Packaging

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For manufacturers who would rather take out the air than add in preservatives, a combination of vacuum and modified atmosphere packaging provides an option.

The Jolly Green Giant, Winnie the Pooh and other licensed characters are cropping up on packages of infant and toddler foods from Beech-Nut Nutrition Corp.

The Packaging Hall of Fame Class of 2010 includes professionals from a number of walks of life but only one inventor: Bob Dodrill.

Flexible new Kleinpeter Farms Dairy ice cream facility mixes up homegrown success.

Container lightweighting and recycled materials are all well and good, but the real action today is in squeezing more units into less space.

Artfully folded paper is the essence of origami. Inventively folded cardboard is the essence of Smurfit-Stone Container Corp.’s Meta boxes.

If the mood seemed upbeat to visitors and exhibitors at November’s PACK EXPO show in Chicago, it was for good reason: Nine in 10 end-users of packaging machinery report their purchases of additional equipment increased or remained the same in 2010’s third quarter, compared to a year earlier, with food and beverage packagers leading the way.

Graphic redesign can be a bear trap for an iconic brand. Doubters need only consider the experience of PepsiCo’s Tropicana, which briefly dropped the orange-and-straw graphic two years ago. 

Mass merchandisers aren’t the only customers putting pressure on suppliers to cut material use and shipping weights.

Functionality issues dogged plant-based plastic resins when they debuted, but product development is gradually overcoming them.