Expert Commentary

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Half the benefit of pre-marinated meat is consumers know what they are going to get: embedded taste and convenience. Processors are utilizing new technologies with injections and marinades, so everything tastes the same but with less sodium and sugar, and fewer food-safety concerns.

The average hot carcass weight of U.S. pork carcasses has increased from 82 kg to 96 kg since 1995, representing an increase of approximately 17 percent. If this increase remains steady, pork carcasses are projected to weigh on average 105 kg by 2030 and more than 118 kg by 2050.

Capturing a lead and cultivating it into a sale isn’t a quick process. The sales cycle in any business-to-business industry is a much longer endeavor because it takes time to properly market complex products such as packaging machinery to a highly informed buying audience.

Three-dimensional (3-D) printing — or more correctly, Additive Manufacturing (AM) — has the potential to change everything with respect to spare parts inventory. As the technology develops, people will be able to manufacture parts at almost any location, at any time they choose.

I recently spoke with a packaging executive whose fingers are in the tray sealing and the thermoforming markets both abroad and in the U.S. I came away from our conversation with a clear appreciation that, with a few exceptions, thermoformed trays have a place in protein packaging; it’s just not first place.