PACK EXPO International 2018 brought together 2,500 exhibitors and 50,000 attendees from around the world, representing various verticals in the marketplace. The trade show is run by the Packaging Machinery Manufacturers Institute (PMMI), whose membership includes more than 800 manufacturers, suppliers and service providers who develop innovative manufacturing solutions.

Basically, it’s PMMI’s job to unite the packaging industry across the manufacturing supply chain — and the E-Team was on the scene at PACK EXPO to unite their fists with anything that stood in their way!

Surprise, suckas! We’ve got your main event right here!

Yeah, you’d better believe the E-Team crashed the show and put the “win” in “Windy City”! Despite being hunted by the authorities for the crime of moving packaging forward, Cornflake and Porterhouse broke their cover to lead our team of packaging mercenaries into the lion’s den. Their mission? Disrupt the tired old “here’s our machine” rigamarole that happens at so many trade shows, and cause some chaos before their enemies catch on.

The E-Team talks the talk AND walks the walk.

It wasn’t all hostile faces, though — the E-Team got to meet Professor Packaging, the star of Sealed Air’s “Will It Break?” series. After the mutual starstruck bravado wore off, Cornflake gave the good professor a friendly reminder: that he’ll find himself on the receiving end of Porterhouse’s beefy knuckles if he swipes another idea from the Ernest Challenge!

Professor Packaging and the E-Team: book smarts meet street smarts.

Once the E-Team flew the coop, the real Ernest team got to work. Our dedicated staff made the trek to Chicago to see the future of automation in the packaging industry. They got the chance to rub elbows with suppliers, set appointments for our clients looking for automation solutions, and learn all there is to know about improvements to packaging manufacturing. The E-Team kicked the show into high gear, but the Ernest team can help you kick your old box of bolts to the curb.

We’re here for packaging and @$&-kicking.

Automation is an important step in future-proofing your business, but it’s just one solution Ernest offers to improve your manufacturing and shipping process. Hit the ground and go behind the scenes with Ernest President Tim Wilson and the two head honchos of the E-Team: Cornflake and his sidekick Porterhouse, to see how we approach Process Design — with a vengeance!

Still need proof that Ernest and the E-Team are the baddest mamma-jammas around? Head to the front lines and watch the masters at work. E-Team’s the name, and automation design and implementation is their game. Hit the lights, hit that hired thug square in the kisser, and hit the play button!

When Ernest and the E-Team collide, your packaging problems are in for double trouble. Will our favorite packaging mercenaries return at next year’s PACK EXPO? Or will the authorities corner them for good? Keep your eyes on this spot for all things E-Team, and learn more about PMMI to call for backup!

And, boy, does it look amazing!

The two-story climbable, scaleable, playable structure contains over 10 miles of tape with sticky sides stuck together. After a few layers are added the entire piece becomes remarkably strong – even strong enough for an adult to do a rock n roll power slide.

Not Pictured: A Rock n Roll Power Slide (Source)

This durability isn’t magic; it’s engineering. Lennartson didn’t use 10 miles of tape because it was on sale at a wholesale retailer—all that tape serves a purpose. The weight and pressure of all those kids (and over-enthusiastic packaging people) jumping about is distributed around the entire structure so no single area gets more than it can handle.

This isn’t the first time we’ve Buzzed about packaging material art, nor the first time we have seen tape take on an engineering challenge. Our own President Tim Wilson stepped up to a packaging showdown the size of Texas and came out (mostly) unscathed.

If you want people who know how to turn packaging supplies into engineering masterpieces and designs worthy of an art exhibit, you know who to call. Well, just in case we weren’t clear, that means: Call us, Ernest Packaging Solutions. We know the ins, outs and in-betweens of custom package design and are ready to get you out of any sticky situation.

These challenges are driving active packaging to play an important role in the future of pharma. Active and intelligent packaging as a whole is expected to make up ⅔ of market share by 2025, but active-pharma alone is is already a more than $30 billion industry.

An August interview about intelligent packaging design published on pharmtech.com outlined the key role packaging plays in the future of healthcare:

“Patient adherence should be a primary goal … studies show that patients start off adhering to their prescriptions but this adherence can fall off over time [and] packaging can be a strong factor in getting patients to take their medicine. In the end, the final point of contact between the patient and the healthcare providers and/or the distributors of medicine is not the dispensing pharmacist, but the pharmaceutical package. If the packaging is difficult to open or use, or features confusing instructions, patient adherence is placed at risk. Thus, intelligent packaging and clear communication is crucial to improving patient outcomes.”

That is a long way of saying, “Good packaging design, messaging and innovation will help better patient care.”

We are only limited by our imaginations when it comes to active packaging. Take, for example, this interesting concept of a pill bottle that “goes bad” like a banana as it nears its expiration date.

source

Or even edible tags that are invisible and don’t change the chemistry of the product, but can be used to spot counterfeits and track where pills came from are one cool new product offering. What about atmospheric tracking of bottles that alert you if the environment is too hot or too cold and could make the product unusable or QR codes that answer questions about the pills and side effects? Many of these technologies already exist and will only become more advanced in time.

Big challenges demand innovative thinking, and we are the innovation experts. Learn how Ernest Packaging Solutions can take your pharmaceutical and medical packaging to the next level with interactive designs and customer-focused solutions. Contact us today to learn more!

Clearly, not everyone can do what we do. In fact, we *ALWAYS* warn people not to do Tim’s trick at home, but apparently, not everyone heeds our advice …

Much to our surprise, it seems The Ernest Challenge has *actually* come to life! In a move surprisingly similar to President Tim Wilson’s jump from an airplane while wearing a bubble wrap suit, a 42-year-old copycat stuntman has successfully jumped from a helicopter without a parachute, landing on a crash pad of corrugated boxes!

Check out the real-life Ernest Challenge below!

A total of 18,600 corrugated boxes cushioned the parachute-less man’s fall, according to packagingnews.co.uk. That’s pretty impressive, but because of all the innovations coming out of our very own Innovation Lab, Tim was able to complete the same jump AND protect our customer’s product, Pop Chips, while wearing only a bubble wrap suit! Now that is source reduction! And Tim even hit a goose on the way down! If our engineers can create such a suit to survive a fall,  think what they can do for you …

To the next person who attempts such a crazy-awesome feat: Get in touch with us at Ernest Packaging Solutions! We’ll take an innovative approach to your corrugated boxes to give you the safest, softest landing possible!

Before you sacrifice your body or your package call us!