Nypro Packaging developing decorative IML/oxygen barrier package

Nypro Packaging offers expertise in plastics technologies to help improve the aesthetics, quality and functionality of packaging for consumer brands. It recently developed the first commercial application of a high-volume, high-precision injection molding of a thin wall oxygen barrier packaging.

In addition to expanding design flexibility, the company’s processing development offers potential cost savings to customers by providing an attractive alternative to more expensive metal, glass or traditional multi-layer thermoformed plastic materials. The injection molding process provides cost savings by giving customers the option to incorporate additives, coatings and in-mold labels in a single operation, Nypro Packaging said.

The company is now developing a combined oxygen barrier and decorative IML package that will be on shelf in early 2015.

Nypro Packaging said that beyond enhancing a product’s visual and functional value, its new technology underscores its focus on optimizing production, with ‘high volume and cost-effective manufacturing services’ providing a competitive edge to major US brands as more and more of them bring production capacity closer to home to minimize transportation costs, supply chain complexities and quality issues. This accelerating shift toward near-shore manufacturing is also being driven by steadily rising production costs in developing economies, such as China, where wages have increased around 18 percent each year over the last decade.

Further, Nypro Packaging has detailed how megatrends, such as rising wages in China, increasing competition on store shelves from retail brands and commitments from major US retailers to buy more American made goods, are prompting companies with a national footprint in the country to fight harder to differentiate their brands and look for ways to manufacture more of their product packaging closer to home. National brands also face a fierce competitive challenge on the local display shelf, where own-label products threaten to syphon off consumer attention and dollars, Nypro Packaging added.

Quoting the latest American Pantry Study by market analyst Deloitte, Nypro Packaging said the recent recession has allowed comparatively lower priced store brands to challenge consumer loyalty to national labels, with Deloitte stating that store brand items are growing at twice the rate of incumbent labels largely due to perceptions that more generic products offer the same quality.

Nypro Packaging stated that in an increasingly competitive market, product packaging sporting sophisticated and functional designs are clearly having a significant impact on consumer purchasing decisions.

Joe Stodola, vice-president of global business development at Nypro Packaging, said: ‘Statistics show that consumers make 76 percent of their buying decisions when standing in front of the product display shelf, which makes visually compelling and more functional packaging a critically competitive differentiator.

‘That moment of decision is precisely what we help customers prepare for. As a design and manufacturing partner, our role is to allow customers to focus on improving their products while we help to optimize the visual and functional design of their product packaging, as well as its manufacture.’