Flexibles

Costco unboxed

Out-of-the-big-box eco-thinking drives Scott Carnie­—and new packaging—at Costco.

November 5, 2006

Industries: Page 478

Coding, Printing & Labeling

California dreamin'

Drug ‘pedigree' compromise in Golden State has RFID vendors expecting wider drug industry adoption.

November 5, 2006

Beverage

Rx applied to tablet line

AstraZeneca looks outside of pharmaceuticals to find an accumulation, buffering, and line-balancing system that improves OEE.

November 5, 2006

Beverage

Workhorse label boosts water's sales 90%

Glaceau increased sales 90% for its Smartwater bottled water by restaging the brand through packaging and by expanding distribution.

November 5, 2006

Bakery/Snack

Wow, baby--Gerber injects a little personality

Icon brands that stay relevant and create symmetry between products in the brand “family” continue to endure in consumers' hearts. Gerber, a long-trusted brand, is a recent example with a new packaging system for all three of its lines, which help consumers to shop the category more efficiently.

November 5, 2006

Converting equipment

Missing: one extruder

Maybe you were as surprised as I was to hear about the major recall from Ross Products for its 32-oz plastic bottles of Similac.

November 5, 2006

Sustainability

Water, water is everywhere, perhaps not what you think

When it comes to bottled water, there is more to it than you may think, and less to it than you may think.

November 5, 2006

Conveying & accumulation

Dow upgrades straw application operations

Midland, MI-based Dow Chemical Company is using an EZ-Seal® 300 SL heat shrink-sleeve applicator from Axon (www.axoncorp.com) to improve tamper-evidence and straw application for its line of Great Stuff insulating foam sealant products.

November 5, 2006

Flexibles

Susceptor suits frozen fish

Gimbert Surgeles of France has launched a line of frozen, breaded fish filets that cook in less than three minutes in the microwave oven thanks to the Microrite™ susceptor sleeve that surrounds them.

November 5, 2006

Flexibles

Barrier pouches protect sensitive yeast products

Wyeast Laboratories, Hood River, OR, a leading producer of pure liquid yeast products (fermentation cultures) for beer and wine making, has introduced 50-mL and 125-mL retortable stand-up pouch packaging for its home brewers and vintners line of products.

November 5, 2006

Blisters/clamshells/thermoforming materials

Costco's hands-on packaging guy

Scott Carnie is general manager of Costco Wholesale's East Coast Packaging operations in New Jersey.

November 5, 2006

Secondary Packaging

Stretch Hood Packaging

Lachenmeier has its Stretch Hood machine type Power Flex in operation at Pack Expo 2006.

October 31, 2006

Secondary Packaging

Infeed uniformly sequences randomly spaced packages

Video of Yaskawa's Synch Belt solution shows how randomly spaced packages are precisely repositioned at fixed intervals for subsequent downstream packaging operations.

October 29, 2006