Packaging Digest

It always amazes me how quickly packaging changes in the food industry. I had a funny experience at the supermarket the other day. 

When I was in RIT's co-op work program, I was at the supermarket at least once a week for groceries and other items. It got the point where I could be in and out of the supermarket in a very short time as I had become accustomed to the packaging of the products I normally purchased which made it easy for me to spot them out in an aisle as I was walking around. 

My most recent trip to the supermarket, though, didn't exactly go as planned. I must have spent an hour running up and down the aisles passing by the items I needed merely because I didn't recognize their new packaging. Most of the changes were fairly involved, so it was no surprise. It made me think about how some ...Read More

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As a future packaging engineer, it sometimes saddens me to think that most of my career will be devoted to creating things that have a relatively short lifespan and are usually thrown away with great vigor.  Luckily, there are always times where packaging gets to live a second life. 

Returnable/reusable bins are a great example of this, but there aren't many packages that get reused by the consumers themselves. Sure, there are display cases that come with some higher end products. Other than that it's fairly limited. As I've mentioned before, there is a trend that calls for the creation of packaging that can live an alternate life, such as the POM Tea glasses. However, fe...Read More

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In terms of packaging, everyone loves to point at Apple Computers. While I can't disagree that their packaging has some major appeal, I've got to give some recognition to Microsoft. 

Microsoft has, for as long as I can remember, been the king of bland and boring packaging.  I can't really blame them though, as for quite some time it was the norm to package your products in a fairly oversized paperboard box. Times have changed though and Microsoft has definitely gone above and beyond the norm for modern software packaging. 

These days most software you find on the shelves comes in an oversized DVD case of...Read More

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Energy drinks have become very popular here in the U.S. over the last couple of years. If you go into any convenience store, you’d be hard pressed to find a non-super-caffeinated drink in the beverage aisle. The most popular or at least most well-known drink these days is Red Bull.

It’s hard to miss that slender can and the very familiar logo and company colors. The funny thing is that when I first saw that slender can I was very confused. This is because before the drink was popular here in the U.S., it was very popular in Thailand. It’s actually a little-known fact that the drink was originally formulated and produced in Thailand until it was reformulated and marketed t...Read More

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 attended my first PACK EXPO in Las Vegas last week and it was quite the experience. PACK EXPO is big. Now, when I say big I don’t mean large. I mean gigantic! If you want to get a good idea of what it’s like to attend PACK EXPO, just imagine your local football stadium and then fill it with hundreds if not thousands of booths. Then add a couple thousand people into the mix, some robotic pick-and-place machines, and a couple of very loud bottle unscrambling machines for good measure.

I spent most of my time at PACK EXPO wandering around in awe of the huge number of new machines and materials and just trying to take in as much as possible. As a student, it was very neat to see some of the new materials and processes being utilized by companies large and small.

As a student I was not only able to learn about innovations in the packaging industry but I wa...Read More

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Have you ever considered how crazy the package-shipping industry is?

To understand what I mean, take a second to put yourself in the place of a freight company. Imagine if someone came up to you with a package and asked you to carry it across the country, deliver it tomorrow, give them constant updates as to location of the package, and do all this in a timely manner and for an amazingly low price. All of a sudden, the common act of shipping a package becomes a very different game.

When I was on co-op with pharmaceutical company Sanofi Pasteur, I was lucky enough to be invited on a tour of a major shipping company’s ground sorting and air hub facilities. At first glance, one...Read More

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As a senior here in the packaging program at RIT, I’ve been thinking about graduation and the job hunt that will follow it. This whole situation has made me a bit uncomfortable to be totally honest.

I suppose it’s the idea that unlike with my co-ops, a fulltime job is going to require a much larger amount of effort on my part. I don’t mean that I’ll have to do more work, but instead I mean that I will have to really calculate my moves so I make the best decision about where I want to work and where that can take me further down the line. A big part of me wants to stay local, which for me would require a job in the NY/NJ metro area. On the other hand I would love to move out west to California or down south to the Carolinas because if I don’t do it now, it’s just going to get harder to rationalize as the years go by.

I also nee...Read More

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 suppose it would be best to start this blog off with an introduction of sorts, as it should help you understand my point of view. My name is Emilio Frattaruolo. I am currently a senior in the Rochester Institute of Technology’s Packaging Science program, with a technical option for the major.

So far, I’ve had two co-ops to date, where I’ve worked with packaging companies. My first co-op was with Sanofi Pasteur in Taylor, PA, where I was exposed to cold-chain packaging. This is a topic I find extremely interesting due to the many issues that must be taken into consideration to maintain product efficacy. My second co-op was with Becton, Dickinson and Company in Hunt Valley, MD. While there, I was able to work with primary and secondary packaging, as well as spend extensive time performing package testing.

The topics I plan to cover in this blog wi...Read More

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