Column: Market analysis

Volumes of recycled glass in Europe continue to grow
page 8
The rate of recycled glass from household waste increased to a new record of 64 percent in Europe in 2008. This fact reflects not only increasing consumers’ awareness of environmental impacts of recycling, but also the continuing effort of all European governments to constantly improve glass collecting and recycling schemes. It is confirmed by the most recent data of the European container glass federation (FEVE). The Czech Republic ranges among countries with the highest year-to-year growth of recycling rates.

Consumers do not read information on food packaging
page 8
In comparision with 2005, the number of people not paying attention to the information on food packaging has increased – while 49 percent did not read them in the past, it is already 56 percent today. The consumers cite illegibility followed by their lack of interest as the most frequent reasons. Although it is still very high, the proportion of customers evaluating the information as adequate and clear has declined. The proportion of people who believe the information are trustworthy has fell significantly from 77 to 56 percent.

Czech paper industry in 2009
page 10
Paper products find a great many applications in other manufacturing industries, chiefly in the form of packagings and packaging materials or the essential printed material in the printing industry. Hygiene products and tissue paper serve in households and healthcare above all. Czech paper and board production dropped quite well after a longer period of its continuing growth, mainly due to the global economic crisis. In comparision with 2008 (924 000 tons of paper and board), the production declined by 13 percent to 801 000 tons in 2009. Domestic production of fibres, almost entirely based on wood, increased totally by 4 percent in 2009 (732 000 tons in contrary to 702 000 tons in 2008).

Column: Current topic – Plastic packaging

Serving for days, months and even decades
page 12
Plastics play a significant role in the sustainable development, about 16 percent of plastic solutions are innovative so far they cannot be replaced with traditional materials. Over 50 percent of all products in Europe are packed using plastics. Ten years ago, the average weight of packagings was more than 28 percent higher than today. 1.8m tons of materials have been preserved. In addition, 1.5m tons of packaging plastics could be reused – via recycling or incineration. According to findings of the German Packaging market research company (Gesellschaft für Verpackungsmarktforschung), if current plastic packagings were replaced by traditional materials, their average weight would increase four times, energy consumption by 50 percent and packaging costs would be doubled.

Column: Main topic – Beverage and liquid packaging

Transformations of flexible multipacks
page 16
Multipacks have became a phenomenon of recent years. And no matter whether they are made of board preferred by breweries above all or they are flexible multipacks for soft drinks. Especially shrink sleeve multipacks have experienced changes in their appearance which make the product more attractive. Plastic films in both primary and secondary packaging show a number of excellent characteristics: lightweight, high barrier protection against moisture in particular, fingerprints, abrasion, grease, vapor permeability or loss of flavor. In addition, flexible films are mostly both water and solvent resistant, well sealable and thus easily workable into different types of packaging.

Multipacks in “the war of colors”
page 18
The transformation of shrink sleeve multipacks into the products with all the attributes of consumer packaging in terms of sales support took place only a few years ago. The first stage consisted of replacing the original matte films with the clear ones that made multipacks more attractive but also highlighted the bottles and labels inside. In the second stage, shrink film printing was added. The space for attracting customer’s attention is far beyond labels here. In addition, the rules of mandatory information on labels which result in a flood of texts and symbols completely confusing the customer occasionally, do not apply here. Thus the war of colors has been brought from shelves onto pallets. Beverage manufacturers are forced to response to the growing pressure of competitors even in the area of originally periferal secondary packaging.

“As for the future of cartons, I‘m an optimist”,
said the managing director of the Olomouc plant of Smurfit Kappa.
page 20
Beverage multipacks made of LLC board have served as a marketing tool from the very beginning. The surface of a packaging can be exploited effectively in full thanks to high quality offset printing. Yet the blank flexible multipacks (irreplaceable in the beverage industry) adopted this way of promotion and presentation recently. We talked about the response to this trend with Petr Kubenka, managing director of Smurfit Kappa Olomouc.

How to carry a multipack
page 24
Both plastic and board multipacks use handles of various types. An extreme and least elegant option is that one where the handle is completely missing. The opposite extreme is a completely new solution where the multipack itself (i.e. the wrapping) is missing and the handle serves not only as a carrier feature but also as a structural element, thus creating the secondary packaging itself. Judging by the increasing number of producers dealing with this solution, we will meet it probably more frequently in the CR in the future.

The journey of a bottle
page 27
After leaving the production line, where it gets its original shape and color, the bottle is sent to the printing machines. Each bottle is bar-coded with its ID number and a complete batch is registered in a warehouse management system. It is possible to trace any bottle from manufacturing to a warehouse and from the warehouse to a cash desk. But the bar code technology has evolved to such a stage that it is capable (to some extent) of influencing the customer’s decision where to dispose the bottle. “The Codeware-sběr program“ (“Codeware-collection“) provides its users with records of source separated waste collection within their town and users are awarded with financial benefits based on the number of bags collected (points per bag). Thus t
he journey of our bottle ends there, where it should – at a landfill of source separated waste.

Column: Technology

Innovations of offset printing inks
page 31
Printing inks are developed independently on trade fairs, novelties use to be released on the market immediately after their development and field tests were completed. Process ink manufacturers strive to make the inks most versatile in order to the printers were not forced to store several types, but only one capable of printing on various substrates differing in surface porosity, absorption, etc. The effort to make them environmentally-friendly and safe is a global trend. Heavy inks originally from Japan, eco-friendly Diamond inks based only on vegetable oils or low-odor/low-migration Corona MGA inks have been newly developed.

Column: Packaging of dangerous items

Dangerous goods in approved containers only
page 34
The term “dangerous goods” embraces substances, compounds, waste and products, whose properties may endanger people’s health and lives or affect the environment negatively. The hazardous properties are highly challenging to their flow from producers to distributors (retailers) and consumers (end users) be secured properly. When the goods circulates, its properties are influenced by a complex of organizational and technical measures. Among these, containers and packaging both properly chosen (chiefly in terms of mechanical and climatic hazards) and permitted by regulations are of great importance.

Column: Logistics

Stackers for small-sized warehouses
page 37
The types of hand operated stackers generally reflect the pallet trucks offering. They extend the low-lift pallet trucks product line of virtually every manufacturer. Hand operated stackers constitute a key part of handling technology within small-sized warehouses with two- or three-level shelves. As a rule, they substitute reach trucks whose input costs are significantly higher. Expected travel distances and demands on productivity affect truck equipment which may include also a stand-on platform or even a driver’s seat.

Column: Packaging and design

The story of Young Package
page 41
This year, the theme “Comics“ enlivened the 15th Young Package competition and opened it to other creative artists – graphic designers and illustrators – at the same time. The organizer CZECHDESIGN.CZ has divided the competition into two categories for the first time: Product package category with the theme “Package for sweets“ and Different View category with the above mentioned theme of comics. The jury chaired by Jan Činčera had to choose from over 500 entries. This international tournament culminated with an awards ceremony on May 20. Students from Canada have been among winners again, also the Italians have scored beside the Czechs and Slovaks.

Column: Trade fairs

Pharmintech 2010 confirmed the position of the pharma industry
page 44
This year’s Pharmintech was organized by the IPACK-IMA SpA company from May 12 to 14. 335 exhibitors have presented themselves at the Bologna fairground, 35 percent from abroad. Exhibitors from 14 countries have displayed beside Italian companies. Innovations of pharmaceuticals, health food, natural cosmetics, skin care products and dietary supplements have been unveiled. Neither pharmaceutical industry technologies and machinery, ingredients or packaging materials have not been missing. The pharmaceuticals industry’s specifics, development and visions have been discussed primarily at a simultaneous conference. The export share of the total Italian pharma industry production is 1.5 higher than the average of other industrie. Speakers confirmed the strong position of the pharma industry regardless of the global economic crisis.

Column: Congresses, conferences

Packaging show 2010
page 46
Second year of the Packaging Show seminary took place in the Corinthia Hotel in Prague on May 20.The first session was dedicated to construction design. Representatives of the Model Obaly the Digital Media and the Fiala & Šebek Visual Communication companies introduced a lively presentation of a product packaging case-study. The product intentionally chosen has had its own history which the packaging design could be based on and, at the same time, this product is already disappearing from the market. The example of such a product was a bulb. Lars Vallentin, former Nestlé’s chief- -designer, drew attention to possible mistakes which the capabilities of up-to-date technologies are tempting to. Technological processing of a packaging is only one side of the matter. The other side, much more important from the sales point of view, is communication. The speech of Jan Činčera, representative of the Jan Činčera Graphic Studio, was above all a great visual experience.