This week, AEB participated in two different conferences that offered unique perspectives on the food and beverage business.  The Food Summit in Chicago delved into the areas of product innovation, food safety, and corporate sustainability.  The Global Pouch Forum in Florida discussed packaging technology innovation in the fastest growing segment of the packaging industry.  These different perspectives gave a nice picture of the different forces shaping the industry and shaping the packaging technology landscape.  Recurring themes included:

The painful economics of food safety. Consumers attention to the safety of packaged foods is rising due to recent high profile issues related to 1) illness related to foodborne pathogens and 2) concerns over the use of BPA in many common packaging materials.  Brand owners are taking unprecedented steps to manage a brand's exposure to safety concerns.  Representatives from the USDA discussed the impending sweeping changes to US food safety regulation being promised in the upcoming food safety bill at the Food Summit. At the Global Pouch Forum, coating and adhesives provider Henkel Corporation discussed the economics of managing packaging safety concerns.

Corporate sustainability efforts are encouraging CPGs to reduce their environmental footprint and introduce new sustainable packaging concepts.  Paul Comey discussed Green Mountain Coffee's sustainability program that includes building demand for sustainable products and taking steps to protect the environment.  Speakers at the Global Pouch Forum discussed the sustainability benefits of flexible packaging vs conventional rigid or paperboard based packaging.  Allied Development presented data showing carbon footprint reduction of 30-40% from moving to pouch based packaging from cups or cans.

Consumers are demanding healthier options in single serve, shelf stable formats.  With growth in big box retailers, consumers are looking to buy cases of shelf stable products and refrigerate as needed.  The shift in demand is driving the growth of aseptic packaging approaches that deliver high quality shelf stable products without preservatives and without the thermal degradation of hot fill or heat based processes.  AEB partner Gualapack announced their plans to deploy an aseptic pouch filler for pre-formed Cheerpack spouted pouches. 

Technology investment is evolving in response to turbulent financial markets, volatile energy and raw material costs, and the growth in smaller run product lines.  As large brand owners launch niche brands to compete with a growing group of beverage entrepreneurs, the importance of co-packers is growing.  Rather than invest in a full aseptic filling line for a new product line, brand owners are more likely to work with a co-packer.  This allows CPGs to avoid large capital expenditures in exchange for paying slightly higher unit costs -  brand owners are better able to match expenses with revenues, enabling a larger number of niche brands to enter the market.  At the same time, those installations making capital investments are more apt to consider measures of Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) that include operating costs associated with energy and water treatment.

The combination of these trends supports the need for new packaging sterilization technologies for aseptic packaging.  AEB's Blu technology delivers chemical free packaging sterilization to aseptic food and beverage applications.  With a compelling TCO, Blu enabled filling solutions are enabling innovation across all packaging formats including bottles, closures, pouches, bag-in-box, and form fill seal applications.  For more information on Blu, click here.

Michigan State University's School of Packaging held its 2nd Packaging Executive Forum this week.  The forum discussion focused on plans for the school, general trends in packaging engineering, and, more deeply, the subject of sustainability.  

While the term, "Sustainable Packaging" can border on cliche, the speakers and panels at the forum probed the subjet from new angles.  Here is a quick summary of the points that caught my attention:

1.  Sustainability of a packaging concept has many dimensions including: Carbon footprint, Recyclability/reusability profile, Pollution (particulate and VOC) created in the manufacturing of packaging, Protection of public health, Performance of the package (e.g. does it protect the product as it should).

2.  The performance of a package is as important - if not more so - than the environmental footprint of the package alone.  For most packaged goods, the energy consumed to grow, process, and transport the product before it is packaged is, in fact, larger than the energy needed to manufacture the package.  If the product cannot be consumed or used as intended, due to package failure, than it does not matter how environmentally friendly the packaging is.

3.  Plastic vs. paper vs. carton vs. metal vs. glass | flexible vs. rigid.  There are pros and cons of each package concept and a time and place for each.  Format selection decisions need to consider package performance and consumer use in addition to how sustainable the manufacture of the packaging is.

4.  Adoption of new technologies need cooperation from the entire value chain: brand owners, material suppliers, converters, fillers, equipment suppliers, and researchers.

Not surprisingly, we see many opportunities for electron beams to help make packaging and packaged products more sustainable in every dimension.

Like many out there, we were intrigued by the news that Brad Pitt and Kiehl's are collaborating on a body cleansing product that is 100% eco-friendly.  Sales profits from the product will go to JPF Eco Systems, a nonprofit started by Pitt and Kiehl's to "minimize impact on the environment through thoughtful design."

Reportedly, Pitt was heavily influence by Cradle to Cradle, a book which calls for the transformation of human industry through ecologically intelligent design.

This is great news for those among us concerned with the environmental impact of consumer products.  While demand for environmental and sustainable products and packaging continues to grow, such a celebrity initiative could serve as a "tipping point" for mainstream consumer demand for environmentally conscious product innovation.  In fact, some speculate that JPF Eco Systems could turn into a Product (RED)-type organization that redirects corporate products to environmentally-focused initiatives beyond just the one product.

As has been discussed several times in this blog, low energy electron beams can enable several environmental and sustainable solutions for consumer products and packaging, including:

• Provides alternative consumer packaging sterilization technique, replacing preservative based techniques
• Reduces amount of raw material required for packaging
• Eliminates chemical sterilization and rinse water utilization with a cold, dry aseptic process
• Facilitates solvent-free coating formulations for packaging, with no VOCs generated
• Enables improved recyclability of some polymers

This past Friday, the Boston Business Journal hosted the Green Business Summit, which focused on the emergence and growth of the cleantech cluster in Massachusetts.  The event included a full spectrum of business and policy thought leaders discussing topics ranging from renewable energy to sustainable manufacturing to green construction.

While there is no firm definition of cleantech - actually, wikipedia has one - renewable energy technologies tend to get the most attention.  Increasingly, there is an appreciation for the potential of sustainable manufacturing practices and technology that can improve industrial energy efficency that also gets included in the cleantech umbrella.

AEB's role in this sector is unique in that it provides a several-fold sustainability benefit:  Traditional manufacturing industries are replacing conventional thermal and chemical processes with electron beams in order to reduce pollution, decrease energy consumption, reduce raw material usage, and improve overall productivity across a wide range of applications. 

In conjunction with the summit, the BBJ also released a special report titled Sustainable Boston: 2008 Green Business Report.  AEB is included twice in the publication:

• Our CEO, Mitch Tyson, is featured in an article on the dynamics around finding strong business leaders for the sector.
• AEB is listed amongst the largest employers in the state for this new and growing cluster.

While there is not an online version of the report, you can contact the Boston Business Journal to receive a copy.

Following on this cleantech theme, AEB will be presenting a paper on the Benefits of Electron Beam Adoption in Indusrial Processes at the upcoming Clean Technologies & Sustainable Industries Conference in Boston.

Hope to see you there.