Business Management - Industry Trends

In an overall economic environment stuck somewhere between uncertainty and maybe even foreboding, the tag and label industry still has energy and a dynamic thread driven by innovation and opportunity.

Flexible packaging has a lot going for it. Somewhere within its many variants it can provide a variety of consumer conveniences, sustainability advantages, reduced costs, improved product quality, and improved processing. Advantages can be found up and down the supply chain, with a common denominator being innovation.

Flexible packaging provider Exopack Holding Corp., the latest news is in the SKUs. This paper and plastic packaging converter, headquartered in Spartanburg, S.C., boasts 19 production facilities across North America and the United Kingdom, and supplies approximately 25,000 SKUs to 1,300 diverse customers.

As we move into the next decade, many changes are in store for owners of packaging companies. Through direct involvement in mergers and acquisitions for more than 25 years, and using comprehensive proprietary research, Blaige & Company has witnessed the evolutionary trends of industry structures and transaction processes.

A few years ago, ice in Orlando, Florida would have seemed an unusual, rare event. However, the past two winters have made it seem like ice in Orlando in January might be not be so unusual anymore. But we're not talking ice in January; we're talking ICE in April and the current plan is to have this not be a rare event, but one that occurs every two years.

For some end users, shrink sleeve label production has become the stuff of "nightmare stories," says Jim Dwyer, president and CEO of The R.B. Dwyer Group, an Anaheim, Calif.-based manufacturer and distributor of tamper-evident bands and shrink sleeves.

In an association loaded with industry leaders, the TLMI Converter of the Year award can be considered recognition as the "best of the best." Even with this lofty description, it is no surprise to those that know him best that John Hickey, CEO of Smyth Companies, Inc. and currently in the coveted position as past TLMI chairman of the board, has been selected to receive packagePRINTING's 2010 TLMI Converter of the Year award.

Tag and Label Manufacturers Institute (TLMI) converter members showed off some of the best product-decoration offerings the package-printing industry has to offer while competing in TLMI's annual Label Awards contest. This year, 52 printers submitted an impressive 297 entries. From these, 81 total awards were presented, including 52 first-place honors and 27 second-place awards.

CINCINNATI—Monroe Etiquette is centrally located in Montagny, near Lyon in France, and is a well established leader in wine labels in the largest bottled wine market in the world.

New developments in technologies for package printers as reported in a presentation made at the K 2010 trade show in June by Dr. Daniel Wagner, BASF's product development–SBC polymers.