Business Management - Sustainability

The Tag and Label Manufacturer’s Institute (TLMI) held its annual meeting last month in the picturesque setting of The Breakers in Palm Beach, Fla. The annual meeting is always a highlight affair, mixing excellent presentations with a tabletop reception, business meetings, and a formal banquet. TLMI Chairman John Hickey of Smyth -Companies and Meeting Chair Dan O’Connell of UPM -Raflatac worked the presentations around the theme, -“Celebrating Our Legacy and Meeting the Challenges of Our Future.” Sustainability and the environment were the focus of several of the sessions including, “A Contract With Our Future” by Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and “Forever Green” by

It seems as though labels are everywhere. In an office, many items like White Out, hand lotion, and water bottles all have labels adorning the exterior of the package. At restaurants, one can’t help but notice the labels. They appear on bottles of almost every condiment: ketchup, mustard, Tabasco sauce, soy sauce, and even some salt and pepper shakers. Where one can see a decent amount of labels is at the bar or at a social gathering. It is truly amazing what the “turnaround” time is on beverage labels. It’s not that long after seeing someone twist off a bottle cap that you can

Last month, the staff at packagePRINTING packed its bags and flew to Chicago for Labelexpo -Americas. This was my second time attending this show. My first go at it was two years ago. I had just started with packagePRINTING and had only gotten a taste of the package-printing industry for about two months, before I stepped on the showroom floor for the first time. Needless to say, I was completely overwhelmed and felt as if I had stepped into another world. I knew very little about tradeshows and knew even less about the printing presses and equipment I would see on the floor. And,

Sustainability could be the topic of the decade, and hopefully, for years to come. There’s no doubt that it is a hot topic in the news today, and there’s a lot riding on the eventual outcome of long-term, worldwide sustainability efforts. One of the problems with sustainability is that it’s an extremely complex technical issue. As an example, both National Geographic in its October 2007 issue and Time in its April 7, 2008 issue, did thorough reviews of the environmental equations relating to biofuel production and use. It was clear from both of these reviews that the net environmental impact from biofuels does not

Film materials have enjoyed increased usage in the packaging arena for many years now, and this trend will no doubt continue. There are, however, significant, broad-based considerations that will impact the nature and degree of its overall growth in the years ahead. A couple of these considerations you have undoubtedly heard of (if you haven’t, you probably couldn’t count yourself among the living). One is the general upward trend in oil costs, also known as skyrocketing oil prices. The other is sustainability, which is being driven by a growing consensus that we are simply consuming the earth’s resources too rapidly and leaving behind

While sustainability is currently top-of-mind for all Consumer Packaged Goods (CPG) companies, shelf impact remains a high priority. With so much of a product’s brand integrity tied to package design, any redesign—big or small—is an important decision.

Since arriving on the package-printing scene two years ago, I have come to appreciate the thought that goes into designing a package. And even though I consider myself a “stick-to-the list” type of shopper, there are still those occasions where a package catches my eye, for whatever reason, and I make the impulse buy. It’s usually in the supermarket, and I’m usually hungry at the time—the perfect storm for such a purchase. It happened recently when I bought brownie mix that was on sale for 10 boxes for $10. No, I did not buy all 10, just one. Was it the image of the

More than 20 years before “sustainability” became the buzz word it is today, Flower City Printing (FCP) was already rethinking the inks it was using in its pressroom. In 1985, Executive Vice President Bill Oliveri began replacing petroleum-based inks with vegetable-based inks, as well as eliminating alcohol in press fountain solutions. “Inks made from renewable resources were already in existence, but mainly used for newspaper production,” Oliveri reflects. “FCP was one of the first printers to experiment with vegetable-based inks for the offset sheetfed industry. Switching to vegetable-based inks [resulted in] a reduction in VOCs (volatile organic compounds), less ink [required] in the

HEIDELBERG, Germany—During drupa 2008, Heidelberger Druckmaschinen AG (Heidelberg) announced it is expanding its Saphira range of consumables with the launch of an extended system solution for its InkLine automated ink supply system, which will be renamed InkStar. The new solution includes InkStar cartridges made from recycled materials, and Heidelberg is also introducing a two-stage cutting and shredding system for disposing empty cartridges that helps cut waste volumes by up to 70 percent. Heidelberg launched InkLine in 1998 and since then has installed more than 16,000 units around the world, even under license on presses from competitors. Due to its high level of automation, InkLine

Innovia Films’ biodegradable packaging material, NatureFlex™, is helping a raw snack food company—Superfood Snacks—to fulfill its ideal for natural eco-friendly sustainable bags to package its first product, Chocolate Goji Treats. They are a synergistically balanced fusion of some of the world’s most nutritious ancient superfoods and specialty ingredients, including Goji berries, Raw Cacao, Maca Root and sundried Vanilla Bean. Superfood Snacks will also use its signature NatureFlex™ design for two new flavors to be launched later this month. Superfood Snacks uses a range of pure, raw and organic fair-trade ingredients in all its flavors of raw chocolate Superfood truffles, which not only provide superior