Hailed as its biggest show to date, Pack Expo International this week in Chicago drew over 50,000 packaging professionals to view the wares of over 2500 exhibitors, among them a sprinkling of Australian companies. PKN was there walking the aisles, spotting trends and meeting friends.
In a show of this size – 1.2 million net square feet of exhibition space to be precise – it’s nigh on impossible to walk every aisle, never mind stop at every exhibit in four short days. But I got around to a fair few and spent a lot of foot travel time just observing what exhibitors were saying on their signage and listening to conversations in passing, to arrive at what I see are the top trends that capture the essence of Pack Expo 2018 and what makes it The Main Event on the packaging expo circuit this year. I’ve noted a few insights below, with more to come in PKN’s November-December print issue.
To catch a glimpse of who I saw on my rounds, scroll through our gallery at the top of the page. Click on the image for caption display.
With the world’s plastic waste issue a hot topic, combined with the challenges of excessive food waste and limited energy resources, it’s not surprising that sustainability has come to the fore as one of the top trends at the show. Exhibitors were showcasing a range of solutions designed to meet brand owners’ sustainability commitments and tap into the move towards a regenerative circular economy. These include package and machinery design that enables reduction in material usage and minimises production waste; materials that are recycle-ready or compostable and/ or biodegradable, and the development of reusable primary packaging.
Accessible and convenience packaging was another strong trend, with packaging design aimed at creating ‘FFP’ – the all-important frustration free packaging in response to demands by online retail giant Amazon. Included in this mix is packaging that is easy to open and reseal (a highlight was a new resealable can solution from Canovation) and makes life easier by providing on-the-go snacking options and ready-to-eat or ready-to-heat meals.
Food safety remains high on the agenda (Australia’s recent strawberry scandal was cited by more than one exhibitor I spoke to) with new X-Ray inspection and metal detection equipment launches offering more thorough scanning for foreign objects. Allied to the safety trend is brand protection, with sophisticated track-and-trace coding and marking and other protection devices in evidence.
When it comes to machinery and equipment, machine intelligence is where it’s at, and the future is certainly in the cloud. Machines and integrated lines on display boasted Industry 4.0 compliance and IIoT connectivity in a smart factory context. On the automation side, robots and cobots were in full flight (a novel experience was having a Nespresso coffee made by ABB’s YuMi collaborative robot), with a number of machines showing robotic pick and place integrated inline in new ways.
Virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR) are also trending, and virtual reality displays enabling immersive in-plant and in-machine experiences, for both plant design planning and operator training, were available on the stands of major players. AR meanwhile was used an experience enabler in some interactive packaging concepts on show designed for enhancing consumer engagement and relaying important product information.
Buzzphrase of the show has to be ‘think inside the box’ to denote the e-commerce explosion. Driven in large part by Amazon, which owns an estimated 50% of the relatively small but fast-growing online retail market, the sweeping ecommerce trend sees packaging converters and FMCG brand manufacturers rethinking their online packaging strategies as they face the conundrum of how to protect the product better with less packaging, aware as they are that lost, stolen or damaged packages will lose them customers and undermine brand loyalty. This topic and the attendant packaging solutions on offer will be covered in more detail in our next print issue, along with an overview of product innovation on show at Pack Expo. Until then…
