See what's new in plastic packaging at PLASTEC West

Complimentary speed networking pairs you with industry professionals you want to meet. Participate in the Booth Crawl, a pub crawl-like event for meeting suppliers and other attendees while enjoying free snacks and libations. Take advantage of the networking functionality in the event’s mobile app, with features like direct messaging to exhibitors and other attendees. Also, don’t miss out on expert-led presentations taking place on the show floor. Packaging-related tracks include packaging design for both beer and spirits and health and beauty.

To top it off, now in its 14th year, the Golden Mousetrap Awards is back again to celebrate innovations of the people, companies, and technologies of America’s design and manufacturing industries. The awards ceremony caps off February 9th’s festivities at the Anaheim Convention Center. While registering for PLASTEC West you’ll be given the opportunity to RSVP for the awards ceremony.

And if that’s not enticing enough, here is just a sneak peek of plastic packaging innovations that will be featured at the show.

Duofold combination packaging from HLP Klearfold (New York, NY) combines the best attributes of clear, box-grade plastic and paperboard to produce a truly distinctive visual package. Combining these two dissimilar substrates allows for some very unique structural designs, many not possible in paperboard or plastic alone, while providing two distinctive visual, textural and tactile impressions.

Soft Crease scored rigid film can be used to create multiple plastic carton panels or to make windows that wrap around multiple score lines… the structural design possibilities are nearly endless. And for even greater shelf impact, any combination of offset, flexo and/or silkscreen printing, plus foil stamping and other decorating special effects, can be applied to either the plastic or paperboard panels, or both.

The Prime Peel peel-and-reclose process from Lasersharp Flex Pack (Vadnais Heights, MN) allows packages to be easily opened and reclosed while maintaining the integrity of the contents. Multiple industries such as food, medical and pharmaceutical can benefit from the Prime Peel process which makes peel and reclose packages popular in these industries.

This new technology is an efficient and accurate method for processing flexible packaging material. Using lasers to produce peel and reclose packages ultimately produces packages with clean and accurate patterns, and furthermore ensuring the completion of a reliable, useful, and beneficial package.

The Schur Star Concept for flexible packaging from Schur Star Systems (Flensburg, Germany) allows you to run multiple bag formats without additional tooling costs. The flexible packaging solution provides ability to have quick change-over times to run multiple products on just one line with no set-up times. The Schur Star bags can be made to meet all possible functionalities needed, including all types of barrier capacities

Envision (Crawfordsville, IN) brings Soft Touch technology to clear plastic folding cartons and packaging. Soft Touch is not new to the packaging market but it is rarely achieved with plastic. The plastic becomes “soft” to the touch and increases the tactile appeal. Soft Touch creates a softer look and feel on printed plastic materials as well as creating a barrier which is fingerprint resistant.