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Humanoid Robots, a Manufacturing Boom, and a Fresh Look at Plastic Bottle Production: End of the Line · Through the Line: Packaging and Processing

• 0:01
  SPEAKER_04: Hi, I'm Matt Reynolds, editor of Packaging World magazine.
• 0:04
  SPEAKER_04: And I'm here with my four colleagues this week.
• 0:06
  SPEAKER_04: We've got a special guest for our end of line podcast.
• 0:10
  SPEAKER_04: So I've got with me, as usual, Sean Riley.
• 0:12
  SPEAKER_04: He's the editor of OEM, amongst many other things.
• 0:15
  SPEAKER_04: Derek Teal is the editor of Pro Food World.
• 0:18
  SPEAKER_04: There's Cunio is the editor of Healthcare Packaging.
• 0:21
  SPEAKER_04: And this week, my partner in crime, Anne Marie Mowen, who is with me at Packaging World magazine.
• 0:27
  SPEAKER_04: And the reason we brought in Anne Marie this week was because we've had a slow week overall, but Anne Marie is fresh off a trip out west to the West Coast, San Diego, actually, where SPC, that's the Sustainable Packaging Coalition, held one of their big bi-annual events.
• 0:43
  SPEAKER_04: I guess they've got a few Impact Advanced.
• 0:46
  SPEAKER_04: Which one was this, Anne Marie?
• 0:47
  SPEAKER_01: This was Advance.
• 0:49
  SPEAKER_01: SPC Advance.
• 0:50
  SPEAKER_04: Good.
• 0:51
  SPEAKER_04: Give us the 30,000-foot view of what you saw there.
• 0:54
  SPEAKER_04: I know I've been to a few myself.
• 0:55
  SPEAKER_04: Always good information, always very heavy on the brand owner side, also NGO side.
• 1:00
  SPEAKER_04: Give us kind of the big picture.
• 1:02
  SPEAKER_01: Sure, absolutely.
• 1:04
  SPEAKER_01: So I would say overall, looking at the agenda for this event, it was very similar to what you would find at a lot of sustainable packaging events today.
• 1:14
  SPEAKER_01: Very heavy on EPR subjects like flexible packaging, PCR.
• 1:21
  SPEAKER_01: But what was really big at this event was not just EPR in general, but a real focus on California's EPR, which is SB54.
• 1:33
  SPEAKER_01: And it was no coincidence in that the show was in San Diego.
• 1:37
  SPEAKER_01: So their producers, which are the users, the brand owners who are using this packaging, they're there's so much focus on SB54 with them right now because the first real deadline for source reduction is in January.
• 1:54
  SPEAKER_01: So they're all they've had to start reporting their data, but they're really scrambling to start making changes.
• 2:02
  SPEAKER_01: And there are a lot of questions about SB54 because the plan hasn't been completely finalized yet with the implementation group, which is Circular Action Alliance.
• 2:14
  SPEAKER_01: They're the pro or producer responsibility organization.
• 2:18
  SPEAKER_01: So lots of acronyms.
• 2:20
  SPEAKER_01: So there was a lot of interest around that.
• 2:22
  SPEAKER_01: And in fact, the first day, the first session was on source reduction.
• 2:28
  SPEAKER_01: And it was packed, standing remotely.
• 2:30
  SPEAKER_01: And I think one of the speakers commented that's a real that really shows how much interest there is on this topic, that it was full standing room only at 9 a.m.
• 2:42
  SPEAKER_01: on a Monday morning, I think it was.
• 2:44
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, it was a good amount, a lot of information on SB 54 and what's required, especially in talking about source reduction and in particular plastic materials.
• 2:57
  SPEAKER_04: Okay.
• 2:58
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, I know we've been focusing a lot just because there's been a lot of movement on the NAW objection to EPR up in Oregon that we've zoomed in on that.
• 3:07
  SPEAKER_04: But really, it's the tail that wags the dog is California, because again, we always talk about it as the world's sixth largest economy in and of itself.
• 3:15
  SPEAKER_04: And SB54, correct me if I'm wrong, Amory, though, that's one of the more difficult or aspirational, let's put a positive spin on it, aspirational or from another angle, difficult to hit, particularly some of the source reduction.
• 3:29
  SPEAKER_04: Are there any details on how brands are going about it?
• 3:32
  SPEAKER_04: Are they we've people have been lightweighting for years, but is there still runway to continue to take material out of packaging and still maintain self-life?
• 3:41
  SPEAKER_01: Sure.
• 3:42
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 3:42
  SPEAKER_01: And just to confirm, yes, SB54 is one of the most stringent EPR regulations right now.
• 3:49
  SPEAKER_01: So that's what's really causing a lot of this anxiety.
• 3:53
  SPEAKER_01: But now I understand clearly from sitting in a lot of these sessions that the source reduction is it's going to be 10% in 2027 and then 2032, it's 25%.
• 4:07
  SPEAKER_01: And it's 10% of that can be from reuse, refill, or elimination.
• 4:12
  SPEAKER_01: And then 15% can come from things like you mentioned lightweighting, bright sizing, switching materials, and then 8% of that 15% can come from recycled content.
• 4:25
  SPEAKER_01: So that was the through line to the event.
• 4:28
  SPEAKER_01: They talked about many different pathways to that source reduction.
• 4:34
  SPEAKER_01: And one which we've seen a lot of is paperization.
• 4:38
  SPEAKER_01: We've seen a lot of companies switching from plastic to paper.
• 4:41
  SPEAKER_01: So there was a session with Belarud where they discussed some of the more advanced fiber-based packaging technologies coming out right now, especially barrier coatings, because we know that's really crucial in order to give paper the same properties as you would have with plastic for moisture resistance, grease resistance, and still hopefully ideally being recyclable.
• 5:06
  SPEAKER_01: And then there was also a discussion on RPET, which has come up a lot lately in different conferences because over the last year or so, maybe half of the recyclers, PET recyclers in the US have gone under.
• 5:23
  SPEAKER_01: I think there were only maybe six or seven to begin with.
• 5:26
  SPEAKER_04: So it's a pretty So how are people trying to replace virgin PET with RPET to meet these goals?
• 5:33
  SPEAKER_04: Are they going to be able to find it essentially?
• 5:36
  SPEAKER_01: It's not even that.
• 5:37
  SPEAKER_01: The fact is that they are finding it.
• 5:39
  SPEAKER_01: They're finding it with imports, which not are not always they think they're not always virgin material, not always recycled materials.
• 5:49
  SPEAKER_01: So they're actually buying virgin.
• 5:51
  SPEAKER_01: And they're buying virgin materials because they're cheaper right now.
• 5:55
  SPEAKER_01: So the thrust of that was really you need to support US-based PET recyclers in order for us to have what we need in the future.
• 6:07
  SPEAKER_04: So that's to create that kind of yeah, to create that kind of pull market to get the engine running.
• 6:12
  SPEAKER_04: You mentioned paperization, quick plug, a shameless plug.
• 6:15
  SPEAKER_04: I just got an email in today from another one of our speakers.
• 6:18
  SPEAKER_04: We've got Mars kind, we've got Henkel Consumer Brands, and then we've got a couple of academic folks from NC State University who are on the leading bleeding edge of these new barrier properties and coatings that imbue paper packaging with some of these qualities that moisture resistance and oxygen ingress prevention, all of these things that has been in the domain of plastic for many years.
• 6:40
  SPEAKER_04: That'll be a packaging world webinar coming up in November, I believe.
• 6:43
  SPEAKER_04: So mark your calendars.
• 6:45
  SPEAKER_04: But you mentioned one other thing that was interesting, and it's on our radars.
• 6:48
  SPEAKER_04: All of those pathways or routes to sustainability or towards being compliant, let's say, not just sustainability, but compliance with SB54 have been things lightweighting that people have been doing for years, and they're known pathways, they just need to make more progress on it.
• 7:03
  SPEAKER_04: The big one that seems like it has got the most runway in front of it is reuse, or some of these are the reuse or refill programs or just durable packaging that's used over and over again.
• 7:14
  SPEAKER_04: Maybe takeback programs.
• 7:16
  SPEAKER_04: Did you see any of that?
• 7:17
  SPEAKER_04: You mentioned it, and it must have popped up at SP, or excuse me, not SB54, SPC.
• 7:23
  SPEAKER_01: I saw more sessions on reuse and refill than I think I've ever seen.
• 7:29
  SPEAKER_01: I think in the past there might be one or two, but there were a lot of sessions.
• 7:34
  SPEAKER_01: And there are different models for reuse and refill, but the one that really seems to be gaining the most traction right now is return on the go.
• 7:43
  SPEAKER_01: So, for example, like we've done a lot of reporting on music venues or stadiums.
• 7:49
  SPEAKER_01: So the the consumer will use the cup and then return it right there.
• 7:55
  SPEAKER_01: And so I we saw some really good examples of that at the conference.
• 8:00
  SPEAKER_01: One was Ravino, and I did an interview with the co-founder and COO, Adam Rack of Rabino.
• 8:06
  SPEAKER_01: They're in Oregon and they're doing refillable wine bottles.
• 8:11
  SPEAKER_01: So they're doing the bottle washing, but they just also got a really big grant from Cal Recycle in California to build a bottle washing facility there.
• 8:22
  SPEAKER_01: So it's moving now to California.
• 8:25
  SPEAKER_01: So it's the same bottle.
• 8:26
  SPEAKER_01: Wineries use the same bottle, it's just a different label.
• 8:30
  SPEAKER_01: The consumer uses it, buys the wine, uses it, returns the bottle.
• 8:34
  SPEAKER_01: And I can't recall.
• 8:35
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, as I talk about it, I do recall, they have set up partnerships with different retailers where people can go drop the bottle back there.
• 8:45
  SPEAKER_01: They've got 90 brands participating right now, and they've got about two million bottles in circulation.
• 8:52
  SPEAKER_01: So there were several examples of that.
• 8:54
  SPEAKER_01: There was one in with a nonprofit called Perpetual.
• 8:57
  SPEAKER_01: They're doing a returnable food service program in Hawaii.
• 9:00
  SPEAKER_01: There's one at Merck's and Spencer.
• 9:03
  SPEAKER_01: So a lot of what we're seeing is more of that return on the go.
• 9:07
  SPEAKER_01: So it requires the infrastructure to clean, to return, but those things are being starting to be built out.
• 9:15
  SPEAKER_01: So it was exciting to see.
• 9:17
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, interesting.
• 9:18
  SPEAKER_04: Because I remember for years we've been talking about the Ellen MacArthur quadrants of reuse.
• 9:23
  SPEAKER_04: And one of them is return on the go.
• 9:25
  SPEAKER_04: I forget the one of them is Anne Marie.
• 9:27
  SPEAKER_04: You'd have to fill me in on this, but there's but this seems to be the one that has the most oomph behind it at the moment, though, return on the go.
• 9:33
  SPEAKER_04: Okay.
• 9:33
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, that's at least that's what I'm seeing.
• 9:36
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and the refill and take back programs and such seem to be more popular in Europe.
• 9:40
  SPEAKER_00: Have you noticed that?
• 9:41
  SPEAKER_00: That what's maybe slower to adopt here, but it's an interesting thought.
• 9:45
  SPEAKER_00: And I love the wine bottle example.
• 9:47
  SPEAKER_00: I don't see why we couldn't do that.
• 9:49
  SPEAKER_04: Germany does it with the brown beer bottles, and they have for years.
• 9:52
  SPEAKER_04: I mean, yeah, we were at Interpak earlier this year, and outside of the restaurants, there'll be these crates stacked up of the brown beer bottles.
• 9:59
  SPEAKER_04: They go, they get washed.
• 10:01
  SPEAKER_04: There's the extremely hygienic kind of thing and and and filled again.
• 10:05
  SPEAKER_04: So the breweries themselves actually have take back programs and have the hygienic whole wing of the thing.
• 10:11
  SPEAKER_04: Now, Germany is a smaller place.
• 10:13
  SPEAKER_04: It's a big country, but it's still smaller and homogeneous in nature compared to the United States.
• 10:17
  SPEAKER_04: And it doesn't have 50 individual states with 50 individual rules.
• 10:21
  SPEAKER_04: But if you're seeing it in California, and no better place in the United States than California when it comes to wine, I would say, then again, that's the the tail that wags the dog when California moves that can create some movement elsewhere.
• 10:33
  SPEAKER_04: Speaking of webinars and speaking of sustainability, Sean, you kind of had to have an all-hands-on-deck webinar last minute this week, but it led to some conversations about sustainability, I understand.
• 10:43
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, it was interesting.
• 10:44
  SPEAKER_02: I was just thinking before I even got to that, that that wine works too, because the the bottles are similar anyway.
• 10:50
  SPEAKER_02: They're for the most part, there's not the label is what stands out.
• 10:55
  SPEAKER_02: So yeah, I was just trying to think.
• 10:57
  SPEAKER_02: At first, I was thinking it's not going to work with wine, but it'll it would make sense because the label is what's really doing the design and the marketing.
• 11:04
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, so we I had to do this this webinar.
• 11:07
  SPEAKER_02: Um we have this show coming up, Pac Expo, this little Diddy that we have coming up.
• 11:12
  SPEAKER_02: This little thing.
• 11:13
  SPEAKER_02: And it was actually about the sustainability central stage that Packaging World is actually helping to put together.
• 11:20
  SPEAKER_02: And the gentleman, Joe Gribb from EFP, they're one of the sponsors of it, but I was talking to him for it, and he was basically pointing out he's a guy that's been in the sustainability sector for 20 years, which is for our purposes as long as sustainability's been a buzzword.
• 11:35
  SPEAKER_02: Basically, he's been around it.
• 11:36
  SPEAKER_02: And he comes more from the fiber-based side of it.
• 11:39
  SPEAKER_02: But he got to talking and he was saying how surprised he was about EPS packaging coming off the plastics pack.
• 11:47
  SPEAKER_02: I guess you would know better than me, plastics pack.
• 11:49
  SPEAKER_02: What was the list that they call it?
• 11:52
  SPEAKER_02: They had the list.
• 11:56
  SPEAKER_04: Just to clarify, and it yeah, it was the problematic materials list.
• 12:00
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, how it had come off there.
• 12:01
  SPEAKER_02: And he was as surprised as you were when we talked about, and I it's it made me think, and I actually mentioned to him how we we talked about that on the end of the line podcast, how that that our people over at Facting World were just as surprised as you were.
• 12:12
  SPEAKER_02: And he was just noting how far EPS and things like that have come.
• 12:16
  SPEAKER_02: So there's and he even referenced the same things you did about how you buy something from Best Buy an appliance, and they're really taking all the stuff back, and it's there's there's a system in place for it, which I thought was interesting that not only had you reported on it and talked about it, but it was viewed in the same way out in industry.
• 12:32
  SPEAKER_02: So I guess if something like that can make move the needle a little bit, I guess there is there's hope for this sustainability thing after all.
• 12:39
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, I the the big thing with EPS was they had created again, we talked about that poll, but they created this market where they needed to get the stuff back and they need there was a use for it.
• 12:50
  SPEAKER_04: So they were able to, that's what circularity is.
• 12:52
  SPEAKER_04: You got to create this engine that's self-sustaining and an EPS of long fought the redheaded stepchild of the these materials like PET, which is like the star of the show and being able to be recycled so many times.
• 13:05
  SPEAKER_04: EPS was the little engine that could and and got off that list.
• 13:09
  SPEAKER_04: And and now there's a there's an actual circular market that I don't know about self-sustaining, but it it's there's systems in place to make that happen.
• 13:16
  SPEAKER_04: So maybe what was the the the gold star student PET could take a few lessons from polystyrene.
• 13:22
  SPEAKER_04: Good.
• 13:23
  SPEAKER_04: So what about the healthcare side of of the of the world?
• 13:26
  SPEAKER_04: Anything new that you've been following, Liz?
• 13:29
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, following what's coming up at Pac Expo, of course, as we get ready for the show.
• 13:33
  SPEAKER_00: I've also been talking to some interesting CBGs in the industry that have won awards from PMMI.
• 13:40
  SPEAKER_00: It is the CPG Next Gen Award.
• 13:43
  SPEAKER_00: So it's the inaugural award winners, and these are winners that are really delivering measurable advances in automation, productivity, sustainability, and packaging to really transform how the products are being made at their company.
• 13:55
  SPEAKER_00: So there's 10 award winners.
• 13:57
  SPEAKER_00: I've been reaching out to them to get their story.
• 13:59
  SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna connect with them at PacExpo, which is exciting, but it's pretty interesting to see how people are incorporating kind of new ideas.
• 14:07
  SPEAKER_00: Speaking of sustainability, right?
• 14:08
  SPEAKER_00: What they're doing may be different that wasn't even thought about 20 years ago.
• 14:12
  SPEAKER_00: Someone's been doing cool stuff with AI and really implementing that to and showing real real results from it.
• 14:18
  SPEAKER_00: I had an interview this week too about AI and how it's it can be a hype if you don't do it right, if you don't have that process in place and you don't have the right data.
• 14:27
  SPEAKER_00: So really thoughtful.
• 14:29
  SPEAKER_00: We have to be thoughtful how we're using AI.
• 14:31
  SPEAKER_00: So it's been fun connecting with these award winners and hearing about how they are changing their industry for the better.
• 14:37
  SPEAKER_00: I have a call next week with Charlotte Ashbruff from Just Born, which is my personal favorite candy.
• 14:44
  SPEAKER_00: I was talking to my kids yesterday about our favorite candies, and peeps might literally be my number one year round.
• 14:50
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, that's a hot year round.
• 14:52
  SPEAKER_02: That is a hot take.
• 14:54
  SPEAKER_00: I bought the Frankenstein little heads from the Dollar Free yesterday.
• 14:58
  SPEAKER_00: They're so good, so good.
• 15:00
  SPEAKER_00: Halloween peeps are like almost number one.
• 15:04
  SPEAKER_02: Breaking news.
• 15:05
  SPEAKER_02: That's absolutely breaking news.
• 15:07
  SPEAKER_00: And I've talked to Charlotte and Kim about I really want to get in there and see them being made.
• 15:12
  SPEAKER_00: And they don't do public tours.
• 15:14
  SPEAKER_00: And I missed my chance when there was like a PMMI meeting there because I was not able to attend, but I would love to really see peeps on the line.
• 15:23
  SPEAKER_00: That will be like my dream.
• 15:24
  SPEAKER_00: So if anyone has a chance, please invite me.
• 15:27
  SPEAKER_04: I'll just take photos and I can direct you to search just born and peeps on packaging world, and you'll sign an in-depth article from about six years ago, which is probably outdated at this point, but they had a lot of at the time great new equipment in the facility.
• 15:42
  SPEAKER_04: And it was, I think the article covers both the processing and the packaging side.
• 15:45
  SPEAKER_04: So it's been covered, but yeah, you're right to get back to these places every once in a while.
• 15:50
  SPEAKER_00: Any of the things they've been making those peeps since the 50s, not to go on a peep tangent because I really dove into it.
• 15:55
  SPEAKER_00: And so yeah, I'm like, they've been around, they know what they're doing.
• 15:59
  SPEAKER_00: It's a reason they've been making them since the 50s.
• 16:02
  SPEAKER_04: Good.
• 16:03
  SPEAKER_04: And shout out to Charlotte, too.
• 16:04
  SPEAKER_04: She was at our packaging recycling summit a few months ago, and she was one of those on the leading bleeding edge.
• 16:11
  SPEAKER_04: I know I'm using that term frequently, but she is in terms of being able to wrestle with EPR and create systems within her own company.
• 16:19
  SPEAKER_04: Just Bourne isn't Nestle or Mondeleese.
• 16:22
  SPEAKER_04: They don't have a team, they just have Charlotte, who's wearing five other hats, but she was still able to navigate uh the EPR, their EPR exposure as an obligated party in the states that they sell into, which California and Oregon peeps are everywhere.
• 16:36
  SPEAKER_04: So Charlotte had a good story about that.
• 16:38
  SPEAKER_04: And Marie, I think you wrote the story too.
• 16:40
  SPEAKER_04: So again on packagingworld.com.
• 16:42
  SPEAKER_04: But we've been saving, we've all been all on pins and needles, I think, because I think Derek has some big news out of the big brand owner space.
• 16:51
  SPEAKER_04: Come on, it's a cliffhanger.
• 16:52
  SPEAKER_04: Let us know what's going on.
• 16:53
  SPEAKER_03: First, I keep I it's been bothering me.
• 16:55
  SPEAKER_03: Liz's background, and I finally figured it out.
• 16:57
  SPEAKER_03: I'm waiting for a Muppet to pop up right next to her and start telling me A is for Apple, that's good enough for me, or something like that.
• 17:06
  SPEAKER_03: That's what I've been waiting.
• 17:07
  SPEAKER_03: She looks like she's in a background at Sesame Street.
• 17:09
  SPEAKER_03: But yeah, Pepsi came out with their third quarter results yesterday, and a couple of lines struck me, and I gotta get out the reading glasses here.
• 17:17
  SPEAKER_03: I had a bag over my head earlier, Red Wings jersey, but I couldn't see with the glasses, or couldn't put the glasses on with the bag, too.
• 17:23
  SPEAKER_03: But so a couple of lines struck me.
• 17:25
  SPEAKER_03: One was we continue to operate with a high sense of urgency to sustainably improve the company's financial and marketplace performance, in parentheses, most notably in North America.
• 17:36
  SPEAKER_03: And then this line we expect North America's core operating margin performance to remain under pressure in the fourth quarter.
• 17:45
  SPEAKER_03: We aim to partially mitigate this pressure through productivity savings, operational excellence, and tightly managing costs.
• 17:53
  SPEAKER_03: Now, if you were a manager of one of these plants, what would you be thinking right now?
• 17:58
  SPEAKER_04: I'd been getting on LinkedIn.
• 18:01
  SPEAKER_03: It does not sound good.
• 18:02
  SPEAKER_03: And I think that Pepsi is one of the, you know, sometimes possibly the largest manufacturer of food and beverage products by revenue, but they serve as a bellwether for other larger manufacturers as well.
• 18:18
  SPEAKER_03: And I think hearing that they say things like snacks are up, their sweet and salty snacks are up, other beverages like Gatorade are up and such, but overall their performance is lagging.
• 18:31
  SPEAKER_03: Now I know, and I say larger manufacturers, we talked about this before that having to appease shareholders isn't quite the same thing as a smaller manufacturer, private manufacturer that doesn't have these same financial burdens.
• 18:44
  SPEAKER_03: But it does indicate for the people who are employed by these larger manufacturers that yeah, a couple things.
• 18:53
  SPEAKER_03: Start looking on LinkedIn, or wow, I've already been, and we've been talking about this at Pro Food World for two years now, going on two years now.
• 19:01
  SPEAKER_03: That they're already the whole premise of our editorial premise this year was doing more with less.
• 19:06
  SPEAKER_03: And I feel like it's just getting worse and worse.
• 19:09
  SPEAKER_03: And then hearing this like in the third quarter from Pepsi saying, Oh, fourth quarter's, we're gonna fix the fourth quarter by tightening our belts even more.
• 19:17
  SPEAKER_03: That would that sounds tough.
• 19:22
  SPEAKER_04: Is there a space here for automation though?
• 19:24
  SPEAKER_04: Is this an automation play where in the age of AI for everything from warehouse automation right on through the upstream into the packaging line, even into processing?
• 19:33
  SPEAKER_04: Is there is that a savings route?
• 19:36
  SPEAKER_03: So that is a very difficult question.
• 19:39
  SPEAKER_03: And I think we've talked about this offline, where automation does come with, especially a company like Pepsi that probably already has invested in automation, that it comes with a couple of caveats like how much more can you automate?
• 19:53
  SPEAKER_03: And automation does have other costs that might not be easily recognizable in terms of production capabilities because it is specialized equipment.
• 20:03
  SPEAKER_03: And if something goes, we have talked about this.
• 20:05
  SPEAKER_03: Where something goes down, you're gonna need a specialist to come in.
• 20:07
  SPEAKER_03: Can you get a specialist?
• 20:08
  SPEAKER_03: How long does that machine will that machine stay down before you can get up and running again?
• 20:12
  SPEAKER_03: Whereas mechanically, it might not take quite as long, assuming you have somebody in-house that is qualified to fix it.
• 20:19
  SPEAKER_03: So I don't know that it's a a case of automation being able to come in and solve it.
• 20:24
  SPEAKER_03: I think it's probably more along the lines of consolidation, to be honest with you, where if you're gonna have a couple of smaller plants that are operating on thin margins that are already out there, that if you can bring those into another plant or expand another plant's operations, or you can lay off a few workers, and then you can, you know, bring other people into this plant, but so you're not paying quite as many people, but you've got a consolidation of operations, so you can so it uh it's not painting a good picture.
• 20:52
  SPEAKER_03: And I feel like every time I talk, I say weird things, but then I say not quite so good things for the industry just because it's not doesn't look particularly good.
• 21:02
  SPEAKER_03: I feel that and it's not and it's not just in the food and beverage, I feel like manufacturing in general is just getting tougher and tougher based off of a whole lot of things that you don't want to get into right now, but it's just difficult.
• 21:14
  SPEAKER_03: And I honestly, a lot of things that we've been covering in Pro Food World are how to do more with less.
• 21:19
  SPEAKER_03: And a lot of it is, and again, we've talked about this, is just going through and making sure is do you have a leak somewhere?
• 21:24
  SPEAKER_03: Just fix the leak.
• 21:25
  SPEAKER_03: Just these little things add up, especially if you're dealing with it over time.
• 21:30
  SPEAKER_03: Water costs, this is something that we are gonna be covering later, and that is the cost of water because of among other things going up, it's the cost of water.
• 21:38
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, so you gotta find additional ways to conserve water, and again, you know what was it three episodes back?
• 21:46
  SPEAKER_03: We talked about maybe sustainability is worth the investment now.
• 21:50
  SPEAKER_03: That it there's a cost of a premium for some machines that are can reuse heat pump, so to speak, something like that, recirculate water and reuse the yeah.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_03: Maybe it's maybe those expenses are worth it that the ROI is gonna be quicker than not.
• 22:06
  SPEAKER_04: Nothing nothing sparks a movement towards sustainability than being able to save money while doing it.
• 22:11
  SPEAKER_04: Yep, it's the impact on the bottom line.
• 22:13
  SPEAKER_04: If it's keeps people in the black, then the nobody will be faster than the brands that to help their margins in as minor ways as possible to see that happen.
• 22:22
  SPEAKER_04: Absolutely.
• 22:23
  SPEAKER_04: Good.
• 22:24
  SPEAKER_04: Have we covered off on everything, Derek?
• 22:26
  SPEAKER_04: I know you've got your sports.
• 22:27
  SPEAKER_04: Sorry about the Detroit sports situation.
• 22:29
  SPEAKER_04: I am I've got one more chance on Saturday night to beat Cleveland.
• 22:34
  SPEAKER_04: So when this airs, we'll know whether the White Sox, the little White Sox, have made it to the ALCS.
• 22:39
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
• 22:40
  SPEAKER_04: So wish me luck over the weekend.
• 22:42
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, at least the Detroit teams got have time.
• 22:45
  SPEAKER_03: It's the beginning of the season for them, not the end.
• 22:47
  SPEAKER_04: It's now or never for the White Sox.
• 22:49
  SPEAKER_04: Hey, anything beats a 100 lost season, which was the last two years.
• 22:52
  SPEAKER_04: Good.
• 22:53
  SPEAKER_04: That's about all the time we have for this week's edition of End of the Line Podcast.
• 22:57
  SPEAKER_04: I got it right that time.
• 22:58
  SPEAKER_04: But yeah, we'll see you next week and we'll be leaning into Pac Expo very soon if we aren't already.
• 23:03
  SPEAKER_04: Thanks, everybody.