After a four-year, pandemic-induced hiatus, PACK EXPO International was back in Chicago in late October, 2022, and the top trends weren't hard to spot. Sustainability, e-commerce, and robotics/automation as a means to stand-in for hard-to-find labor, could be found everywhere on the show floor. But these trends are increasingly overlapping. I can't so easily distinguish a sustainability-minded product launch from an e-commerce or fulfillment center-aimed piece of tech. They're often one in the same these days, pulling double duty, or at least display attributes of both. Case in point: curbside recyclable padded paper mailers as part of on-demand semi-automatic bagger solutions serve two masters in sustainability and e-comm. Entries from PAC Machinery via its Fiber Flex pre-opened mailer and Rollerbag R-3200 automatic bagger, Pregis and its Sharp Max-Pro 18 bagger with Evertec padded paper mailers, and Sealed Air Autobag machines with paper mailers made from post-consumer fiber, are three examples I saw.
展开▼
