Packaged Progress

GOODS & SERVICES

The U.S. packaging industry last week unwrapped a bundle of startling innovations. At the American Management Association's 25th annual packaging exposition in Atlantic City, N.J., 388 manufacturers of packaging materials and equipment showed off their latest lures to catch the U.S. shopper's eye. The lures have to be strong; researchers at Du Pont calculate that a package in a supermarket has as little as 20 seconds to stop a passing customer. Among the stoppers: P:Martinis and Manhattans sealed in packages of Du Font's transparent Mylar.

P: Soft drinks in aerosol pressure cans (American Can Co.), which squirt out when the cap is pressed.

P: Shell-less eggs,machine-sealed in tough, transparent polyethylene (produced by Sani-Shell Container Corp.). The eggs can be opened by pull tabs like those on cigarette packs, or they can be boiled right in their polyethylene shells. Scientists at Cornell University, who developed the idea, expect it to save farmers millions of dollars by making cracked eggs as salable as whole ones, and by eliminating breakage in shipment.

P:Bacon rolled on a strip of aluminum foil, so that it can be unrolled like tape (Aluminum Co. of America).

P: Polyethylene bags for cream, to replace the standard five-gallon steel cans, developed by Illinois' Galva Creamery Co. Shipped in corrugated cardboard cartons, the bags take up only half,as much space as steel cans holding the same amount of cream, are more sanitary. Furthermore, they take up only a fraction of the space when they are returned empty.

Old & New. Though new materials such as plastics have moved into the packaging industry, manufacturers of glass bottles, cardboard boxes and other traditional containers have kept a major share of the market by bringing out improvements of their own. Riegel Paper Corp. has developed 600 kinds of packaging paper and cardboard, with all combinations of properties needed by manufacturers and shippers. Some traditional packaging materials have been joined with the newcomers. Bradley Container Corp., for example, is now manufacturing a can for Colgate-Palmolive's liquid detergent, Vel, with metal ends and flexible plastic sides. Thus. Bradley has combined the easy stacking of the tin can with the squeeze action of the polyethylene bottle.

Room for All. By producing a steady stream of such ideas, old-line packaging companies have kept their sales rising. Says an A.M.A. official: "Packaging is a field which has expanded so greatly that new materials have created their own markets instead of shutting out older stand-bys." Every segment of the industry is growing. The value of transparent films produced last year is estimated at $225 million, up from $53 million in 1941. Estimated 1955 output of folding boxboard: 2,750,000 tons, up from 1.700.000 in 1942.

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