Longest-Running Pouch Conference Moves to Chicago Area In June

Rosemont, Ill. – Building on its theme covering the evolution of pouches, the 2019 Global Pouch Forum announces an agenda featuring presentations focused on innovation, sustainability and developing markets, such as the burgeoning cannabis industry.

Leading off the conference as keynote speakers will be Ken McGuire, senior research fellow at Procter & Gamble, and Cedric D'Souza, chief technical officer of Innventure. Together they will detail the development of the award-winning AeroFlexx liquid dispensing pouch, now in use by Procter & Gamble for its Dawn dishwashing detergent. In a market segment dominated by rigid plastic bottles, this innovative package overcomes many of the perceived drawbacks of flexible packaging, including messy dispensing, cheap appearance, and expensive converting.

This year, the 23rd Global Pouch Forum will be held June 11-13 at Hyatt Regency O'Hare in Rosemont, IL. After several successful years in Miami, Fla., as the leading and longest-running flexible packaging conference in the industry, the Forum will move to Chicago area, which represents the heartland of U.S. packaging operations. Presentations from the Flexible Packaging Association and Euromonitor will update attendees on the state of the flexible packaging industry as well as the latest trends in consumer packaging preferences.

"This lineup is built on feedback from previous GPF attendees. It represents issues and opportunities that people in the industry say they face each and every day," says John Kalkowski, conference program director.

The conference also will emphasize how consumer packaged goods companies can advance their packaging innovation processes with a presentation by Christina Cvetan, a founding partner of the Ahead of the Curve Group and a former leader of Unilever's global packaging R&D team. This presentation will followed by innovation panels that include a converting team representing TAPPI, as well as a panel from the Contract Packaging Association discussing how co-packers can contribute to the innovation process.

Roger Zellner, formerly the sustainability director for Kraft Foods and Mondelez, will moderate a panel that explores whether the industry will be able to reach its aggressive goals for creating a closed-loop recycling system for flexible packaging.

With recent loosening of laws on the use of cannabis in several states, packaging for hemp-based products has become a major topic. Tom Newmaster of Force PKG will give an overview of the cannabis market, while Jim Andrasic, chief operating officer of American Pouch Converters, will address some of the challenges of producing protective packaging required by varying regulations in multiple locales.

Thousands of packaging professionals have relied on this event to stay current on developments in one of the fastest-growing segments of the industry, with more than 600 attending the 2018 conference alone, along with more than 80 exhibiting industry suppliers. For a complete list of speakers and topics and to register for the event, please visit www.globalpouchforum.com.

The Global Pouch Forum is produced by the BNP Media Packaging Group, (www.packagingstrategies.com/packaging) which has delivered up-to-the-minute, unbiased packaging industry news, information and analysis to audiences across multiple platforms since 1983. The event is owned by BNP Media (www.bnpmedia.com) which produces industry-specific B2B publications, as well as national and international business meetings, conferences, trade shows, webinars, and industry events with one goal in mind: providing superior information to help professionals succeed in business.