Chris Lyons, group president and publisher of Packaging Impressions magazine, had some words of advice for companies that participated in the 69th annual Flexible Packaging Achievement Awards Competition: Submit more entries next time.
Lyons was one of three judges who reviewed the nearly 70 packages for the contest sponsored by the Flexible Packaging Association (FPA). Awards will be distributed March 7, 2025, at FPA’s Annual Meeting near Miami.
“More FPA members should submit more samples of packaging, showing what they are doing that is creative,” Lyons says. “The more that is submitted and judged, the more the innovations will be celebrated. And that will bring more innovation around sustainability and more innovation around shelf impact and high-quality print production.”
The Judges
Lyons has been in the printing industry since 1986, working along the way at Packaging World magazine and other companies that specialize in the packaging industry.
“I’ve got a couple of deep hooks into the packaging industry from design all the way through production and distribution,” he says.
The other judges were Bilge Altay, Ph.D., assistant professor at the Rochester Institute of Technology (RIT) in New York, and Scott Wilkins, founder and lead consultant at Scorcia Packaging Resources in New York.
Altay received her doctorate in paper and printing science from Western Michigan University, according to her LinkedIn profile. At RIT, she is in the department of packaging and graphic media science in the college of engineering technology. She teaches several classes, including gravure and flexography technologies.
Wilkins has been a packaging engineer since 1987 and has worked at companies such as ExxonMobil and Jindal Films before starting his consulting company in 2017. He has held leadership positions in technology, sales, and marketing.
This past fall, Lyons, Wilkins, and Altay collaborated over who would win the gold and silver awards for FPA’s contest, as well as the Highest Achievement Award that will be announced at the Annual Meeting. More about their contest deliberations can be found here.
Opportunities With Demographic Shifts
Lyons says the contest showed the vast potential for the flexible packaging industry.
“The flexible packaging area has unlimited opportunities,” Lyons says. “But it all depends on how you grow into those opportunities. Sustainability is a big issue. Transforming products that are being carried in cans and glass and other substrates into flexible materials that are either recyclable or compostable has a limitless upside potential.”
Plus, the demographics are in the industry’s favor, he suggests. The world population is growing rapidly, and that means nearly 80 million new mouths to feed every year. Meanwhile, people are continually moving from rural areas to urban areas, he adds.
“The best way to manage urbanization from the point of view of food and beverages is through packaging and packaged goods,” Lyons says. “Those demographic trends and others are going to provide for a very strong growth of the packaging market.”
Ongoing Challenges
Wilkins says the industry will continue to face challenges with the backlash against plastics, and developing and commercializing effective, sustainable solutions will be difficult to attain while meeting competing goals.
“Sustainable solutions have to contribute to the goals of having a sustainable society, but at the same time, they have to resonate with the consumer so that the product gets purchased,” Wilkins says. “These companies want to do the right things, but their primary goal is producing and selling products.”
One problem is consumers do not fully understand the underlying issues and need to be better educated. For example, he says, food waste creates a significant amount of greenhouse gases, and flexible packaging can help reduce food waste.
“The industry is rising to the opportunities rapidly, and they will continue to utilize a more diverse set of materials that are at their disposal to produce effective packaging,” Wilkins says.
Examples include advancements in paper-based packaging and the increasing ability to make packaging compostable, he says.
“The opportunities will be to continue to embrace a wider variety of substrates and materials to create effective solutions,” Wilkins says.
Although the demographics are in their favor, businesses must understand where and how packaging will be used in the future if they are to grow, Lyons says.
“They will need to have the nimbleness that it takes to change production lines etc. and the capital investment that it takes to change those lines depending on what the trends are,” he says.
Editor’s note: In the feature photo, judges for FPA’s Flexible Packaging Achievement Awards competition prepare to film a promotional in a makeshift studio near FPA’s headquarters in Annapolis, Maryland. From left are Bilge Altay, Ph.D., assistant professor at the Rochester Institute of Technology in New York; Scott Wilkins, founder and lead consultant at Scorcia Packaging Resources in Texas; and Chris Lyons, group president and publisher of Packaging Impressions magazine in Pennsylvania. Photo by Thomas A. Barstow.
Thomas A. Barstow is senior editor of FlexPack VOICE®.