Controls & Machine Components

PAF 2007 provides unique view of automation trends

Leading packaged goods manufacturers will demonstrate how recent developments in packaging controls and information technologies can drive profitability.

April 4, 2007

Industries: Page 477

Sustainable Packaging

Packaging: A convenient truth

All too often it seems that packaging is portrayed as an environmental villain by the media.

April 4, 2007

Blisters/clamshells/thermoforming materials

Mueller plant brimming with technology

From laser scanning of cheese blocks to multi-axis servo-controlled case and tray packers, this dairy plant makes automated packaging systems a top priority.

April 4, 2007

Containers

Martin's makes ink and coding concerns disappear

Thermal-transfer printers on baggers at Martin’s snacks improve legibility and accuracy, lower labor costs, and provide coding flexibility.

April 4, 2007

Coding, Printing & Labeling

Carbon footprints, carbon labeling--how warm should we be about these initiatives?

Scarcely a day goes by without a picture in the European news media showing a polar bear, victimized by the onslaught of global warming, clinging forlornly to a fast-melting ice floe. Joining the polar bears in media coverage are the chief executives of Europe’s major international retailers, who seem to be vying for the mantle of greatest green-ness. Consider:

April 3, 2007

Beverage

Homework and ingenuity produces light-up bottle

What started as a school project has resulted in the launch of a new product, TY KU, “the world’s only sake liqueur,” in a one-of-a-kind bottle that lights up.

April 3, 2007

Blisters/clamshells/skin packaging

High-visibility packaging demand climbing

U.S. demand for high-visibility packaging, including clamshell, blister and other types, is expected to increase 5.1% annually to $8.5 billion in 2010.

April 3, 2007

Flexibles

Salsas in 48-oz bottle twin-packs

In February 2007, San Antonio Farms, San Antonio, TX, began club-store marketing of double-packs of salsas in 48-oz-volume, six-layer PP/EVOH barrier jugs with .015” wall thickness and 82-g empty-bottle weight. Shelf life of the bottled salsa is 12 months. Average retail price of the salsa twin-packs is between $5.00 and $6.00.

April 3, 2007

Conveying & accumulation

Bottle drying system produces for Britvic

A bottling line started up in fall 2006 at Britvic Soft Drinks at Chelmsford, United Kingdom, to handle the company’s Robinsons Fruit Shoot beverages is anchored by a space-efficient block filler for 200- and 300-mL PET bottles.

April 3, 2007

Flexibles

Design firm bags new Pringles Select packaging

Say the word “Pringles,” and the image of a saddle-shape chip in a cylindrical container comes to mind. But when LPK (www.lpk.com), the design agency for Procter & Gamble’s Pringles’ brand, came up with a design for the company’s new Pringles Select gourmet potato chips, the firm dropped the cylindrical can in favor of a block-bottom pouch.

April 3, 2007

Beverage

End users, Pmmi members to talk training

uIn mid-March, the Packaging Machinery Manufacturers Institute (PMMI) announced a Technical Training Community of Practice (COP), an open forum for end users and original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) to address common challenges in operator training in order to develop best practices and define expectations. The COP will provide input to the PMMI Certified Trainer program.

April 3, 2007

Beverage

A-B re-embraces teardrop bottles

In February and March 2007, Anheuser-Busch Companies, Inc., St. Louis, MO, rolled out Michelob Lager and Michelob Light in redesigned, easy-grip, teardrop-contoured bottles, based on the original package design launched in 1961.

April 3, 2007

Flexibles

Salmon jerky pack serves Iraq and Afghanistan

Fledgling wild salmon product manufacturing company Alaska Spirit LLC, Kodiak, AK, with assistance from the University of Alaska Fisheries Industrial Technology Center pilot plant, has developed Kodiak SOLSTIX™ wild salmon jerky, vacuum-packed in multi-layer film. Designed as “pocket protein” for hikers, climbers, other sports enthusiasts, and vending machine sales, the product currently is being marketed to several small regional retail outlets. It’s packaged in 0.7-oz (2” x 6” package dimensions), three-count jerky stick packs. Average retail price is $1.99 per package.

April 3, 2007