Future of packaging

Pack­ag­ing Inno­va­tions & Empack, Fea­tur­ing Con­tract Pack & Ful­fil­ment, is set to kick off the pack­ag­ing industry’s 2023 with a bang, after it announced the first batch of speak­ers host­ing talks at the triple-bill event. Packed speak­er sched­ule includes talks from Heineken, Dia­geo, OPRL and more

The timetable of talks, spread across three stages through­out the event at Birm­ing­ham NEC on 15 and 16 Feb­ru­ary, brings togeth­er some of the lead­ing experts from the present and future of pack­ag­ing. The first announce­ment of speak­ers lays the foun­da­tions of an engag­ing, insight-packed two-day sched­ule fea­tur­ing influ­en­tial names from all cor­ners of the pack­ag­ing indus­try includ­ing sup­ply chain process­es explained, future machin­ery solu­tions, con­tract pack­ing and ful­fil­ment ser­vices pan­el dis­cus­sions, many lead­ers in the field of sus­tain­able solu­tions, and more.

Those names include Mar­tin Kersh, Exec­u­tive Direc­tor of the FPA; Paul Jenk­ins, founder of TheP­ack­Hub; and Jude Allan, Chair of the IOM3 Pack­ag­ing Group. Wel­com­ing the announce­ment, Renan Joel, Man­ag­ing Direc­tor, Pack­ag­ing Divi­sion at event organ­is­er Easy­fairs said: “The line-up at Pack­ag­ing Inno­va­tions this year is unmiss­able – there is some­thing for atten­dees from every indus­try and job func­tion. This is more than just a pack­ag­ing event, it’s about the future – of pack­ag­ing, yes, but also of retail, brands, and the sup­ply chain that con­nects us all together.

“The theme of this year’s event is to offer solu­tions for every step of the pack­ag­ing jour­ney, from con­cept to ful­fil­ment and every­thing in between. Even though this is only the first batch of speak­ers we’ll announce, we hope it’s a state­ment of intent for where we want the show to be.”

Fit­ting­ly for a triple-bill event, Pack­ag­ing Inno­va­tions & Empack, Fea­tur­ing Con­tract Pack and Ful­fil­ment fea­tures three stages; Design and Inno­va­tion, Cir­cu­lar Econ­o­my, and Sup­ply Chain. Top­ics on the stages include a keynote speech from Mark Van Iter­son, Glob­al Direc­tor Design and Sus­tain­abil­i­ty at Heineken; a talk titled Cir­cu­lar Econ­o­my Defined from George Cole, Direc­tor of Resource Futures; and a head­line speech from Jo Fair­ley, co-founder of choco­late brand Green & Black’s.

Oth­er speak­ers are George Thomp­son, Robot­ic Sys­tems Sales Man­ag­er at Güdel and Chair­man of BARA; Steve Hon­our, Design Leader at Dia­geo; and Jane Bevis, Exec­u­tive Chair of OPRL, who is also part of the on-going pan­el dis­cus­sion, this year titled ‘The Big Respon­si­bil­i­ty Debate’. The dis­cus­sion will be split into two parts across day 1 and day 2, delv­ing into keep­ing the costs of EPR & DRS, under con­trol, and how real­is­tic deliv­ery is by 2024.

“We have more announce­ments to come as we com­plete what is sure to be our liveli­est speak­ing pro­gramme yet,” added Joel. “Our aim is to pack as much val­ue as pos­si­ble into each free tick­et. A free tick­et alone doesn’t auto­mat­i­cal­ly make an event worth attend­ing – but a sched­ule packed with insight­ful talks and a show floor full of world-lead­ing busi­ness­es to net­work with cer­tain­ly does!”