PMMI’s Inaugural CPG NexGen Award winners are delivering measurable advances in automation, productivity, sustainability, and packaging to transform how CPG products are made. One of these 10 rising innovators is Matt Fitzpatrick, Packaging Engineering Manager, NAM and Sustainability Leader, CA at Saint-Gobain. He helped to advance the company’s digital packaging systems supporting sustainability, carbon tracking, and regulatory reporting. I reached out to him to learn more.
Liz Cuneo: How long have you been in your current role?
Matt Fitzpatrick: I have been working for Saint-Gobain for almost 5.5 years now in Packaging Engineering, with my most current role coming up on the 2-year mark in early 2027.
Cuneo: What was your work experience prior to this?
Fitzpatrick: My prior work experience was working as a Sr. Packaging Engineer at Henkel supporting their Consumer, Aerospace, and Automotive Adhesive divisions. During university, I had two co/op internships that lasted between 7-9 months at Henkel Beauty & Laundry and Edgewell Personal Care as a Packaging Engineer intern supporting everyday CPG products.
Cuneo: How did you end up in packaging? What school did you attend?
Fitzpatrick: I ended up in packaging by chance after taking Packaging 101 at Michigan State University and the professor at the time made me fall in love with it. At first, I was a business major, but once I found how packaging touches all value chains of a product from cradle to grave, it caught my interest and became a passion. I have my Bachelor of Science in Packaging from Michigan State University and my Master of Science in Packaging Value Chain from California Polytechnical State University.
Cuneo: What do you enjoy most about your job?
Fitzpatrick: What I enjoy most about my job overall is that the daily workload is never the same. Since packaging impacts the product from cradle to grave, the project scope or workload for packaging is different every day. One day I can be supporting a new product launch with unique packaging design and artwork and the next could be working on packaging automation with continuous improvement at our manufacturing plant. It is enjoyable working with a variety of key stakeholders at the company making impacts in different ways week by week.
Cuneo: PMMI just awarded you a 2026 CPG NexGen award for advancing digital packaging systems supporting sustainability, carbon tracking, and regulatory reporting. Can you tell me about the project and its impact on the company?
Fitzpatrick: When I first joined Saint-Gobain, I identified a major gap in packaging data and change management procedures on our packaging portfolio. Specifications and artwork were kept in shared drives, excel documents, personal C drives, or even historical knowledge in someone’s mind. This created a very complex process when reporting out certain data points regarding regulatory and sustainability efforts. By partnering with a company, we have built a packaging specification database with customization fields that has helped us strategically document needed data points and digitize our packaging specifications.
Cuneo: Speaking of data and digitalization, how has AI changed your day-to-day job? How welcoming of AI have you and/ or your company been?
Fitzpatrick: AI has changed my day-today substantially when becoming more efficient on data analysis with packaging issues. Overall, Saint-Gobain and I have been extremely welcoming to AI with specific safeguards set in place. We have internal built tools that we are using daily to improve workflows, continuous improvement, and data analysis. We also continue to investigate new AI technology that is being developed for valuable application needs.
Cuneo: How do you see your industry changing in the next 5-10 years?
Fitzpatrick: I see the industry changing over the next 5-10 years with a focus on digital transformation and sustainability efforts with ongoing regulatory changes across the North American market. With us being a global company based out of France, we are somewhat ahead of the curve when it comes to packaging sustainability needs. The issue we have come across is that the packaging industry in North America has not caught up when it comes to sustainable materials, recycled content, and competitive pricing for sustainability efforts. Over the next decade the packaging industry in North America will have a massive change with EPR bills coming into play and forcing companies to become more sustainable with their packaging. These regulations will have companies putting more pressure on the packaging suppliers in the region to offer more cost competitive materials that are sustainable.
Cuneo: What has the biggest impact on company decisions? Consumer preference, regulations, sustainability pressures, something else?
Fitzpatrick: The biggest impact on company decision really depends on what the overall project scope is. For packaging, I would say that all the above, if I am being honest, but also including manufacturing improvements! Most of our packaging improvements or changes are driven by customer preference to the market, but we always take regulatory and ever-changing sustainability needs into account. For Saint-Gobain, we have PACK 2030 sustainability initiative globally, where are business units are pushing to make changes to packaging materials for sustainability efforts.
