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Industry News[2009-12-22]
WHAT TRENDS WILL IMPACT PACKAGING IN 2010?
As
2009 winds down, what’s ahead for 2010? Based on early indicators,
business should improve. Interest in sustainable packaging and
operations will continue. Concerns about drug counterfeiting and food
safety remain high, and food processors and regulators will look for
new ways to communicate nutrition messages. Packaging and converting
machine innovations will focus on automation, network connectivity,
flexibility and digital technology.
Economists seem to
agree the economy is improving, albeit slowly. Positive indicators
include small gains in industrial production and capacity utilization
in July, August and September of 20091 and predictions of worldwide
growth for containerboard through 2024 by RISI Global of Boston, Mass.
Increased demand has prompted Catalyst Paper Corp. of Richmond, British
Columbia, to restart one northern bleached softwood kraft line at its
Crofton mill on Vancouver Island, British Columbia. Restart of the
line, one of two shut down in February 2009, will add 210,000 metric
tons of pulp capacity on an annualized basis for use in containerboard
and other paper products.
On the negative side, the
Equipment Leasing and Finance Association of Washington, D.C., reports
new leases for equipment, including packaging machines, remain slow and
credit approval levels are depressed. Fears of inflation are growing
too as some suppliers, particularly those involved in paper/paperboard
production, announce price increases. In addition, although initial
claims for unemployment insurance declined in November 2009,
unemployment is hovering around 10 percent putting pressure on consumer
purchasing power.
With consumers watching their pennies, private-label products have
gained market share, particularly in the United States and Europe.2
With consumer research firms like IRI of Chicago, Ill., predicting the
shift in purchasing behavior is long-term, private-label product sales
are expected to remain strong in 2010.2
Sustainable practices have become routine, but more can be done.
As a result, end-users will continue to look for ways to downgauge,
lightweight or eliminate packaging materials. The use of recycled
polyethylene terephthalate will maintain its upward trend, and
bioplastics will gain market share. A proliferation of concentrated
formulas, particularly for cleaning products, will shrink container
size and product shipping weight, and packaging that encourages reuse
should gain space on store shelves.
Finally, with the realization that utilities represent a substantial,
yet controllable, expense, end-users will adopt technology that helps
monitor and reduce consumption of water, electricity, compressed air,
etc. To help quantify energy costs and carbon footprint, packaging
machinery manufacturers like Schneider Packaging Equipment Co., Inc. of
Brewerton, N.Y., are beginning to build monitoring and analytic
functionality into their equipment. In fact, Schneider’s Sustainability
Measurement Option presents data like kilowatts, voltage, current and
overall equipment effectiveness right on the human/machine interface.
Some equipment also offers power-saving features. Unless product is
present, the machine goes into a standby mode and conveyors stop.
With the poor economy encouraging drug counterfeiters and the delayed
deadline for California’s electronic pedigree law approaching on
January 1, 2011, implementation of track-and-trace technology will
return to center stage in 2010 in the pharmaceutical industry. The
item-level serialization required for track-and-trace capability
involves printing a unique one- or two-dimensional bar code or applying
a radio frequency identification tag on each primary pack and
aggregating the items into cases, totes, pallets, orders and/or
shipments. It also requires the infrastructure to read and authenticate
codes at each step in the supply chain, as well as the software and
data storage capability necessary to record, analyze and share the
pedigree data. To stay one step ahead of increasingly sophisticated
counterfeiters, drug makers are considering pill-level authentication
technology such as inks, taggants, tiny codes or high-magnification
imaging.
Traceability also is important in the food industry where regulators
are working to identify sources of foodborne illness more quickly, and
food processors want to rapidly identify and locate affected products
in recall situations.
With food safety a top-of-mind concern with regulators and
consumers, end-users favor hygienic machine design because it reduces
risks associated with pathogen contamination, maximizes washdown
effectiveness and minimizes downtime associated with cleaning. In
addition to washdown compatibility, hygienic machine designs
incorporate smooth, sloped surfaces throughout to prevent debris from
collecting and may include clean/sterilize-in-place product contact
parts.
To address demands for ultra-clean designs, robot makers such as Adept
Technology, Inc. of Pleasanton, Calif., Fanuc Robotics America, Inc. of
Rochester Hills, Mich., and Motoman of West Carrollton, Ohio, have
introduced hygienic designs such as the high-speed Adept Quattro s650HS
parallel robot and the vision-equipped Fanuc M-430iA
and the IP67-rated Motoman MPK pedestal robots. Certification from the
U.S. Department of Agriculture of Washington, D.C., is either active or
pending for these units, making them suitable for handling raw meat and
poultry.
As consumers demand more healthful
foods and beverages and healthcare professionals and regulators
continue to voice concerns about the widespread prevalence of obesity,
especially in children, food processors are modifying nutrition
messages and package sizes. In a survey by the National Confectioners
Association of Washington, D.C., 35 percent of industry leaders cite
portion control as the leading influencer of purchases. As a result,
the popularity of snack-sized products and 100-calorie packs, which
give consumers the full flavor of their favorites in smaller,
single-portion packs, is expected to continue. In addition, a widening
array of functional beverages in single-serving “shots” will boost
demand for small containers and the packaging equipment to fill them.
This also could be the year the Food and Drug Administration of
Washington, D.C., proposes guidelines or regulations for front-of-pack
nutritional advice that food processors tried to include via the Smart
Choices Program and others like it. In Canada, requirements for use of
the red Health Check logo have been tightened with new rules for sugar
and fat per portion, trans fat and fiber taking effect on December 28,
2009, and new rules on sodium content effective in November 2010.
The advent of faster digital presses, capable of handling a wider range
of packaging materials, is boosting the use of digital printing,
especially for labels, shorter runs, prototypes, personalized packaging
and applications requiring variable data. “For [label] runs under
20,000, the digital press is cheaper than conventional printing,”
reports John Pitts, sales manager at CSAT America LLC of Louisville,
Colo., a supplier of digital inkjet presses designed to run labels.
“Savings on runs above 20,000 depend on ink usage and setup time,” he
explains.
“I believe that digital printing technology is the future because it
offers quality, speed, flexibility and the convenience of short and
medium production runs,” states Luigi Stefano Campanella, a founder and
owner of Tecnolito of Caprino Bergamasco (Bergamo), Italy, a printer of
packaging and other materials. Its second digital press from HP of San
Jose, Calif., an HP Indigo 5500 with Thick Substrate Option, supports a
new web-to-print service for packaging. “The HP Indigo press 5500 will
enable us to manage orders coming from the web, which will mainly
comprise carton and paperboard packaging for short and medium runs,
samples and mock-ups,” predicts Campanella.
The new six-color press is able to match a wide range of Pantone
colors, while the Thick Substrate kit adapts one of the paper-feed
drawers and conveyor to handle substrates up to 450 grams per square
meter.
In fact, digital printing for packaging has become so mainstream that Converting
magazine of Chicago Ill., has established a C2D (Converting to Digital)
Blog. It’s written by Kevin Karstedt, president of Karsedt Associates,
Ltd. of Eden, N.Y., a firm specializing in digital graphic design and
production.Originally posted By PMT (Packaging Machinery Technology Magazine Dec 2009)
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