MPW: Dr. Büren, looking into your crystal ball, what significant changes in flexible packaging can we expect in the next 15-20 years and why? Perhaps you can outline them in three groups: process technology, materials technology, and machine/equipment technology.
Ingo Büren:  As far as package design goes I foresee a split of functionalities: protective function and communicative function will be the focus. Why this? Mainly because of Internet-related business and distribution. We can imagine that supermarkets as we know them today will play a lesser role for food shoppers than they do now in, say, 10-15 years. Shopping via the Internet with home delivery will change the direction of packaging requirements as we know them. The communications function—such as transfer of brand identities, specific haptic, shape, design needs to catch the purchaser’s eye among the large selection on the shelves—will play less of a role, but the protection function needed during delivery to the customer will increase tremendously. That should allow more focus on material efficiency of barrier materials, particularly flexible film packaging that will more and more displace heavier competitive materials such as glass, metal, and paperboard.

As far as process technology goes, I suspect there will be no changes away from reel-to-reel technology. Thin extrusion will be preferred. Process (and materials) design will be based on virtual methods. And there will probably be higher flexibility for individualized and personalized packages. When you consider materials technology, the things to look for are thinner films with higher functionality and only little processing of biodegradable film. While all plastics may be used as an “oil or energy bank,” in other words for incineration to produce energy, that is a temporary and perhaps the least efficient use for “waste” packaging. Far better would be reuse for other purposes (advanced recycling). Possibly there will be reuse of outer communicative functions of packages such as package designs that permit easy removal of radio frequency identification (RFID) for reprogramming and reuse. And finally on the machine/equipment side, we can expect to see more robotic equipment for all purposes, in order to provide high flexibility for wide product variations.

MPW: What issue or issues in society are driving these changes?
Büren: Saving resources because of the increase of population and its over-proportionally growing needs, demands, and higher requirements.

MPW: What do packaging designers need to take into consideration in their developments? Where have they gone astray in the past?
Büren: The idea of Universal Design according to Ron Mace represents the direction to go. [Ed. note: Ronald L. Mace, 1941-1998, founder of the Center for Universal Design (Raleigh, NC) was an architect who coined the term “universal design” to describe the concept of designing all products and build environments to be aesthetic yet usable to the greatest extent possible by everyone, regardless of age, ability, or status in life.]  Where have designers gone astray? Perhaps by working either with a technical or a design perspective, rarely with both, including and too often forgetting the user perspective.

MPW: How do blown- and cast-film processors and laminators need to react to meet the challenges?
Büren: My advice would be to be careful in buying and installing really big, dedicated equipment. Only a few can afford this and it could lead to over-capacity. Use of versatile and flexible equipment to handle small-lot demand could allow an easier way to follow the dynamic part of the packaging market that wants quick changes and fast reactions.

MPW: Will we be confronted in the future with universal packaging for a global market or do the specifications of each market require individual packaging approaches?
Büren: Depending on the brand, the type of product, and the market, I foresee a swinging between more regional or more global solutions.

MPW: With the increased price of food and recent food price riots around the world, do you see a threat to producers of biopolymers from a public that might argue that it is better to produce corn or sugar cane to feed people rather than as a feedstock to make plastics?
Büren: Personally I don’t bet on biopolymers. As only a very small amount of fossil material goes into plastic packaging, petroleum-based plastics are here to stay. There is no need to compete with food. I’d rather respect the feelings in those parts of the world with no surplus of food. And, as Germany shows, plastic trash can be collected and reused to a very high degree.

MPW: The IPI offers the first Masters of Engineering in Packaging Technology. What information do packaging professionals not yet receive in their undergraduate courses that necessitates a masters degree?
Büren: Besides a lot of packaging-related detailed knowledge and experience in materials, machines, and packed goods, there is the part of business and management that controls the packaging processes. The IPI Masters is the balanced integration of these four areas on the level of a full Bologna Master [EU-wide educational norm], in a way that is new in this world.

MPW: Sustainability is and likely will remain a huge topic in the packaging industry. Is it one that can be taught in class? And can sustainability be balanced effectively with ‘lowest cost’?
Büren: Sustainability is well defined in Webster’s New World Dictionary. You have to decide what you want to keep in existence, maintain, or prolong. Thus it is an issue which was always in the background of our doings. And this can be taught in class very well, because you have to deal with many basic circumstances of our existence and doings. This can easily be applied to a packaging class. We in IPI take that responsibility and do it.

Ingo Büren is director of science and technology at the IPI International Packaging Institute (Neuhausen am Rheinfall, Switzerland), an international competence center training managers and researchers in lightweight primary packaging. He has held managerial roles within the flexible packaging industry for about 20 years in Germany, Switzerland, and the U.S., and his institution is the first to offer a Masters of Engineering in Packaging Technology. He can be reached at [email protected].