Product Ventures' Award-Winning Design of International Delight Featured in Brandweek
by Becky Ebenkamp, Brandweek Magazine
Earlier this month Brandweek featured Product Ventures' Award-Winning Design of the International Delight coffee creamer which used to spill, sputter and drip. Now, it simply sweetens...
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It's Alive, and It's...Plastic?
New material developments are key to challenging the status quo
attitude of, "That's the way we've always done it, why change?" One new example of advances in materials is the development and increasing understanding of the properties of cross-linked liquid crystal polymers. These polymers experience chemical reactions in much the same way that cells in muscle fibers do in order to make them contract and expand. The difference is that in these materials, the chains in the polymer move when exposed to different wavelengths of light. While the plastic is not technically a living object, it does undergo certain types of chemical reactions - bending under visible light and flattening under UV light (see images). Eventually, this technology could lead to the development of a light-driven motor that could replace batteries. Can you imagine driving a car powered only by sunlight interacting with a material, rather than electricity, such as is used in the current thinking for solar powered vehicles? How about developing active packaging that changes shape in response to different lighting environments? The possibilities are intriguing and endless ... |
Keep Your Eye on the Present - But Don't Lose Sight of the Future
The law of supply and demand - it's the engine that drives the US, and more importantly, the global economy. If a resource is scarce and in limited supply, its price increases. Consequently, if there is an abundance of a material or a resource, the price declines.
Right now in warehouses across the US, mounds and mounds of recyclables are piling up. Recyclers are announcing layoffs, or in extreme cases, shutting down, because the material values have declined to virtually zero, and their revenue stream has dwindled to nothing. I realize that without consumers buying your products, there is no need for more materials to produce new ones. But the interesting thing is that producers are clamoring for clean sources of recycled materials. Some companies have even gone as far as starting up their own recycling operations in order to ensure sources of supply. They way I see it, this is an opportunity for the big players in the consumer package goods industry to step up and help the earth, and also to serve their own interests by forming alliances with the struggling recyclers. Invest now from the pockets that the larger companies have, so that when the economy begins to turn - as it eventually will - there will be an infrastructure in place to meet the demand for recycling and recovering even more scarce resources. It's not just the "right" thing to do, it's also the economically smart and sustainable move to make to insure future supplies.
Back at Junk Value, Recyclables Are Piling Up
(The New York Times) |
Fungus Among Us?
 
What does coq au vin have in common with packaging?
Well, if Ecovative Design has its way, quite a lot. Using a raw material from mushrooms, Ecovative Design has invented a new packaging material, called Acorn™, that offers a green alternative to EPS foam. It is made from agricultural waste products and held together with the binding agent mushroom mycelium. This binder is also used in an insulation product that the company produces, which has the ability to replace the traditional pink fiberglass products. It gives you a whole new appreciation for fungus, now, doesn't it?
Evocative Design: Acorn™ Packaging |
When Old is More and New is Less ...
A recent article in the Chicago Sun Times piqued my interest. And personally, it's got me disappointed as well. I've spent most of my career in packaging working hard to develop options that delight consumers and run efficiently on production lines. Saving costs has been, for the most part, an ongoing effort for the majority of the name brands that I have developed packaging for over the years. Rather than trying to sneak one past the consumer by offering less product at the same great price, we focused on ways to optimize the package and distribution systems, aspiring to add value to the brand and the consumer.
It's True: Food Packages Shrunk Last Year
(Chicago Sun-Times) |
Eric is our Director of Technology & Development and is responsible for the exploration of emerging technologies. With a background in polymer science and engineering, he has over 25 years of experience with companies such as Nestle, Unilever and Clairol.
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