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Tense trends tend to send messages to packaging makers

In an ideal world, most of the time packaging materials are invisible, happily protecting food, drugs, and other consumer products, sometimes using somewhat sophisticated technologies, but not drawing attention to themselves.

So when Kellogg’s recalls tens of millions of retail cereal boxes due to off-odor it attributed to a chemical in its packaging, it was a bad day for Kellogg’s and for packaging. Approximately 50 consumers complained about off-odor or taste, and several reported being sickened.

And it was only a few months ago that McNeil Consumer Healthcare recalled a variety of its well-known OTC drug brands due to an off-odor attributed to a chemical in wood pallets that was picked up by polymer bottles held on or near the pallets.

If there is a trend to be identified in recent years, it is this: Packaging is beginning to be recognized by folks other than packaging professionals as an integral part of the picture in consumer product quality and safety.

Indeed, packaging professionals might even agree that within their own companies, it’s sometimes been the case that company officials don’t recognize the full importance of packaging. Nothing educates, unfortunately, quite like a crisis. And these recent crises, together with the preceding controversies (e.g., that over BPA in packaging, and European studies raising concerns about adhesives levels in food from packaging) have more or less suddenly raised the profile of packaging, for the worse.

Kellogg’s particular headache in this instance went beyond the usual cost and embarrassment associated with such a recall, as Congress took an interest.

In early August, Congressmen Henry A. Waxman of California and Bart Stupak of Michigan wrote to Kellogg’s asking for information about the company’s recent recall which the company had attributed to off-taste and odor due to unduly high levels of a substance, “2-methylnaphthalene,” used in making wax paper package liners. The inquiry seems as inspired by concerns about the potential health dangers of the chemical involved as with whether the company’s procedures were adequate. Kellogg’s appears to have acted responsibly in the face of the issue. FDA itself reportedly acknowledged that the company solved the tainted packaging problem by early August. (A newspaper report indicated the company may have destroyed tainted liner material before announcing the recall, though that appears not to have been so, and it’s unclear what would have been wrong with doing so in any event.)

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