Food and beverage manufacturers filed into the Las Vegas Convention Center this past September for PMMI’s largest PACK EXPO Las Vegas ever — more than 27,000 attendees, over 40 vertical markets; 1,788 exhibitors and over 700,000 net square feet of exhibit space. They were looking for solutions to their production line issues and challenges, and many were also seeking out insights from technology applications in other vertical industries to apply in their own operations.
Among the technology showcased at PACK EXPO, highlights included clean-in-place and modular equipment to help manufacturers address evolving food safety regulations. Solutions to extend the shelf life of food products included advanced nanotechnology developments with oxygen scavenging and antimicrobial benefits. Also found on the show floor were multi-sensory packaging technologies that target one or more of the consumer’s senses – including sight, touch and even the sense of smell using microencapsulation (e.g. scratch & sniff effects).