Latest / Through the Line: Packaging and Processing / A Virtual Tour of Machinery, Materials, and Market Trends from interpack 2026: ProFood World

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A Virtual Tour of Machinery, Materials, and Market Trends from interpack 2026: ProFood World · Through the Line: Packaging and Processing

• 0:03
  SPEAKER_00: Welcome to Through the Line, the 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_02: Hi, I'm Casey Flanagan, Associate Editor with Pro Food World.
• 0:25
  SPEAKER_02: In this podcast, I talk with my colleague Derek Thiel about our new interactive report on the innovations we saw at Interpak 2026 in Dusseldorf, Germany.
• 0:34
  SPEAKER_02: We cover why we set the report as an interactive, browsable web page, as well as some of the top categories featured in pieces processors should check out.
• 0:42
  SPEAKER_02: So, yeah, so we are here to talk about our trip to Interpack, but not just our trip to Interpack, about the content that we made coming out of that.
• 0:49
  SPEAKER_02: This is a bit of a meta piece of content.
• 0:52
  SPEAKER_02: We're going to be making content to talk about content.
• 0:54
  SPEAKER_02: But so basically, why we want to bring that to you is we want to tell you about how we turned that report into something a lot more interactive, into a navigable web page.
• 1:03
  SPEAKER_02: So what we did was we saw the Interpack is huge.
• 1:07
  SPEAKER_02: It is something that is hard to get to, especially if you're in the US, you got to travel overseas for it, get over to Dusseldorf.
• 1:13
  SPEAKER_02: And there were 18 halls, I think it was, Derek.
• 1:16
  SPEAKER_01: It's tough to say because some of them were like 18A, 18B sort of thing.
• 1:20
  SPEAKER_01: So there were quite a few.
• 1:22
  SPEAKER_01: And also I think hall two was missing.
• 1:25
  SPEAKER_02: Exactly.
• 1:25
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 1:25
  SPEAKER_02: So a lot to take in to say the least.
• 1:28
  SPEAKER_02: And so what we decided to do was distill everything that we found in there, all of the innovations that we found in each of these, each of these halls into a report that you can jump into and not have to make that whole trip out there.
• 1:41
  SPEAKER_02: It's already pre-organized for you.
• 1:43
  SPEAKER_02: So I think basically what you can do with it is you scroll through, and if you are say you are looking for 2D barcodes for traceability, you're you're preparing for GS1 Sunrise 2027, that you can jump into the labeling, marking, coding, and printing technologies section.
• 2:00
  SPEAKER_02: There are five categories like that.
• 2:02
  SPEAKER_02: Jump right into that, and you can see all the different options that we saw that pertain to that that are enabling 2D barcodes and traceability in your labeling and encoding.
• 2:11
  SPEAKER_02: The same goes for if you're a candy maker looking for a new and robing solution, jump into the confectionery and baking section.
• 2:18
  SPEAKER_02: And it's all organized like that, makes it a lot simpler than having to jump through all those halls.
• 2:22
  SPEAKER_01: So makes it a lot easier than actually have to walk to all those halls.
• 2:28
  SPEAKER_02: Yes.
• 2:28
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 2:29
  SPEAKER_02: And having done the walking to create this report, we can confirm that was that quite the quite the trek.
• 2:35
  SPEAKER_02: So cool.
• 2:36
  SPEAKER_01: And then we also have a lot of breakdowns because it during this event, after every day, we took a break and break.
• 2:43
  SPEAKER_01: It was still work.
• 2:44
  SPEAKER_01: But Matt Reynolds, the editor in chief of packaging world, got together with Casey and I and we would talk about the days' events and what we saw during those days.
• 2:54
  SPEAKER_01: What do we call that?
• 2:55
  SPEAKER_01: The notes from the aisles videos.
• 2:57
  SPEAKER_01: And I think in one of those videos, you can hear about how many miles we walked per day.
• 3:03
  SPEAKER_01: I think I did a breakdown one one day, but even then we would talk about what we saw throughout the day and still wouldn't get to everything that we had seen during the show.
• 3:12
  SPEAKER_01: And that's really the where this interpack interactive experience comes from is being able to see all that we saw or nearly all that we saw without having to do that.
• 3:23
  SPEAKER_01: And like I said, we can even cover all that in our videos.
• 3:27
  SPEAKER_01: So this is a way of if you even if you've seen the videos, this is a way of getting more information out of that than what we were able to cover in those notes from the aisles, which is what we're calling them.
• 3:37
  SPEAKER_01: So if you visit the Interpack site that we've created, you can see those absolutely.
• 4:22
  SPEAKER_01: This is what I'm gonna see.
• 4:23
  SPEAKER_01: And it turned out not necessarily being the case, and we were able to see different trends going through the different halls on different days, and oh wait, I saw this here, then I saw this here, and then it became a theme based off of that.
• 4:35
  SPEAKER_01: And so you can get more insight.
• 4:36
  SPEAKER_01: So if you can't catch those themes that we saw by visiting each of the virtual halls in our app here, then you can catch what we thought, what themes we saw in those videos themselves.
• 4:48
  SPEAKER_01: So everything has value.
• 4:51
  SPEAKER_01: Exactly.
• 4:52
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 4:52
  SPEAKER_02: And I remember in those conversations, one of the big things that we talked about too, that was a kind of a running theme through a couple days was inspection and detection.
• 5:01
  SPEAKER_02: And that I just wanted to shout that out because that's another one of the categories in here.
• 5:04
  SPEAKER_02: And it's one that we found a lot of innovations in and a lot of new new stuff going on in the industry for that.
• 5:10
  SPEAKER_02: So I thought that was a big takeaway from the show is that there was a major focus on inspection systems and making sure that there's that quality control in several different ways.
• 5:20
  SPEAKER_02: So that was pretty cool about this show.
• 5:22
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, including a unique means of inspection and detection that really isn't as readily available as other systems in the US.
• 5:32
  SPEAKER_01: That is something that we saw that is more readily available in Europe, but I'm not going to mention it.
• 5:37
  SPEAKER_01: So you have to go visit the site or check out notes from the aisles to figure out what it is.
• 5:42
  SPEAKER_02: Exactly.
• 5:42
  SPEAKER_02: That's the master plan.
• 5:44
  SPEAKER_02: And then I know that you visited a couple education sessions while you were there, and we included some of that in there as well.
• 5:50
  SPEAKER_02: So this isn't just booth visits that are the you'll find either video of booth visits or write-ups if a write-up was the better way for us to portray that content.
• 5:59
  SPEAKER_02: But then mixed in with all that are some insights from educational presentations as well.
• 6:04
  SPEAKER_02: So could you tell me about some of the things that you found there and what or how we kind of fix mix that in?
• 6:10
  SPEAKER_01: Sure, yeah.
• 6:11
  SPEAKER_01: Those came to be because of the amount of walking I needed to take a break and literally just okay, I get to sit down and learn at the same time.
• 6:17
  SPEAKER_01: Uh sign me up.
• 6:19
  SPEAKER_01: So yeah, throughout throughout the day, on most days, they were giving out presentations on different aspects of what's different things going on in the industry, different new innovations.
• 6:29
  SPEAKER_01: That inspection detection system I mentioned earlier was one of the presentations I got more information.
• 6:34
  SPEAKER_01: Even though I stopped by the visit, I attended the presentation as well just to learn more about it.
• 6:39
  SPEAKER_01: There's a really insightful presentation from McKinsey and company that was yeah, interesting.
• 6:46
  SPEAKER_01: It just an interesting perspective on the industry, particularly with AI and its use of AI and the use of AI throughout the industry, both on the production side and within packaging, that funnily enough, we were using as well.
• 6:59
  SPEAKER_01: That it was interesting to see, oh yeah, even though we're not we're in media, we're not in packaging and processing the actual manufacturing aspect of it.
• 7:08
  SPEAKER_01: We were still doing similar things with that with AI in terms of how it's produced.
• 7:12
  SPEAKER_01: So it's interesting to see that.
• 7:14
  SPEAKER_01: And yeah, unique baking uh oven was on on display or learn more about that can save energy, depending on your usage of it, uh what your usage it can save money or save energy or not.
• 7:30
  SPEAKER_01: But yeah, it was really it was mostly we sat through the ones that were worth sitting through, if that makes any sense.
• 7:39
  SPEAKER_01: Because with all sessions, with every event, some sessions aren't on topic, and you might I don't really need to see that one.
• 7:46
  SPEAKER_01: So some of us, I'll use the excuse that my feet are sore, but some of us sat through the sessions that weren't of value just to bring to you the sessions that were of value in our app.
• 7:58
  SPEAKER_02: Exactly.
• 7:59
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, and that I think that is actually a great point for what our focus was with this.
• 8:03
  SPEAKER_02: This the goal of this was not to recreate the entire show digitally or to map every square foot of the place.
• 8:10
  SPEAKER_02: This was really to turn that massive overwhelming event into something manageable, something that you can actually navigate a little bit easier and focusing on exactly what was most vital for packaging and processing, as you're saying here.
• 8:24
  SPEAKER_02: We didn't cover every single session, we covered the ones that really stuck out to us.
• 8:27
  SPEAKER_02: So I think it's really useful for that.
• 8:29
  SPEAKER_02: Be sure to scroll through all these categories.
• 8:31
  SPEAKER_02: There is stuff in the food, beverage, and consumer goods packaging and processing stuff category, therefore, processors as well.
• 8:38
  SPEAKER_02: Make sure you check out that one that's category two.
• 8:40
  SPEAKER_02: And please do give a look to this.
• 8:42
  SPEAKER_02: And I hope this is a really helpful tool for everyone to check out new equipment for the next projects.
• 8:47
  SPEAKER_01: Yes, I agree.
• 8:48
  SPEAKER_01: And you know, show to us that our work was valuable by visiting this, please.
• 8:54
  SPEAKER_01: Well, we had a lot of fun traveling to Germany.
• 8:56
  SPEAKER_01: We got to try some nice foods and stuff like that.
• 8:58
  SPEAKER_01: It was a lot of work putting this together.
• 9:00
  SPEAKER_01: So yeah.
• 9:01
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, absolutely.
• 9:02
  SPEAKER_02: It's my plea.
• 9:04
  SPEAKER_02: And if you can give us any feedback, we're always open to feedback.
• 9:07
  SPEAKER_02: So, yeah, if you like this content, please do reach out to us and let us know.
• 9:11
  SPEAKER_02: So great.
• 9:12
  SPEAKER_02: Thank you, everyone, for listening in and thanks for talking with me, Derek.
• 9:15
  SPEAKER_02: I'm excited to have this content out and I'm hoping that it's useful for everyone.
• 9:18
  SPEAKER_01: Same.
• 9:19
  SPEAKER_01: Thanks, Casey, for talking to me about it.
• 9:21
  SPEAKER_01: And yeah, I'm sure it will be a value to everybody.
• 9:23
  SPEAKER_01: Just check it out.
• 9:26
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you for listening to Through the Line Packaging and Processing.
• 9:30
  SPEAKER_00: You can listen to more episodes on all streaming platforms.
• 9:34
  SPEAKER_00: Be sure to visit us at packworld.com, profoodworld.com, and healthcarepackaging.com for more packaging and processing news.
• 9:43
  SPEAKER_00: This podcast was edited by Bree Guns.