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Coding and Marking Trends at Pack EXPO 2025: Packaging World · Through the Line: Packaging and Processing

• 0:03
  SPEAKER_00: Welcome to Through the Line, a podcast exploring innovations and information across the packaging and processing landscape.
• 0:11
  SPEAKER_00: From topics impacting consumer packaged goods and healthcare packaging to the latest technologies in food processing operations.
• 0:22
  SPEAKER_01: Welcome to this edition of Through the Line Podcast.
• 0:25
  SPEAKER_01: I'm Anne-Marie Mohan, senior editor at Packaging World.
• 0:28
  SPEAKER_01: And I'm here with our chief editor, Matt Reynolds.
• 0:31
  SPEAKER_01: Hi, Matt.
• 0:32
  SPEAKER_02: Hey Ann-Marie, it's going to be here.
• 0:35
  SPEAKER_01: Good to see you.
• 0:36
  SPEAKER_01: So we're officially in the run-up to PAC Expo International, which is taking place October 18th through the 21st at McCormick Place in Chicago.
• 0:46
  SPEAKER_01: And it's the big one.
• 0:47
  SPEAKER_01: It's on our home turf.
• 0:49
  SPEAKER_01: And we're already thinking about what's going to be on that show floor.
• 0:52
  SPEAKER_01: We have two shows worth of homework behind us at this point.
• 0:57
  SPEAKER_01: We have PACT Expo Las Vegas, which took place in fall of 2025.
• 1:02
  SPEAKER_01: And then Matt, you attended InterPEC in Düsseldorf in May.
• 1:07
  SPEAKER_01: So we have a pretty good read on what's coming and a few things we're genuously curious about to see whether it lands in North America.
• 1:15
  SPEAKER_01: But you can't cover a show the size of PEC Expo in one conversation.
• 1:20
  SPEAKER_01: So we're going to produce a few of these podcasts, one topic at a time.
• 1:25
  SPEAKER_01: And today we're going to be talking about coding, marking, and labeling, which is a topic that Matt has spent a lot of time trying to understand and really delving into.
• 1:36
  SPEAKER_01: This is going to be a discussion about everything that puts information onto a package.
• 1:41
  SPEAKER_01: So codes, labels, print quality, variable data, and increasingly the software that's behind all of that.
• 1:48
  SPEAKER_01: And it's a category that's gotten a lot more interesting in the last 12 months.
• 1:52
  SPEAKER_01: So, Matt, let's get to it.
• 1:55
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, let's dive in.
• 1:57
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 1:58
  SPEAKER_01: So you've walked two show floors, as I mentioned, since we previewed the last pack expo.
• 2:04
  SPEAKER_01: You covered Las Vegas, then you covered Düsseldorf.
• 2:07
  SPEAKER_01: What's the through line that you're seeing heading into this year's event in Chicago?
• 2:12
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, there's definitely a progression here.
• 2:14
  SPEAKER_02: I should even add that there was also a PACE Philadelphia in there.
• 2:17
  SPEAKER_02: There was an ISTA event that dealt with some coding and marking and labeling and data on packaging.
• 2:22
  SPEAKER_02: And then GS1, of course, was in there as well.
• 2:25
  SPEAKER_02: So some of that was connective tissue between some of these massive events like Chicago, Las Vegas last year, and Dusseldorf.
• 2:32
  SPEAKER_02: But really the through line that you asked about is a tipping point or reaching a tipping point where last Las Vegas was uh we're ready.
• 2:39
  SPEAKER_02: The OEMs are showing that they're ready.
• 2:41
  SPEAKER_02: We've got the technology.
• 2:42
  SPEAKER_02: More recently, this was just a few months ago, was not only are we ready, but this is how it runs at line speed.
• 2:48
  SPEAKER_02: Chicago, we're going to find out who's really ready to buy this equipment.
• 2:53
  SPEAKER_02: Right now, the equipment itself and the capabilities of the equipment are probably leading the actual purchasing, and vendors are they're diving in and building these really hard, data-rich 2D codes.
• 3:05
  SPEAKER_02: And CPGs are more in a wait and see mode.
• 3:08
  SPEAKER_02: There's less urgency there.
• 3:09
  SPEAKER_02: So there's no printing like a 2D code mandate right now.
• 3:12
  SPEAKER_02: Now, there might be some definite impetus or nudging from Walmart and Dillard's and Wegmans and some of these companies that are asking for 2D codes.
• 3:22
  SPEAKER_02: But the whole Sunrise 2027 is really starts at a retail level.
• 3:26
  SPEAKER_02: And the idea of Sunrise 2027 is for the scanner at checkout to be able to scan a package and be able to read that 2D code.
• 3:34
  SPEAKER_02: It doesn't necessarily mean that the 2D code has to be there.
• 3:37
  SPEAKER_02: So brands have some time.
• 3:39
  SPEAKER_02: They're definitely, their toes are in the water.
• 3:40
  SPEAKER_02: They're aware that Walmart wants this, that Target wants this.
• 3:43
  SPEAKER_02: So they're on board, but they're more curious rather than urgent.
• 3:46
  SPEAKER_02: The other side of the coin was the FDA.
• 3:49
  SPEAKER_02: We had the FSMA, the Food Safety Modernization Act, or that was set to go into effect in 2026.
• 3:55
  SPEAKER_02: That had been pushed out three years now to 2028.
• 3:59
  SPEAKER_02: I think having that little extra cushion affords brands, affords attendees in Chicago to be able to be cautious, to be able to do a little shopping, to be able to ask some good questions.
• 4:09
  SPEAKER_02: And it's not really that compliance panic that we might have when we hear EPR extended producer responsibility.
• 4:15
  SPEAKER_02: It's more of a spec shopping trip, more on that end at least.
• 4:19
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 4:20
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 4:20
  SPEAKER_01: So I want to focus on something you said that's really pivotal to this discussion, because what this comes down to in a lot of ways is what you mentioned data-rich 2D barcodes, which is or codes, not barcodes, but codes in general.
• 4:38
  SPEAKER_01: And one thing that we find with new technology, whether it be new materials or some other new innovation, is that the brand owners have to be able to run at line speed, line speed while they're making this transition.
• 4:54
  SPEAKER_01: So now that we have these data-rich codes, they're denser, but the packaging lines, as we said, can't slow down.
• 5:02
  SPEAKER_01: So something has to give.
• 5:04
  SPEAKER_01: What is that?
• 5:05
  SPEAKER_01: Are you seeing innovation in that area?
• 5:08
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, that's the traditional trade-off has been either extreme resolution or extreme speed.
• 5:15
  SPEAKER_02: And printing variable data at resolution has been difficult, but there's a lot of variables that go into it.
• 5:20
  SPEAKER_02: And I think there's depending on your package, depending on your speeds, there are sweet spots to be hit.
• 5:25
  SPEAKER_02: And I think that interpack was really where the OEMs and the solutions providers are really starting to make that case.
• 5:32
  SPEAKER_02: I talked to Justin Noble.
• 5:33
  SPEAKER_02: He's at Czar, where they make print heads and nozzles that a lot of it using the piezo data matrix nozzles.
• 5:40
  SPEAKER_02: So his contention was that continuous inkjet, we call it Cij, continuous inkjet is fast, but it can't resolve a data dense data matrix like we expect a 2D barcode.
• 5:52
  SPEAKER_02: Uh piezo drop in drop on demand prints a beautiful, super rich 2D barcode, extremely high resolution, but it's historically been a little bit slower.
• 6:01
  SPEAKER_02: You pay for that resolution with speed, and that's topped out at maybe 80 feet a minute.
• 6:06
  SPEAKER_02: So his benchmark is that a bottling line, let's say you know the big bottling lines, Coke, Pepsi, and Bev, might be going at a thousand a minute.
• 6:14
  SPEAKER_02: So that's the gap.
• 6:16
  SPEAKER_02: And their high viscosity work, they're doing a lot with the inks themselves, not just the nozzles, but the inks themselves to create a thinker ink that's not going to spread or soak.
• 6:25
  SPEAKER_02: They got a grade A codes printing at 820 feet a minute.
• 6:28
  SPEAKER_02: Not quite the thousand that that Justin was talking about, but it's getting there.
• 6:32
  SPEAKER_02: You can see those walls eroding.
• 6:34
  SPEAKER_02: Liebinger, we've heard a lot from Leibinger lately.
• 6:36
  SPEAKER_02: They have a new 2D jet.
• 6:38
  SPEAKER_02: It's pitched as a new coding class.
• 6:40
  SPEAKER_02: They didn't actually tell me whether it was continuous inkjet or what it was exactly, but the the proof is in the pudding because it's shooting uh three on 300 dpi, which as we know is high resolution at 120 meters a minute.
• 6:52
  SPEAKER_02: That prototype, I think it's not going to hit the market until next year, but I suspect we'll see that at PEC Expo.
• 6:58
  SPEAKER_02: So that's another one of those, again, those earlier shows that we went to are kind of canaries in the coal mine, bell weathers of what we expect to see in Chicago.
• 7:06
  SPEAKER_02: Domino was looking at it more from a hardware point of view.
• 7:09
  SPEAKER_02: They had a taller or 23 millimeter print head built specifically for those larger 2D codes.
• 7:14
  SPEAKER_02: And they're doing a lot of work with actually printing on shape and printing on different spots, printing 2D codes where you might not expect them.
• 7:22
  SPEAKER_02: For instance, in South Korea, there's now a legislation against putting labels on water bottles.
• 7:28
  SPEAKER_02: So as the so the PET water bottle is 100% key, and there's no label to remove, but there's still a cap and there's still a flat space on the cap.
• 7:36
  SPEAKER_02: So they're actually Domino's had some interesting technologies putting 2D data matrix codes on the top of a bottle cap for everything from supply chain through consumer experience.
• 7:45
  SPEAKER_02: So unusual there to be able to do that at speed, especially on that interesting angle or interesting shape.
• 7:51
  SPEAKER_02: Even in Vegas, Norwich is a thermal inkjet.
• 7:54
  SPEAKER_02: They have a Tij 4.0, and that's going twice as fast as the previous generation.
• 7:59
  SPEAKER_02: So it had three configurations from a one-color case coding all the way up to full color.
• 8:04
  SPEAKER_02: So again, just examples.
• 8:05
  SPEAKER_02: Oh, video jet.
• 8:06
  SPEAKER_02: There's another one.
• 8:07
  SPEAKER_02: Running high-res inkjet and the print and apply labeler in tandem for the same variable data in two different applications and doing so faster than it had before.
• 8:16
  SPEAKER_02: So again, those walls are eroding.
• 8:18
  SPEAKER_02: It's not a question of whether you're going to have resolution or speed.
• 8:22
  SPEAKER_02: You're trying to get to that threshold or that tipping point where you're able to do most.
• 8:26
  SPEAKER_02: Maybe tweak something for your needs, might be to go faster and encode less information.
• 8:31
  SPEAKER_02: Some your needs might be to pull back or pump the brakes just a little bit on your line speed in order to encode even richer information.
• 8:38
  SPEAKER_02: But really in Chicago, what I expect is that print height, resolution, and throw distance, how far you are away from the package as it's running, those are going to become the numbers that you compare as you're shopping booth to booth and looking at different types of coding and marking equipment.
• 8:52
  SPEAKER_02: What the code grades at also, not just what the print resolution is, but what the code graves out at is and how it's read.
• 8:59
  SPEAKER_02: So I guess I've been talking a lot, Anne-Marie, but that those are the big picture stakes for what used to be uh and or you either have resolution or speed that's really diminishing at this point.
• 9:08
  SPEAKER_02: I expect to see more of that in Chicago.
• 9:10
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, that's fascinating.
• 9:12
  SPEAKER_01: I'm so glad you're keeping up on this because and have had the opportunity to attend all these events where it's being discussed, because I think it was just two years ago that I interviewed Markham Ahmaj, and they were creating a printer for these new regulations.
• 9:29
  SPEAKER_01: And I was not familiar at all with it.
• 9:31
  SPEAKER_01: And that was the first time I'd heard of printers being designed specifically for this purpose.
• 9:37
  SPEAKER_01: So a lot has happened this since then, and you seem to be on top of it all.
• 9:42
  SPEAKER_02: I would say Markham had a big spread in Interpack.
• 9:44
  SPEAKER_02: And also last year, they're definitely one of the leaders in this environment, too.
• 9:49
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 9:50
  SPEAKER_01: So speed is not the end all be all now.
• 9:54
  SPEAKER_01: You did talk about visitors to the show really looking at how the code grades, not just what it the speed that it prints at.
• 10:05
  SPEAKER_01: So if I'm at the show comparing booth to booth on what the code grades at, I'm really shopping for two things, right?
• 10:12
  SPEAKER_01: A printer and something degraded.
• 10:15
  SPEAKER_01: Is that still two purchases?
• 10:18
  SPEAKER_02: It's actually collapsing into one.
• 10:20
  SPEAKER_02: It's like a lot of things, anything that like a packaging line becoming a monoblock, you know, it's somehow all these technologies go from nodes, and the nodes are still valuable for flexibility, but when you can do two for one, then that helps both in a footprint standpoint and a capability standpoint.
• 10:38
  SPEAKER_02: So even as recently as last year, it was still going to be two different units.
• 10:43
  SPEAKER_02: The it would be a video jet integrated with scanners, for instance, or Ema's swipe, also using Cognex.
• 10:49
  SPEAKER_02: They were rejecting bad containers at 800 a minute.
• 10:52
  SPEAKER_02: So again, 800 a minute, we're getting towards those higher line speeds with the thousand being the next frontier.
• 10:57
  SPEAKER_02: Another one, Antares Vision, was doing combining their plunger rod insertion, printing, and vision QC all in a single machine.
• 11:04
  SPEAKER_02: And that was on the healthcare side for pre-filled syringes.
• 11:07
  SPEAKER_02: One box or potential multiple different boxes doing different things.
• 11:12
  SPEAKER_02: In Interpack, you're starting to see those kind of coalesce a little bit more.
• 11:15
  SPEAKER_02: Lynx is putting the camera inside the printer.
• 11:17
  SPEAKER_02: It was a, I think, a zebra printer.
• 11:19
  SPEAKER_02: And every unit in that range was shipping camera ready.
• 11:22
  SPEAKER_02: Domino, too.
• 11:23
  SPEAKER_02: We mentioned Domino already, paired its new print head with Smart Vision the same way.
• 11:27
  SPEAKER_02: All of that is QC, recognizing the resolution and the quality of the print.
• 11:32
  SPEAKER_02: But the pressure behind it is really starting to grow right now.
• 11:36
  SPEAKER_02: I talked to Mark Cooper at Lynx.
• 11:38
  SPEAKER_02: He says over there, this is again across the pond, so it's not necessarily here yet, but what happens there tends to be a bellwetherful might be on its way here.
• 11:46
  SPEAKER_02: Supermarkets that once tolerated a certain number low threshold for missing codes, now they're gonna return whole pallets, whole batches over one missed code.
• 11:55
  SPEAKER_02: And our colleague, we keep mentioning Liz on these, because I think in a lot of cases, healthcare does get there first.
• 12:01
  SPEAKER_02: DSCSA was last year, I think it was a year ago that it finally went into effect.
• 12:05
  SPEAKER_02: That's another thing where you're putting variable data and track and trace capability.
• 12:10
  SPEAKER_02: So Herma is a company that was rejecting bad labels before they're even applied to the package itself.
• 12:15
  SPEAKER_02: Um, Verista is doing print and inspection in one single desktop unit.
• 12:20
  SPEAKER_02: So those again were thanks to Liz.
• 12:22
  SPEAKER_02: But it's worth noting that pharma's kind of always had to do this.
• 12:26
  SPEAKER_02: So when you're in Chicago, I guess the question begins to be whether the camera is inside the printer or next to it.
• 12:32
  SPEAKER_02: And then you have to start to consider what the reject threshold is going to be and what it's gonna cost you in your throughput.
• 12:40
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 12:41
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, you just put a cost on rejects, which is a very big factor because a rejected label is a label you paid for, and then you had to throw away, which might be why some of the best labeling news at both shows, at least the two show, two large shows, Pac Expo and Interpac, it wasn't about labels at all, was it?
• 13:02
  SPEAKER_01: What's going on there?
• 13:05
  SPEAKER_02: It's looking at the consumables themselves.
• 13:07
  SPEAKER_02: So across both of those shows, it's thinking about waste and downtime is a secondary one, but consumables and waste before even the quality of the code itself.
• 13:16
  SPEAKER_02: If you're printing straight onto the package itself and eliminating an entire label, for instance.
• 13:21
  SPEAKER_02: So yeah, GSI, which is graphic solid inks in this case, they have a no-label technology that puts high contrast barcodes and logos directly onto packaging corrugated in one pass.
• 13:33
  SPEAKER_02: So Pat actually covered this one and he said it was really good for SKU reduction because again, you can modify what's being printed directly onto a package without having to worry about the roll stock or what's being printed on labels.
• 13:44
  SPEAKER_02: Hewlett-Packer's HP's uh 108 millimeter system is pitched explicitly as a print and apply replacement, again, eliminating the potential waste or the extraneous material of labels that you don't need with late stage customization.
• 13:59
  SPEAKER_02: And that's being printed not only on white.
• 14:01
  SPEAKER_02: It's easy enough to print in multicolor on white, but to do so on craft is a little more difficult.
• 14:07
  SPEAKER_02: Again, I feel like we're talking about domino a lot, but they're at the forefront here.
• 14:10
  SPEAKER_02: They had a white-based disc and a QR code printed onto caps.
• 14:14
  SPEAKER_02: We mentioned this already.
• 14:15
  SPEAKER_02: This is the South Korean project.
• 14:16
  SPEAKER_02: And then where the label stays, the waste goes.
• 14:19
  SPEAKER_02: So Weber, here's another one, bringing liness labels to North America from what it started as its German success.
• 14:25
  SPEAKER_02: And Attiga, another one, they have their Cygnite printing, they're printing onto transfer film.
• 14:30
  SPEAKER_02: So the label exists only in the shape that's needed.
• 14:32
  SPEAKER_02: So there's no die cutting, no matrix waste, and about 30% of a smaller carbon footprint per their life cycle assessment.
• 14:39
  SPEAKER_02: And Squid Inc., they're killing the thermal transfer ribbon entirely with and basically using zero consumables.
• 14:44
  SPEAKER_02: So the ink itself, the webs and the labels that go with it, and streamlining map visit all of that process by using less ink, by using ink more precisely, and by creating less waste is all the next generation.
• 14:56
  SPEAKER_02: And that's stuff that sells itself, comes out in the mathematics.
• 15:00
  SPEAKER_02: These ribbons, liners, labels, you're no longer buying them.
• 15:03
  SPEAKER_02: You're no longer keeping inventory of these consumables.
• 15:06
  SPEAKER_02: And there's no mandate that tells you you have to do that.
• 15:09
  SPEAKER_02: That's simply the bottom line that tells you you have to do it.
• 15:12
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, great.
• 15:13
  SPEAKER_01: We talked about the printer itself.
• 15:15
  SPEAKER_01: We talked about verification, we talked about the consumables.
• 15:20
  SPEAKER_01: But when we started this conversation, we were talking about how these codes are getting so much denser, so much more complex.
• 15:29
  SPEAKER_01: But uh denser code, I would say is probably only as useful as long as what's inside it is correct.
• 15:37
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 15:38
  SPEAKER_01: And that doesn't have anything to do with the printer.
• 15:40
  SPEAKER_01: So, how much of this is now a software conversation?
• 15:45
  SPEAKER_02: I think that's exactly it.
• 15:47
  SPEAKER_02: That hits the nail on the head because what used to be hardware companies are becoming software companies.
• 15:52
  SPEAKER_02: And Marco Image, as I mentioned before, is really at the heart of that.
• 15:56
  SPEAKER_02: The hard part isn't printing the code.
• 15:58
  SPEAKER_02: Sure, there's trade-offs between speed and resolution, but those are, like I said, eroding.
• 16:02
  SPEAKER_02: But the hard part is just the number of SKUs you have and keeping all the variable data straight behind us.
• 16:08
  SPEAKER_02: This isn't just SKU data.
• 16:09
  SPEAKER_02: If you have plenty of SKUs, this is unit level one data.
• 16:13
  SPEAKER_02: So the more info that you want in that you know packed into that code, and we talk about GS1 digital link, is the most common way to do that.
• 16:19
  SPEAKER_02: The more information you want to pack into that code, the more data you need to be able to extract from it and read and have, and it needs to match the source of truth that exists out there.
• 16:29
  SPEAKER_02: So platforms that tie into entire enterprise systems like CP systems and MES systems, those are the ones that are important.
• 16:38
  SPEAKER_02: And then there's a consumer aspect to that.
• 16:40
  SPEAKER_02: Those the consumer should be able to scan these codes, and whether it's their iPhone or their Android, they're going to be able to extract information out of it too.
• 16:48
  SPEAKER_02: That's a whole third, it's not just supply chain, it's also in consumer.
• 16:51
  SPEAKER_02: And also, I can't believe it's taken us this long to even mention AI, but AI is starting to play a factor here as well because AI can make sense out of large amounts of data.
• 17:00
  SPEAKER_02: And I talked to ESCO at the show.
• 17:02
  SPEAKER_02: ESCO has always had one foot in the hardware side and one foot in the software side.
• 17:06
  SPEAKER_02: They have a general purpose model that's looking at a photo of a package that can render an opinion about it, but it only works on an embedded in a workflow that knows what, let's say, a nutrition facts label is.
• 17:19
  SPEAKER_02: For instance, he had a demo where they were running through packaging that was for oats, let's say.
• 17:25
  SPEAKER_02: And that demo, the AI recognized in the ingredients section, was missing an allergen statement.
• 17:31
  SPEAKER_02: Exactly what manual review is worse at.
• 17:33
  SPEAKER_02: But if you were looking at hundreds of these things, you're going to miss something.
• 17:36
  SPEAKER_02: AI is better at being thorough.
• 17:38
  SPEAKER_02: It may not always understand what a nutrition facts label is, but it understands where the deviation is from.
• 17:45
  SPEAKER_02: And it's on the service side, too.
• 17:47
  SPEAKER_02: PE labeler, that's a that's a ProMoc company.
• 17:50
  SPEAKER_02: They have platforms with live diagnostics, changeover analytics, and even like a 3D parts manual inside.
• 17:56
  SPEAKER_02: AI is working as uptime tooling instead of just chatbots that are talking back to us.
• 18:00
  SPEAKER_02: It's keeping these machines running.
• 18:03
  SPEAKER_01: I'm glad we squeezed AI in there.
• 18:06
  SPEAKER_01: You can't get away with not talking about that at some point when we're talking about new equipment.
• 18:13
  SPEAKER_01: So we talked about a lot of different technology here.
• 18:17
  SPEAKER_01: We just have a couple minutes left.
• 18:19
  SPEAKER_01: I want to do a rapid brand here with you.
• 18:22
  SPEAKER_01: Before we send people, our listeners, out to the show floor at Pac Expo.
• 18:27
  SPEAKER_01: What innovations and companies should they be looking for?
• 18:31
  SPEAKER_02: I think shrink sleeves are back.
• 18:33
  SPEAKER_02: Keystone had an automatic splicer moving at 400 a minute.
• 18:37
  SPEAKER_02: It's their first time exhibiting it'll tail end splice for just about any OEM's sleeve machine.
• 18:42
  SPEAKER_02: Sleeve seal is another one.
• 18:43
  SPEAKER_02: They had a, I guess it's MRS2 looking at my notes here, and it lets an operator splice on one reel while the other keeps right on feeding, so the line never stops.
• 18:51
  SPEAKER_02: And tri-pack, you can't have a discussion about shrink sleeves without trip.
• 18:55
  SPEAKER_02: They have uh equipment that handles containers that have a huge range, one to 10 inches tall.
• 19:00
  SPEAKER_02: So think about a contract packager when they have to make a piece of equipment last for 20 different types of jobs over the course of years of 20 different sizes.
• 19:08
  SPEAKER_02: One to 10 inches, it's got everything in between.
• 19:11
  SPEAKER_02: Another one, on-demand color printing keeps getting cheaper.
• 19:14
  SPEAKER_02: It's that it's that Moore's law of the quality gets better and the price goes down.
• 19:18
  SPEAKER_02: There's Epsom's C 8000 was around last year for batch runs.
• 19:23
  SPEAKER_02: There are a few others available as well.
• 19:25
  SPEAKER_02: HAPA printing labels in line for syringes and vials over on the healthcare side.
• 19:29
  SPEAKER_02: And that helps you again stop inventorying and warehousing pre-printed stock.
• 19:34
  SPEAKER_02: Quietly in the background of all of these barcodes that the consumers are getting all sorts of enjoyment from, and the supply chain is loving for track and trace.
• 19:44
  SPEAKER_02: Any counterfeiting and the gray market is something is quietly embedded into a lot of those programs.
• 19:49
  SPEAKER_02: RLG Health was working with Jamarc to create some invisible digital watermarks in the label that is actually pharmacist verified through a secure app right at the end.
• 19:58
  SPEAKER_02: So before it actually gets into a consumer's hands, there's an extra verification step.
• 20:02
  SPEAKER_02: And I can tell you that Amazon is very into anti-counterfeiting and gray market prevention through their transparency program.
• 20:09
  SPEAKER_02: So that's another one that I'm sure is going to get some mention at PACExpo coming up in Chicago.
• 20:15
  SPEAKER_02: And at Interpak, I met with Rnjet.
• 20:17
  SPEAKER_02: They've got large character printers leaning 288 millimeter graphics.
• 20:21
  SPEAKER_02: So really big graphics, straight onto the blank case and really interesting at RNJet.
• 20:27
  SPEAKER_02: Their vision of one perfect end use for this would be actually on a pizza box, pizza corrugated, where instead of there being labels on the pizza box or even graphics on the pizza box, you could actually print variable data about the whether you've got anchovies or pepperoni or what the address is that the pizza delivery person has to drift drive it to.
• 20:46
  SPEAKER_02: And that can be individually printed in large 208 millimeter graphics onto blank cases.
• 20:51
  SPEAKER_02: So it's not there yet.
• 20:52
  SPEAKER_02: I can't imagine there's a lot of mom and pop shops that'll have that, but imagine if a Pizza Hut or Papa John's or one of those larger ones got their hands on that technology and started advising it.
• 21:02
  SPEAKER_02: So long story short, there's a lot going on in coding and marking, and I'll be on the lookout for all of it in Chicago.
• 21:08
  SPEAKER_01: Yes, natural says sampling of what we'll see at PAC Expo.
• 21:12
  SPEAKER_01: And that's a pretty good swath of equipment and new innovation.
• 21:17
  SPEAKER_01: And I lied about that being the only part of our rapid round.
• 21:21
  SPEAKER_01: I have one closing question.
• 21:23
  SPEAKER_01: So you said at the top of this conversation that Chicago is a spec shopping trip, not a compliance panic for people attending the show.
• 21:34
  SPEAKER_01: So for someone who's spec shopping and they only have one day on the floor, what should they be asking when they go into a booth?
• 21:41
  SPEAKER_02: Okay, so four questions that you can come equipped with beyond just the booth numbers you want to visit.
• 21:47
  SPEAKER_02: So we mentioned one box or two.
• 21:49
  SPEAKER_02: So is the vision system, the quality control and the vision, is that inside the printer or is it next to it?
• 21:55
  SPEAKER_02: Another question is what can I retrofit onto my equipment that I already have?
• 21:59
  SPEAKER_02: Does it do I need an entirely new piece of equipment or is this something that I can manipulate into existing equipment?
• 22:05
  SPEAKER_02: I think that's an important question.
• 22:08
  SPEAKER_02: What can I stop buying and stop investing in if I install this?
• 22:12
  SPEAKER_02: So think about what we're talking about, whether it's ink itself or the ribbons, liners, and labels, all of those inputs, all those consumables.
• 22:19
  SPEAKER_02: Is that is there a way that I can reduce or even eliminate those?
• 22:22
  SPEAKER_02: And then there's one question that nobody's asking is what happens to a code grade on, let's say, uncoded or fiber-based stock where pigment would be soaking into this porous stuff, the craft paper.
• 22:35
  SPEAKER_02: So there's some technologies that are out there, both in the inks themselves and the ways on which the ink is applied, that are allowing brands to move into fiber to stay recyclable through aqueous inks, and that you're really killing two birds with one stone because you're addressing the 2D barcode and the need to pack more information, more data into the codes that you're marking.
• 22:56
  SPEAKER_02: And it also you're doing so on craft paper that could be more recyclable, especially with aqueous inks.
• 23:02
  SPEAKER_02: So again, ton going on.
• 23:04
  SPEAKER_02: I could go on forever, but I think I would be in trouble if I went much further than that.
• 23:08
  SPEAKER_01: Well, yes, that is about all the time we have, but thank you so much for that really comprehensive overview of coding marking and labeling and how it's evolved over just the past year.
• 23:20
  SPEAKER_01: Do you have any very quick last words?
• 23:23
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 23:24
  SPEAKER_02: Pac Expo in Chicago means you can see this stuff running and not just on a Zoom call or on a slide.
• 23:31
  SPEAKER_02: You can actually physically interact with it.
• 23:32
  SPEAKER_02: That's what Chicago is all about.
• 23:34
  SPEAKER_02: That's what the Chicago floor is good for.
• 23:35
  SPEAKER_02: You get to stand in front of it, interact with it, and watch it code at speed, and I'll expect it's going to be coding at speeds and resolutions that you were not expecting.
• 23:43
  SPEAKER_01: And there's so many other things that we're going to see that we haven't mentioned.
• 23:47
  SPEAKER_01: And that's why we're doing a number of other podcasts focusing on different categories of machinery and materials.
• 23:55
  SPEAKER_01: So I hope you'll tune in to us later to hear about all those innovations.
• 24:00
  SPEAKER_01: And for now, that's all we've got.
• 24:03
  SPEAKER_01: Thanks for listening.
• 24:06
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you for listening to Through the Line Packaging and Processing.
• 24:09
  SPEAKER_00: You can listen to more episodes on all streaming platforms.
• 24:13
  SPEAKER_00: Be sure to visit us at packworld.com, profoodworld.com, and healthcarepackaging.com for more packaging and processing news.
• 24:22
  SPEAKER_00: This podcast was edited by Bree Guns.