack.
and dairy products. Every hen is humanely treated and every egg is pasture-raised. Vital Farms continues to elevate its (and the industry’s) standards, continuing Matt’s commitment to a philosophy called Conscious Capitalism, founded in the belief that the free market can and should do good.
By volume, the company is now the number one pasture-raised egg brand in the U.S. and the number two egg brand overall. Vital Farms initially made its name as a shell-egg company—selling whole, premium pasture-raised shell eggs in traditional 12- to 18-egg cartons (though with an interesting twist, more on that in the sidebar below). A few years after its founding, Vital Farms broadened its brand, building on its success as a trusted pasture-raised egg brand, and expanded to new categories.
Sustainably speaking, egg cartons have come a long way since the days of expanded polystyrene. And, with a new design from Denmark-based Hartmann Technology for Vital Farms’ 12-ct, pasture-raised shell eggs, they’ve come even further. Building off a design that was already an eco-friendly and aesthetic step above the molded pulp carton, the new egg packaging combines a molded-pulp base with a carbon-neutral, recycled-content SBS (Solid Bleached Sulfate) lid that is 100% recyclable and provides exceptional shelf presence.
Before the redesign, Vital Farms was using Hartmann’s recyclable Hybrid egg package. The stock carton has a traditional molded-fiber base made from 100% recycled paper and a lid made from SBB (Solid Bleached Board), a virgin fiber paperboard that is 100% recyclable, compostable, and biodegradable.
“However, they [Vital Farms] now wanted to raise their stake in the ethical market,” says Hartmann. “So in August 2019, we set to work to produce a customized carton made from 100% recycled material.”
Shares Vital Farms Senior Brand Manager Heather Fitzpatrick, “We’re always seeking ways to raise the standards in anything we’re doing, while prioritizing the needs of our valued stakeholders. Our decision to update our Hybrid carton was a natural next step of our continuous efforts to prioritize the environment as a stakeholder and raise the standards for ourselves and the category.”
The new carton took 14 months to engineer. “We wanted to ensure we were thoughtfully hitting all the requirements from the key stakeholders of the project and doing it the right way, not just the quickest way,” says Fitzpatrick. “We collaborated with Hartmann on research and development and then had significant testing to ensure the carton met everyone’s needs throughout the entire supply chain, including our Egg Central
The new 100% recycled-content lid now has a longer front ap, providing more billboard space.
Continued on page 144
“We now have several products that are extensions of our shell egg business, including hardboiled eggs, liquid eggs, and our newer convenient breakfast products Egg Bites and Breakfast Bars,” says Jermaine Harvey, Director of Contract Manufacturing, Vital Farms. “Like our shell egg business, we partner with small family farms on the dairy side to produce our butter and ghee products from pasture-raised cows. The pasture-raised cows receive the same care and humane treatment as the hens that produce our shell eggs. We will never compromise the ethical standards we have practiced since day one.”
By now, you can see where this is headed. Since the sous vide egg bite category was essentially a new one, a yolk-colored gold rush to meet consumer demand was on in recent pre-pandemic years. Vital Farms was early to throw its hat into the egg-bite ring believing it had a secret weapon in the category—a higher quality egg bite made with the ethically sourced ingredients for which Vital Farms is known.
Not to mention, while foodservice hatched the egg bite trend, an opportunity to crack the retail space was there for the taking. Vital Farms already had deep connections with like-minded retailers, including
Continued from page 142
Station crewmembers who help pack cartons, our retail and grocery customers, and consumers. Several quality tests were crucial to ensure the new lid material did not compromise the carton functionality and protection. One of the biggest challenges was integrating the darker colors of the CRB [coated recycled board] fibers to ensure the brand colors were not compromised.”
The new, custom Hybrid carton uses the same recycledcontent molded-pulp base but the lid is now made from 100% recycled paper and is Greenchoice 100™ certified, which means it’s carbon-neutral, as the CO2 emitted during its production is offset by new tree plantings, paid for by Vital Farms. Shares Fitzpatrick, the new lid is expected to save 33,000 trees in 2021.
As mentioned, the lid also offers greater billboard space, with a larger front flap, decorated with handcrafted, chalkboard-style graphics, offset-printed in four colors. Adding a whimsical touch, one of the tabs of the carton base pokes through an area on the lid where there is an illustration of a hen, providing the bird with a 3D wing.
This quirkiness matches another feature of Vital Farms’ packaging that has been a staple of the shell-egg carton since 2010: The Vital Times newsletter. During packaging, a tiny newsletter is inserted into every carton. Each issue includes a number of entertaining and educational stories and imagery. For example, “National Edition, Vol 13, Issue 1” contains “5 Cluckin’ Great Tips From the Girls on the Grass, Blast Those Winter Blahs,” information on “Naturally Hygge Hens,” and a picture of the “Bird of the Month,” Mellow Macy.
“We believe The Vital Times is a meaningful way to educate consumers about animal welfare and also spark some joy—with the hen cartoons and much anticipated ‘bird of the month’—before they cook their eggs,” says Fitzpatrick. “We know dozens of fans who enjoy collecting every issue or save them on the refrigerator.”
Another way the company educates its consumers is through its Transparency Initiative, launched in January 2020. Through this program, Vital Farms prints on every carton a code that consumers can use to go online to its website and view 360-deg video footage of the farm where the eggs in that specific carton were laid.
“We want everyone to enjoy seeing hens doing what they do best—roaming the pasture, foraging for insects, sampling seasonal grasses, and maybe relaxing in the shade,” says Becca Simmonds, Associate Brand Manager and Traceability Project Lead for Vital Farms. “Each partner farm is unique, but they all offer abundant outdoor space that meets our leading standards for the hens, all year round.”
According to the company, the 360-deg pasture videos will be updated at least twice a year to ensure consumers get an accurate view of the hens’ environment.
Says Fitzpatrick, the Traceability Initiative feature is now the most visited area on the company’s website. She adds, “We’ve heard many stories from our community who love using our traceability program to teach their kids about the food system.”
This loyal community has also provided an “overwhelmingly positive” response to the new carton, as well. Shares Fitzpatrick, “We’ve received numerous comments and feedback from consumers that they appreciate our carbon-neutral packaging and Vital Farms’ continuous efforts to raise the standards of our packaging.”
The custom Hybrid package was rolled out by Vital Farms in October 2020 and is being used for three of its 12-ct shell eggs varieties: Pasture Raised, Organic Pasture Raised, and Non-GMO Pasture Raised. —Anne Marie Mohan
Information inside the lid advises consumers how to access 360-deg video footage of the farm where their eggs were laid.
Whole Foods Market. From that con uence of trends and events, Vital Farms’ Pasture-Raised Egg Bites were born.
Says the company website, “We took our pasture-raised eggs (that you know and love!), combined them with pasture-raised cheese, humanely raised meats, and veggies to create a protein-packed breakfast. Now you can eat like a morning person without waking up like one.”
Every pack comes with two Egg Bites, has 16 to 18 g of protein per serving, and is ready to eat after just 45 seconds in the microwave. Available in four avor combinations—uncured bacon and cheddar; uncured ham, bell pepper, onion, and cheddar; roasted red pepper and mozzarella; and sun-dried tomato, basil, and mozzarella—these singleserve refrigerated egg bites are certi ed gluten-free and packaged in microwavable, recyclable, BPA-free packaging, the company says.
Out-of-the-shell thinking
The café-popularized blueprint for egg bites uses a cooking technique called sous vide. Using this method, the raw ingredients are vacuum sealed together in a thin lm, then suspended in a liquid solution that’s kept at a precisely controlled temperature as the product cooks. This means vacuum packing and sous vide processing of the egg bites would occur rst. Then, the cooked product would be cooled, the lm removed, and the bites ash frozen in ensuing steps. Only after freezing would the nished bites be packaged and refrigerated for grab-and-go using gas- ush MAP (modi ed atmosphere packaging).
But in a bid to create some market differentiation—this was the wild west of egg bites, after all—Vital Farms’ sales and marketing teams had a “wild idea” (according to Harvey) to create a baked product that looked more homestyle with toasted notes, while consolidating the processing and packaging steps by baking in-pack rather than processing, then packaging. And since they’d be baking in the pack at the production facility, couldn’t the pack also withstand a microwave in the consumer’s home? And nally, could in-pack baking, instead of sous vide, provide yet another point of differentiation by imparting a hint of crisped, browned crust to the egg tops via dry heat cooking using a tunnel oven? Revisiting packaging materials to enable a better process
The company enlisted Greg Levy, President of Point Five Packaging, to help develop a food-grade CPET MAP packaging solution. What resulted is, as far as we know, novel in the market. As a material, CPET is known for a crystalline structure that allows it to hold up well in high-temperature environments. But CPET can be temperamental to the uninitiated and requires precision in how much heat it can withstand, and for how long. Plus, its use in conjunction with this new egg bite application was uncharted territory. Levy went about charting that new territory.
“We work a lot with modi ed atmosphere systems, and CPET is a really nice functional alternative to polypropylene for the microwave because it’s got a nice barrier property to it so you can gas ush products inside of it. And then you’ve also got the microwavable capability and then also the ovenable capability. We like CPET a lot, and we do a lot of custom shapes, colors, sizes with CPET in addition to this application. But this is a perfect example of us using what we call our concept-tomarket process. This is where we sit with customers and we develop a solution, or they tell us what they want to do, and then we come up with the full packaging solution around their idea.
“Obviously we wanted to keep the amount of material used to a minimum to avoid over-packaging. And then I think the next leg of it was in asking ourselves, ‘What does Point Five bring to the table? What are our capabilities?’ And this kind of problem-solving is our sweet spot.”
After rigorous testing of the MAP process itself, testing the shelf life of an in-pack-baked product sealed into MAP, and a lot of container gauge and shape trial and error, the partnership of Point Five and Vital Farms hit upon a repeatable solution.
Retail-Ready Packaging in the form of a printed chipboard carton or caddy ensures each pack’s transparent, product-forward window greets consumers.
PACK EXPO Xpress: a Limited, Digital-Only Option
For those who are unable to attend in-person we now offer virtual aspects of our live-event via PACK EXPO Xpress so you can search for products and innovations in digital showrooms and connect with solutions suppliers during the event no matter where you are. Visit pwgo.to/7062
“I think that’s why other people haven’t used this kind of process in the past,” Levy concludes. “Since we were actually putting these trays through an oven, the design and the gauge of the container itself were critical. It required a lot of work to get it right.”
While CPET can withstand heat better than most plastics, all plastic is prone to some deformation at high temperatures. Levy sought additional protection from deformation via a robust container, but in a way that avoided overpackaging with too much material. That was one major needle to thread.
Ensuring snug seals
The other big wild card that needed to be accounted for was the seal between the CPET tray and the lidding that would be added during the MAP process. Keep in mind, the seal ange would be a surface that had just gone through the baking process with a splash-prone liquid egg product in close proximity. The very baking process itself—whether high heat or product in the seal path—could negatively impact the seal.
“In this case, R&D was probing these trays to the point where we arrived at a design where we can deposit and bake without deforming the tray and without disrupting the seal surface so it could still perform with good shelf life,” Levy says. “In a lot of cases, when a brand runs into obstacles like these, they shoot down the project and go another direction. But we kept on it until we had it.”
“This package design that resulted is also microwave safe at home. It allows people to cook Vital Farms Pasture-Raised Egg Bites in the package they come in, versus having to pop them out of their package and heat them in a separate dish in the microwave,” Harvey adds.
The lidding material is a polyethylene-based multilayer structure with an EVOH barrier. The lidding is exographically printed in four colors and uses a transparent window to display the egg bite within. Harvey says that the quality of the ingredients used in all four avor varieties of Vital Farms’ Egg Bites as well as the hint of crust from being baked instead of sous vide are differentiators among the competitive set that consumers can taste.
Lidding equipment ensures a tight MAP seal with gas ush after the product- lled trays have been baked and suf ciently cooled. The packaging format uses a carefully calibrated CPET tray that resists deformation under heat and can be microwaved in consumers’ homes.
RRP improves marketability
Since it was important to make the product itself visible, even on the shelf or in the cooler case, the company opted for retail-ready packaging (RRP) that would present the product through the transparent window. Secondary packaging for the CPET MAP packs entails six-count RRP-format printed chipboard display cartons that Levy calls caddies. Two chipboard caddies are then loaded into corrugated cases for 12-ct master case to be sent to retailers.
“The caddies lift out of the case and sit on shelf in a vertically facing posture with the printed lid facing outward toward retail consumers,” Levy says. “That was another critical design element we had to consider in this project—making sure it had a strong shelf presence.”
Top-of-market shelf life
For a fresh protein product, shelf life could be a concern. But with the MAP and nitrogen/carbon dioxide ush, these Vital Farms Egg Bites packs boast nearly three months of shelf life, leading the category. The MAP process consistently achieves less 1% of residual oxygen, with gures closer to 0.5% to 0.7% residual oxygen most common when tested.
“We believe we are producing egg bites differently,” concludes Harvey. “The typical process is to deposit the egg bite in a totally separate depositing unit, where it is processed, then frozen, then is bulk packed as a frozen bite. And then it’s repackaged and shipped refrigerated to go into the market. But with our method, ours stays fresh even though it’s never frozen.” PW
