PACKAGING BRIEFS Thursday, June 23

Heinz Dip & Squeeze ketchup packet wins two industry awards for innovation
Heinz Dip & Squeeze ketchup packet has won a Silver Award in the 23rd DuPont Awards for Packaging Innovation based on its fresh design that responds to consumer convenience needs through dual functionality and reduced packaging. The package also recently received recognition from the National Restaurant Association during its first Food & Beverage Product Innovations Awards, which highlighted progressive food and beverage products that will make a significant impact in the restaurant industry.

Watson expands Salt Lake City pharmaceutical R&D/manufacturing plant
Watson Pharmaceuticals Inc. has announced an approximately $44-million expansion of its Salt Lake City, Utah, Watson Laboratories Inc. site. This facility is Watson's state-of-the-art pharmaceutical research, development and manufacturing facility for transdermal patches and topical gels. The expansion includes retrofitting approximately 20,000 sq ft of existing space and building approximately 17,000 sq ft of future manufacturing space. The company anticipates the expansion could ultimately result in the addition of approximately 300 employees within the next three to five years. The expansion supports a potential tripling in annual manufacturing batch capacity to support future new products, including the generic version of the Lidoderm transdermal pain management product, which the company may launch as early as mid to late 2012. It will also support Watson's expansion of transdermal and topical gel products manufactured in Salt Lake City into select international markets.

Largest solar farm in Pennsylvania completed at Snyder's-Lance
Snyder's-Lance Inc. has completed the largest ground-based solar farm in Pennsylvania. Covering 26 acres and comprised of 15,092 solar panels, the 3.5 MW Solar Farm is located across from the corporate headquarters and manufacturing plant in Hanover, PA. The solar farm is expected to generate 4,453,136-kilowatt hours (kWH) and save close to 30 percent of the current energy costs for the Hanover facility. The solar farm will reduce greenhouse gas emissions in excess of 230 million pounds of carbon dioxide over a 25-year period. As a comparison, the energy created from the solar field equals more than 111 million miles not driven by a medium-sized car, and more than 11 million trees would need to be planted to equal the same level of carbon dioxide reduction.

Red Gold invests $3.5 million in Indiana location
Red Gold will invest $3.5 million to convert an old school building in Elwood, IN, into the company's corporate offices sometime within the next year. The additional office space will allow the company to reconfigure interior space at its Orestes plant location to allow for future manufacturing growth. Red Gold has invested more than $20 million to keep pace with growing demand. Its 2010 investment included an investment in the Orestes plant with a new high-speed canned tomato line and additional equipment to increase the entire plant's output. Red Gold's Elwood plant is currently midway through a major addition of its production and packaging equipment, including an additional state-of-the-art high speed ketchup bottling line which will be ready for production in mid-August.

Exopack's Seymour, IN, facilty honored for safety performance
Exopack's Seymour, IN, facility hit a safety milestone in April 2011, going 10 straight years without an OSHA Lost Time Incident (LTI). To celebrate this accomplishment, management and employees at the plant were recently recognized by Exopack's upper management team with a "Longest Safety Performance Record" Award, as well as a barbeque dinner in their honor. In recognition of their safety performance, Mayor Luedeman presented the employees of Exopack with a Proclamation declaring June 16, 2011, "Exopack Day" in Seymour.

Exopack also welcomes new vp of operational development
Exopack has also hired Michael (Mike ) Craig as vp of operational development. Craig reports to Tom Vale, president/COO. In this role, Craig will be responsible for optimizing operational efficiencies and continuous quality improvement across the company's business units. Craig previously worked for Accenture's Strategy Consulting Group in Charlotte, NC, where he was a partner. During his tenure at Accenture, he served clients within the Forest Products, Metals and Chemical markets.

GreenBlue unveils new brand identity
Sustainability nonprofit GreenBlue has unveiled a new brand strategy. The new brand reflects the organization's restructuring to increase coordination across GreenBlue's core programmatic areas, including packaging, forest products and chemicals. The organization's new mission statement-"Make products more sustainable"-articulates its expertise and role leading initiatives such as the Sustainable Packaging Coalition, CleanGredients, Environmental Paper Assessment Tool (EPAT) and COMPASS. The new logo reflects GreenBlue's approach of working across product life cycles. Like the organization's name, the logo reflects its balanced perspective of industry and ecology, as well as a shared understanding of both credible science and strategic business objectives. GreenBlue is also promoting its blog, In the Loop, which will strive to offer sustainability information in an effective and accessible way.

Be Green Packaging receives USDA BioPreferred Certification
Be Green Packaging has achieved USDA BioPreferred status for its line of plant-based food packaging. Composed of wild-harvested plant fibers such as bulrush and bamboo, the packaging qualified for the labeling due to its high level of "biobased" content. In addition to the BioPreferred label, Be Green's line of food service packaging has also garnered independent, third-party certification from a host of organizations such as the Cradle to Cradle Products Innovation Institute, Biodegradable Products Institute (BPI), Western Michigan University's Recycling Program and the Non-GMO Project, among others.

Bolthouse Farms' carrots receive certification from the American Heart Association
Bolthouse Farms, the California-based health-and-wellness company, has received certification from the American Heart Association for its 100% Carrot Juice, Baby Carrots and Cello Carrots. These products may now display the heart-check mark on their label. The heart-check mark identifies products that meet the nutritional standards the American Heart Association sets for foods and beverages, and makes it easier for shoppers to find heart-healthy items.

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