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Opportunities galore in protective packaging

We sent contributing editor Ron Romanik to the March 25-28 TransPack Forum in Orlando for an update on trends and opportunities in protective packaging; here’s his report.

Shelf life and salability all hinge on how well fruit boxes like this protect their content during distribution.
Shelf life and salability all hinge on how well fruit boxes like this protect their content during distribution.

 

Warehousing and shipping conditions vary widely throughout the world. So the best way to reduce the potential for product damage is to know common practices in new markets into which you’re shipping.

Some of these practices might surprise you. For example, automated handling equipment available in more developed economies might not be as prevalent in less economically developed nations. So if you’re shipping, say, appliances to India or China, you may have to familiarize yourself with such new performance tests as “walking on appliances,” “carrying on the back,” and “setting down from the back”—aka, “dropping.” We’ll come back to these in a minute.

Though large-appliance packaging might be a specialized situation, shipping any goods to far-off lands can be a risky move if the “protective performance” of the packaging system is not up to the task. Distribution and protective packaging topics such as these were discussed and debated rigorously at last month’s TransPack Forum in Orlando, presented by ISTA. ISTA (International Safe Transit Association) is the leading organization of product manufacturers, carriers, packaging suppliers, testing labs, universities, and research institutes dedicated to testing packaging performance, with a slogan of “Distributing Confidence, Worldwide.”

For Brian Wagner, vice president of consulting services at Packaging Technology Integrated Solutions, the TransPack Forum brought this key finding: Many companies are aware of the coming challenges, but they still have limited resources, no internal staff to handle protective package development, no testing, and no established standards. He sees protective packaging as a still young and maturing industry.

“There’s a huge opportunity for data gathering,” Wagner explains. “But brand owners can’t rely on small companies to do thorough testing.”

The protective packaging equation
Both sides of the protective packaging equation, underprotecting and overprotecting, can bring unwanted costs. With underprotection comes loss of valuable products to damage, contamination, or other physical compromise. Not only do companies lose the product and packaging, they have to replace the product and pay for the disposal of the damaged product and packaging.

But overpackaging can be just as costly. The costs of excessive materials and weight-rated transport over long distances can add up quickly for high-volume goods. When done right, the packaging system minimizes damage while also minimizing material costs and shipping weight.

International standards organizations such as ISTA, ASTM, and ISO have packaging performance standards, and so does ISTA. One of ISTA’s missions is to translate data from the field into repeatable test standards. All of these standards, though, are only “recommended” standards that don’t necessarily hold legal weight.

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