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PMMI’s Annual Meeting Offers Optimistic Inflation Perspective

PMMI's Annual Meeting returned in-person in a big way after 2020’s event was forced to go completely virtual due to the pandemic, with Detroit hosting over 300 members from 146 member companies, including nearly 90 first-timers.

The Purchasing Managers Index (PMI, in green) model, a leading indicator of packaging supplies like paperboard, expects prices to fall back to earth.
The Purchasing Managers Index (PMI, in green) model, a leading indicator of packaging supplies like paperboard, expects prices to fall back to earth.

The three-day event included business sessions on navigating a COVID-influenced world, breakout sessions on workforce, cybersecurity, and digital marketing strategy, a tour of the world-renowned Ford River Rouge Plant, and networking opportunities to reconnect business and create new partnerships.

Chairperson Emmanuel Cerf, Vice President, Polypack Inc., kicked off the business portion of the program with a Chairman’s Update. Cerf welcomed 36 new PMMI members, bringing the total PMMI Membership to 961. He announced that he, along with the current Executive Committee (Mark Anderson, Pro Mach, Inc.; Patty Anderson, Delkor Systems, Inc., Jim Pittas, PMMI), was re-elected to another term. Timothy Hudson, Honeywell Intelligrated; Matt Jones, Dorner; and Bruce Larson, BW Packaging Systems; were reappointed to the Board of Directors. Kevin Mauger, NCC Automated Systems; Kevin Roach, Harpak-Ulma Packaging; and Tom Sioui, Slideways; were announced as new board members.

One of the highlights of every PMMI Annual Meeting is the economic forecast provided by ITR Economics. As he did before COVID shut down much of the globe, Alan Beaulieu, president of ITR Economics, remained highly optimistic about the U.S.’s near and long-term economic future, particularly as it pertains to packaging.

“Manufacturing in this nation is strong. It’s vibrant,” said Beaulieu. “We are going to see manufacturing continue to grow and forecast record levels of output in this country in about a year.”

He also gets that current inflation in the U.S. is jarring to businesses, particularly those made up of an increasingly younger workforce of Gen Z and Millennials. In his opinion, the U.S. has been fortunate to avoid the double-digit interest rates of the 1970s and 1980s, something Baby Boomers remember. A deep breath is in order.

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