This year marks the 60th anniversary of Pack Expo International and the co-located Pharma Expo trade shows, which were held November 6-9 at McCormick Place in Chicago, Illinois.

Marking its largest show ever, Pack Expo International featured a record-breaking 2,512 exhibitors spread over 1.25 million net square feet of exhibit space. More than 47,000 buyers were in attendance. A number of exhibitors featured solutions specifically tailored to the cosmetic and personal care industries.

Pack Expo International also received a record number of endorsements this year, with its largest ever Partner Program that included 31 associations. Plus, International pavilion organizers came from all corners of the globe, including Argentina, Bavaria, Brazil, China, France, Germany, Italy, Switzerland and Taiwan.

Show owner and producer PMMI, The Association for Packaging and Processing Technologies, represents more than 750 North American manufacturers and suppliers of equipment, components, materials and services in the packaging industry.

“Exhibitors reported that not only were leads up, but the quality of the attendees continues to grow,” says Jim Pittas, senior vice president of PMMI. “A full audit of the event will be forthcoming, but all initial reports from exhibitors and attendees clearly show Pack Expo International and Pharma Expo 2016 was an overwhelming success.”

Suppliers at Pack Expo International

Following is a look at what some of the suppliers offered attendees at Pack Expo. See the photos in the slideshow above.

Berry Plastics

Berry Plastics featured its packaging manufactured for ViJon, for its private label brand, Victory. The bath & body products are housed in rectangular shaped bottles, in four different colors. The packaging was designed by Blue Clover Studios.

Coesia

At Pack Expo, Sebastien Boileau, marketing director, was showing the capabilities of Coesia’s 14 brands, including Citus Kalix and Norden. Boileau stressed the quality of the company’s machinery and the level of technical expertise. Products on display illuminated Coesia’s capabilities for the high-end luxury market, including cartons, and tube and lipstick filling and packaging.

Montebello Packaging

Montebello Packaging featured its 100% recyclable blow-molded aluminum bottles at the show. The company’s team also spoke to visitors about its new proprietary and patented technology that allows product manufacturers to design aluminum bottles with shaped features — similar to plastic blow-molded bottles, yet with all the features and benefits of aluminum packaging.

The shapes can include very fine details and can be custom printed with the customer’s artworks in up to 9 colors, using a very high-quality dry-offset printing process.

BillerudKorsnas

BillerudKorsnas featured a new premium cartonboard at the show, BillerudKorsnas White. The cartonboard is exceptionally smooth and will showcase printing and graphic effects beautifully, the company says. It also features exceptional strength combined with flexibility, which gives it unique shaping capabilities.

BillerudKorsnäs White is more eco-friendly than traditional cartonboard products. The company explains that a process of “right-weighting” was used to optimize the exact amount of material necessary, without sacrificing quality or packaging performance. This type of weight reduction still helps save significant costs throughout the supply-chain, according to the supplier.

The material is composed of a unique blend of 100% primary fibers from Nordic spruce and pine, combined with short and dense birch fibers. “This composition cultivates resilient and stiff mechanical properties that include exceptional formability and tear resistance, unlimited shaping, and creasing without cracking,” the company states.

In addition, the material’s dimensional stability reduces the risk of delamination and enables excellent and consistent “runnability” on converting equipment at high speeds and large volumes.

Bedford Industries

Bedford Industries spoke to visitors about its milestone anniversary this year – the company is celebrating 50 years in business. “We will continue to encourage the innovative culture that fuels our growth,” says Deb Houseman, creative/marketing manager, Bedford. 

At the show, Bedford featured a 9-panel video wall to highlight the fun, unique characteristics of its ElastiTag product line. “We focused on new tag shapes, specialty finishes, on-pack sampling, and automatic application of this ultimate hang tag,” explains Houseman.

Klocke of America

Klocke of America held a presentation at its Live Product Demo Bar. The team showcased seven different types of dispensing systems, in addition to its numerous innovative sampling and unit dose solutions.

The team also spoke to visitors about “HPV” packaging, which they say is “higher perceived value.” The supplier offers numerous ways to combine graphics, shape and interactivity, as well as an extensive library of stock tooling. 

Groninger USA

Groninger USA featured new machinery at the show, its groninger lite series, including the lite-F model. Lite-F is an automated filling machine especially designed for small private-label, R&D as well as contract manufacturing.

“The groninger lite series fills the gap in the machine portfolio between manual table top units and fully automated high-speed production lines to offer new filling and closing equipment for all size of businesses and budgets,” the supplier states.

Lite-F is a 2-headed filling unit that can fill up to 2700 units per hour with a filling range up to 500ml/16oz. Glass and plastic containers of all sizes and shapes can be processed within pucks or puck-less. It offers easy and quick changeovers between sizes, and a 12-inch multi-lingual touch screen HMI.

Parent company Groninger is based in Germany, but its new lite-F was completely developed in the company’s U.S. headquarters in Charlotte, North Carolina, where the machine is also produced.

James Alexander

James Alexander Corp. is known for being a leading manufacturer, contract packager, and custom filler of unit-dose packaging. The company offers solutions that include dispensing systems for skin care and topical applications.

One of James Alexander’s most popular innovations is a plastic ampoule, which it says “combines style and ease of use through single-handed activation, dispensing contents with a gentle squeeze.”

One of the company’s most recent achievements is a tandem swab ampoule called the DuoDispersion System. “Safe and easy to use, the tandem dropper can be customized to hold small-volume, dual-product solutions, with each individual formula hermetically sealed separately until use,” says Carol Gamsby, sales manager, James Alexander Corp. (Gamsby is shown in the slideshow above.)

Glenroy

Glenroy, a supplier of flexible packaging solutions, featured the VersaPouch – an inverted stand-up pouch that utilizes a patented closure developed by AptarGroup. It is ideal for medium to high-viscosity beauty products.

At the show, Glenroy showed visitors the first premade version of the VersaPouch, which provides a cost-effective alternative to existing form-fill-seal inverted pouches, since the premade inverted pouch doesn’t require the capital outlay of a new machine, the supplier explains.

The VersaPouch (see it in the slideshow above) offers consumers convenience and functionality, since the package is gravity-fed so the product is always ready-to-dispense. The package allows for over 99 percent product evacuation, the supplier says. It also has a space-efficient shape, and is designed for stability on shelves.

AptarGroup’s patented VersaPouch closure features an easy-to-open flip-cap, a built-in tamper-evident pull ring, and an anti-spill SimpliSqueeze valve. The customizable SimpliSqueeze valve provides clean product cutoff as well as controlled drip-free dispensing.

See More in the Slideshow Above

The following suppliers, also at Pack Expo International, are shown in the slideshow above: Akey, HP, Amcor, Gflor, Norden, Kalix and Badger Color.

Next Up

One of the next events for many of the suppliers featured below will be Interpack, which takes place in Dusseldorf, Germany, May 4-10. Organized by Messe Dusseldorf, the show will feature innovations and tailored solutions from companies representing all sectors of the packaging industry throughout the entire supply chain.