Now in its 35th year, the Independent Carton Group's (ICG) members, independently owned and operated folding carton manufacturers who are not affiliated with a major paper mill, represent a collective $800 million in annual sales. The group shares member success stories including building expansions and awards.
Universal Robots has expanded its online training, adding three modules that step up complexity by teaching users how to create and work with coordinate systems, variables and conditional statements, and how to use the robot’s wizard to create a program for packaging.
High flexibility, low weight and easy to carry will remain the top properties enhancing product penetration. Also an increase in consumer spending on energy drinks and prevalent health awareness trends will drive growth. Spout pouches are the fastest growing pouch, due to transportation ease, handling and ready to pour.
ePac Flexible Packaging, an all-digital flexible packaging converter, purchased 10 HP Indigo 20000 digital presses to expand operations across the U.S. through mid-2019. The order quadruples production capacity for ePac and is the largest packaging deal for HP to date. The purchase is ePac’s second expansion with the high-capacity HP Indigo 20000 flexible packaging press since launching just 18 months ago with one HP Indigo unit.
Plastic Technologies, Inc. (PTI) announces structural realignment and business unit name changes to better serve brand owner package development needs. The changes will enable brand owners to improve speed-to-market in order to more rapidly capitalize on commercialization opportunities.
The SAVE FOOD Initiative has now passed the 1,000 member mark. The 1,067 supporters currently registered include groups of companies, corporations and professional associations as well as research institutes and NGOs from the entire food value chain. With Lidl Deutschland as the latest member, retail is now also represented as a link in this supply chain.
Consumer trends have contributed to a gradual replacement of rigid pack formats by flexible packaging during the last decade or so. Total flexible packaging sales were at $219.5 billion in 2016, with growth expected at an annual rate of 4.3% to $282.6 billion by 2022.
Shrink sleeve labeling equipment and consumables provider American Film and Machinery (AFM) has relocated its operations to the company’s headquarters in Brooklyn Park, MN.
The Dow Chemical Company opens the call for entries for the 2018 30th Awards for Packaging Innovation. Entries accepted through April 12, 2018. The 30th Awards for Packaging Innovation continues the DuPont Awards for Packaging Innovation program established in 1986. Dow carries on the tradition of assembling an independent panel of international packaging judges from a variety of disciplines, to provide awards with a global perspective across design, engineering, retail, converting and academia.
va-Q-tec, a provider of thermal packaging solutions for temperature controlled transportation, has opened a headquarters and operations facility in Langhorne, PA. The site will become the U.S. welcome and innovation center and showcase va-Q-tec’s latest products. The company will manufacture small box containers in the new facility, and use the location as a key hub for its rental and repair station.