“Brand in-Hand”

Stephanie Gaddin 0:01
This is Bits and Bots for Business. The podcast about technology, systems, human ingenuity and automation, from apps to AI, e commerce to emails, we talk about it all.

I’m Stephanie Gaddin, global citizen, technologist and curious human being. I’m so excited to bring you episode one. This episode features a conversation with Lindy Hughson, the managing editor of PKN news and Print21 news.

I’m going to leave the rest of the introductions to the recorded episode. Here goes.

Let’s introduce the fabulous Lindy Hughson. So Lindy is the Managing Editor Publisher of PKN.

Lindy Hughson 0:48
Both

Stephanie Gaddin 0:49
Managing Editor and Publisher of PKN. She’s also the President of the International Packaging

Lindy Hughson 0:56
Press Organisation.

Stephanie Gaddin 0:57
Press Organisation. I always forget the second P I’m so sorry the IPPO. Incredible expertise across packaging and the that segment of our industry, and someone I’ve known for a few years and have a lot of respect for so thank you so much for joining us. Lindy, it’s wonderful to have you on for this chat.

Lindy Hughson 1:18
Thanks Steph. Nice to see you again. Deborah, I met you several years ago at one of the things I always see you around,

Deborah Corn 1:25
I met you at Printx in Australia. It’s, I remember, yeah, exactly

Stephanie Gaddin 1:35
That was I remember, yes. So I’m going to just say one more thing, please. Just one more thing. I’m going to just butter you up a little bit more. I’m very annoying. I know, in my opinion, and across Australia, Lindy is actually one of the most respected voices in our packaging sector, and across many things, she has a global perspective on innovation and technology and sustainability and just one of those people that just is so on the nose with everything and across so many things. I think you are just incredible, as I’ve said to every guest I’ve asked on today. So thank you again for joining us. I just had to say that and get that in there before we go deep diving, because I think we will not be able to stop talking. So over to you, Lindy, you were going to say something before. I so rudely interrupted you

Lindy Hughson 2:26
yeah, I was going to also say that. Well, Happy International Print Day is a very exciting time for me and my the evolution of the stuff that I cover, because I am also now the Managing Editor and Publisher of Print21 so I was always the Publisher, but we’ve had one of our key members retire, and so I’m taking on more of an editorial participation, let’s say, on that platform. And it comes at the perfect time with this intersection between print and packaging becoming closer, so many more commercial printers now looking to packaging as a way to develop their businesses, expand their businesses, and I’ll come to some examples on that, but also noting that the last inter pack had more printing people exhibiting and the last fruit power had very much a packaging focus.

So really, we speak all the time about that growth and that innovation and that possibility happening on the on the packaging platform, or the packaging level for printers. And just going to what your previous guest, Rowena, was saying as well. I get excited by the brand in hand, because that is really that the packaging and print interface and and the interface with the consumer as well. I mean things like this, little can here, simple here, but this is an example of what some of the innovation going on in the Australian market right now that’s very exciting to me, is the direct to shape, direct to object printing, and we’ve had several breakthroughs. In the last little while. We’ve seen an uptick in innovation on direct to can Aurora has made a massive investment here in its Helio digital printing system.

We’ve had players like Onpack pivoting their business with direct-to-can printing and increasing their revenue by 200% according to the MD. We’ve got on the end of the spectrum. This is an example from East Coast Canning and Printing with their bulletproof digital printing innovation, and that’s just in beverage cans.

But we’ve also got it happening on an industrial scale. We’ve got NCI, a big metal can producer a large cans and small and also in the aerosol space, about to launch or to commission their new digital printing line. So that stuff excites me, because it tells me exactly what Rowena was saying. Let’s get creative again.

Let’s forget about the mass, because digital is enabling so much for us in that space, and it’s also we don’t want to really dwell too much on sustainability, but it is also talking the sustainability language by what it allows optimisation and the efficiencies. So I don’t I’m rattling on there,

Stephanie Gaddin 5:29
But no, that’s so very interesting. Deborah and I sitting and nodding and nodding and going

Deborah Corn 5:35
just like, no, keep going.

Stephanie Gaddin 5:36
Keep going. Yeah, yes, yeah.

Deborah Corn 5:38
I took notes. I have talking points already,

Stephanie Gaddin 5:40
So you were at LabelExpo in Barcelona. You weren’t

Lindy Hughson 5:47
to, I had to pull out at the 11th Hour, which, of course, adding to me, I haven’t just a small hitch going on with me, I couldn’t do the long-haul flight.

And so wasn’t there, I’ve been following what was going on. Yeah, one of our , commissioned writers, was feeding me info so,

Stephanie Gaddin 6:10
Beautiful. So what would you say were the standout themes and technologies that came out of LabelExpo for this year?

Lindy Hughson 6:17
From my from what I can see, it’s it was automation and sustainability that were dominant. We are starting to see the first signs of AI integration in print technology, cloud linked workflows, connecting presses across sites for smarter production.

This is mirrored by what I saw I’ve been seeing at packaging trade shows, where we see the smart factory, everything integrated everything talking – Machine language, talking everything into that HMI, the interface, and so making it really simple to manage the processes and automating it to the extent that less people are needing to be involved, and they can then be more involved in the creative processes, hopefully.

So, and then AI driven interfaces, predicting maintenance and quality outcomes before the issues occur. So that’s again, that talking to that efficiency point, and then the launch of digital and hybrid presses, enabling converters to scale sustainably.

So that points to a more vibrant, globally connected sector that continues to evolve and innovate and LabelExpo as you know, is now so much more than just labels. Very

Deborah Corn 7:29
They changed the name to that “loop”, to to,

Lindy Hughson 7:32
I know I don’t quite get that, but I think the

Deborah Corn 7:35
Labels, something packaging like it actually stands for something, but I think it’s

Lindy Hughson 7:41
embellishment is include, yeah,

Deborah Corn 7:45
there was a press release. I don’t, I don’t remember, but I hosted the theatre for LabelExpo. At LabelExpo, so I was, they would that we made the they made the announcement there too

Stephanie Gaddin 7:57
The announcement there yeah

Lindy Hughson 7:58
They done and dusted. Apparently, it’s met with mixed reception. The name its self hey. People don’t like change.

Stephanie Gaddin 8:06
No, nobody likes to change.

Deborah Corn 8:09
However, I don’t disagree that the change was needed because Label. It used to just be labels, and now it’s not anymore. And to your point about the hybrid presses, the more fascinating ones to me are the ones that do labels and flexible packaging. I mean, you have an entire ecosystem of business in one press. I mean, it’s incredible.

Lindy Hughson 8:35
And I’d say there, I mean, I shouldn’t speak about one particular client, but I would say that HP Indigo has been very instrumental in driving that shift, enabling labels and packaging printing on on the one machine. Certainly in this market, we’ve seen that

Deborah Corn 8:53
It was actually their press I was referring to.

So, yes,

Stephanie Gaddin 8:56
okay That’s fabulous, so I’ll segue , no, no,

Deborah Corn 8:56
HP is my best friend.You can talk about HP all you want.

Stephanie Gaddin 8:56
You can talk about HP,because the next segment after this, we’re going to talk about the Woman in Print Scholarship on the HP. So

Lindy Hughson 9:11
okay,

Deborah Corn 9:13
They take me, they they take me everywhere. So I’ve been to LabelExpo, it’s with them a million times.

Lindy Hughson 9:17
Some other sort of things I wanted to touch on, if I may,

Stephanie Gaddin 9:22
Yes

Lindy Hughson 9:23
At the AI and packaging and what’s happening here in the local market. We’ve just had, it doesn’t necessarily relate directly to printing, except that it’s image based. So a company called Phantm, this last week has launched an image recognition platform using AI. It’s called Phantm AI, to convert packaging visuals into structured data, so that allows people to then, well, people, I mean, FMCG, brand, brand owner, CPG, for Deborah, to quickly identify cost and waste production opportunities. So it will, it will look at the pack and visually say, “Okay, that’s a metal can. It’s or an aluminium can. These are the specs, typically for this size” and very quickly, for things like data that’s for reporting to Australian Packaging, Covenant Organisation reporting that’s required, but also beyond that.

And what the driver here and by using AI is to allow ease of engagement and to make it simple for brands to capture and act on that packaging data. And so it comes from the printed product. You know, whichever way we look at it, requires a printed product. So that’s a powerful enabler for sustainable decision making. And what else can I talk about? Oh, the other thing that’s that’s was it kind of leans into track and trace and printed electronics. So RFID. You know, when RFID was first launched, everyone wrote, oh, this is the answer to everything. And then it was too expensive, and then it took a while to find its way forward.

Now, at the end of the month here in Australia, Avery Dennison, a big label player, also an exhibitor at LabelExpo, is going to be launching its RFID Experience Lab, or opening that up. And this is going to demonstrate how RFID and data platforms can assign a unique digital identity to every product, which really opens the door the spectrum to being able to track and trace materials in that sustainable in the in the recycling stream. So but again, that partly is printed electronics. So again, we come back to the importance of print.

And the other thing I wanted to just touch on is 2D barcodes, again, a printed outcome, and its ability to connect packaging, to connect the data, to make track and trace such a but more than track and trace, it’s just a door to door, end to end, source of data through that one simple printed code. It will transform supply chains and empower consumers with product Information and sustainability data in real time, and big retailers like Woolworths, and, of course, in other markets too. But here, Woolworths in particular, has really led the transformation in terms of the adoption of 2D codes.

Stephanie Gaddin 12:34
Amazing.

Lindy Hughson 12:35
I’m probably rattling on too much, Hey,

Stephanie Gaddin 12:37
no,

Deborah Corn 12:38
can,I

Stephanie Gaddin 12:39
Deborah’s got some questions? Go, yes,

Deborah Corn 12:43
Get ready. I’m a compound question.

Lindy Hughson 12:45
Oh dear.

Deborah Corn 12:47
Okay, so I, I don’t know if this affects you, but the the sustainability talk at LabelExpo was terrifying. It was all about the digital product passports, which is a little bit about what you’re describing even, but now it that’s the name it has.

So anybody who’s printing anything in the EU starting next year has to be able to prove where every single thing in it came from, digital product passports. Then they had this thing called PPWR, which I don’t know what the acronym is. Do you know what it is? It’s It’s

Lindy Hughson 13:36
Packaging and packaging waste regulation.

Deborah Corn 13:39
Yeah, that might be the scariest thing I ever heard in my life. Is that going to maybe you can tell people what it is, because I’m obviously not explaining it, and is it going to come to Australia?

Lindy Hughson 13:55
No, well, I mean not, not per se, but I think Australia will take the lead from some of the directives that are in that PPWR. So there’s a lot of education going on here in the Australian market so that companies understand what PPWR encompasses.

I’m not across every little detail, but certainly anybody who is considering what potential regulations might come in to Australia. We are sitting here in a state of limbo at the moment. Deborah, we’ve had our voluntary industry body APCO recommending a direction to government. Government has been gathering information and kind of indicating that there will be reform on the cards that it is going to be making mandates around recycled content, making mandates or sort of regulatoring around extended producer responsibility. It will definitely be looking to Europe’s example.

We take more lead from Europe in Australia in terms of, you know, that kind of regulation or guideline. Then we do say, from the United States, the United States really has different regulations in each in each state. And so you’ve got some states like California raising the bar, and then people rolling out, you know, that elevated level of sustainability, because they may as well if they producing for the whole United States. PPWR is something everybody should be keeping their eye. It’s it is very sustainability summit in Europe. It had just started kicking off, and they were there are some grave concerns for a lot of material providers, and so what they’re going to have to be looking at is where the early day success stories are and and where not now. We don’t have digital product passport being talked about here, Deborah, but companies like Phantm AI are have developed this tool specifically with digital product passport in mind.

Deborah Corn 16:09
I mean, that’s what reminded me of it the way what you were describing. I’m like, that’s that digital product, you know, very similar to what they were talking about at LabelExpo.

The other thing is, I want to tell you about something I saw at LabelExpo that I thought it was amazing, and I’ve already incorporated it. I’ve been talking about this all day, but I’m going to keep talking about it. So it’s a dynamic QR code, which I didn’t know what a dynamic QR code it was. And if anyone else out there doesn’t, it’s a QR code that you can print.

And on the back end, you could update it all you want. It doesn’t have to be exactly the code, and it can’t change. So if somebody types a website wrong, you’re in big trouble, you know. So you can update whatever it’s linking to at any point in time. But the company that presented about their product was called Digital link, and they have created a dynamic QR code that when you scan it, it leads to a virtual assistant who, let’s just use a wine label as an example. You want to you scan it, get a little information, and then there’s literally an AI interface in it. And you can say, tell me about the place that the wine, the grapes grow.

Tell me about the family that owns the winery. Tell me if this wine can work with fish. Tell me if there’s any something that I’m allergic to in this wine that I might not be aware of. Tell me about this part of my insurance policy. Only tell me you know anything you can imagine.

You know all those gluten people, all the you know I, I knew somebody, I know somebody who said they were allergic to eggs. And I’m like, that’s weird, but I’m thinking, okay, so don’t eat eggs. And she’s like, You have no idea how many things have eggs that you have no idea. And she’s like, salad dressing. I was like, salad dressing doesn’t What are you talking about? We’re at a restaurant. She says, Does the salad dressing have eggs in it? Waiter goes, comes back. He goes, Yes, it does. I’m like, I’m done. So she would need it for everything, because a lot of times people don’t realise that there are actually eggs in very weird. I mean, there’s eggs in a lot of things, people I’m just telling you.

So this, to me, is the answer to everything, because you can interact with your product and get its its own expert on it. It’s amazing.

Lindy Hughson 19:17
So that digital link is that she is one digital link, because the 2D barcode and GS1 working together, correct? And they work together, digital link, GS1, okay, yes, one, so yeah, that is, yeah. That is what they mean. That code is a dynamic barcode.

Deborah Corn 19:37
The one that’s a keyboard that you can update, yeah, yep, yeah, yeah. But this one has a AI virtual assistant that has been trained on the thing that it’s attached to.

So I don’t have to go online anymore. I don’t have to, you know, I could be in a in the liquor store and saying, Okay, um. Uh, I they’re going to serve leg of lamb and something, you know what? And just scanning around until, till you find, till you find the right one. That that’s probably a bad example. But you could scan and say, does this work with lamb?

Does this what’s in this thing? Yes, and

by that, so some of them work with salad. I mean, who knew that you could this

Lindy Hughson 20:23
That reinforces that print consumer engagement piece, doesn’t it absolutely sure that while this is happening, that little AI guy is gathering all kinds of data as well, and it’s all pooling back into the data that’s saying geographically, the product was bought here, and the bottle and the label and all of that, where it’s going to end up. So that’s, that is the depth and scope of a 2D bar code.

Stephanie Gaddin 20:53
Amazing.

Deborah Corn 20:54
Beyond that, even, you know, we’re talking about smart printing. You can, you can find out you know where people Well, you said where, but, but who? You know who’s buying it, or, even more important, what are the questions that they’re asking? And there’s the opportunity for marketing to come in and maybe get people further down the the sales funnel by saying, Okay, everyone keeps asking us about x. Let’s do a piece on X so they’re not asking about x anymore, and we get them pre-educated to the next step. You know what I mean? There’s there’s just so much you can do with that information. Anyhow, I just wanted to mention those two things, and I’m sorry you didn’t go to LabelExpo.

Lindy Hughson 21:41
I’m so sorry I missed LabelExpo.

Stephanie Gaddin 21:43
No, no, no, yep.

Lindy Hughson 21:45
From carry on, from the from my position at the International Packaging Press Organisation, we can certainly see from the journalists and how we communicate. We see how interconnected the global print and packaging communities are, and this is really great to have this conversation here today. So, but, but, of course, the same forces are at play. So it’s that push for sustainable materials, the transparent supply change in and smarter technologies, all enabled by print platforms. Um, so yeah, we hopefully at IPPO will continue to report on this type of change and link in with with people like yourselves to keep that information fresh

Stephanie Gaddin 22:29
beautiful.

Deborah Corn 22:30
I might go one more. Just one more. And then I

Stephanie Gaddin 22:34
you can go one more Deborah,

Deborah Corn 22:35
sorry

Stephanie Gaddin 22:37
go for it.

Deborah Corn 22:38
I’m becoming completely obsessed with flexible packaging and the ease of recyclability of it, because it’s plastic. It goes in the bin. And I know everyone’s like, plastic, plastic, plastic.

Lindy Hughson 22:51
Oh, this is my pet subject.

Deborah Corn 22:53
Oh, really is in a good way.

Stephanie Gaddin 22:54
Oh, here we go

Deborah Corn 22:55
are you on the other side of this, or you are you

Lindy Hughson 22:57
in a good way.

Deborah Corn 22:58
Okay,

Lindy Hughson 22:59
I’m gonna tell you what’s happening, the developments, the advances that are happening here in this market for soft plastics. We call it soft plastics, yeah, yeah.

Deborah Corn 23:07
Okay, so I will let you go. I just want to say that the way I approach anything that I do is what is happening in the world, and how do people react? How do people handle things like, I’m always like, why can I order a pizza? And I know everything about it, but I order a piece of print and it goes into some black hole, and then I get a call, there’s a problem, you know, whatever it might be, but, um, yeah, please, uh, take take it away from from there.

Lindy Hughson 23:39
Let me take it away. Okay, so, I mean, we know flexible, flexible packaging format is from an LCA point of view, sometimes, definitely, most often,

Deborah Corn 23:51
What is LCA?

Lindy Hughson 23:54
Life cycle analysis, okay, so in terms so from a sustainability perspective, even though glass might be infinitely recycle, more recyclable and cans and all the rest, sometimes the plastic pouch is still the best choice,

Deborah Corn 24:10
thank you!

Lindy Hughson 24:11
Because it’s lightweight, because and especially now that Europe PPWR is mandating mono material, and it is making it possible to for that previously hard to recycled, multi laminate product now a mono material to be recycled more easily in both mechanical and chemical recycling streams.

And now we also have here in this market, a new enzymatic recycling option that’s that’s opening up. So we have for some time only been recycling very small amounts of soft plastics in this market, but exciting developments now, finally are coming to into play. We have. Of on the one hand, and a coordinated body that is organising for national curbside collection of people’s soft plastics, and also store wide collection. So you can either you can. You have some choices. It isn’t fully rolled out, but they are. We’re in high end of trials. We’re in the back end of the trial stage, we’ve got a mechanical recycling factory on stream that has proven to be able to recreate materials in different grades from that soft plastic, the original post consumer material, into plastic polymer that can be remanufactured back into packaging or into paving bricks or into shred that can be used for something else. So

Deborah Corn 25:51
asphalt, turn it into asphalt, put it in there.

Lindy Hughson 25:55
So mechanical recycling proven, and it can scale up. And we are, we are at an advanced stage, with chemical recycling facilities are being developed and built again. The difficulty is going to be to scale up, but feasibility studies are being done by big players like Viva Energy, which was Lionel basil. You probably know that company’s name, and we’ve got smaller scale, but still ability to scale up. We’ve got a facility that’s underway that should be on stream by next year, and then we’ve got a new facility that’s launched in enzymatic recycling, which is, I understand, it breaks right down to its basics. So we’ve got pyrolysis, on the one hand, with the chemical recycling, we’ve got the mechanical breaking down, but then there’s also enzymatic recycling, which is enough.

I think Australia’s leading is pioneering that. So I am very, very hopeful. Me too. I’m not saying that we have the answer right now, but they are able, we are now able to get back into collecting the material. Because before we were collecting it. It was, unfortunately, didn’t get it find its way to being recycled because of infrastructure capacity.

Deborah Corn 27:07
Misunderstandings too. There’s a lot of misunderstandings around there.

Lindy Hughson 27:11
But now I’m, I’m super hopeful about that we are taking like we’re moving forward now at pace,

Deborah Corn 27:17
and the sustainability story around flexible packaging is wide, starting with you can fit more in a box. You could fit more on a shelf. That means less stuff flying and driving and stocking shelves. You know, because you can, you can put more on it. And I can tell you in my grocery store, cucumbers come in flexible packaging. Now, I don’t know why, but I’m like, Oh, you do know why? Why? Why are they in a bag?

Lindy Hughson 27:54
Oh, well, I mean, they would be sorry, no, but no, no, I’ve never seen them in a pouch yet, but certainly always wrapped because they’re

Deborah Corn 28:05
we have, we have English cucumbers, we call them that are that are wrapped. Then we have the the regular cucumbers that just sit there and look like crazy, like giant pickles. But these things are cucumbers in a bag, five in a bag. I don’t know, peppers, potatoes in a bag. Everything’s coming in a bag. Now, yeah, fresh vegetables that you can microwave in the that you can microwave in the bag. I mean, I just look around me and I see flexible packaging everywhere.

Lindy Hughson 28:42
And there’s also, of course, the paper look alike, or the paper based, or the paper Correct, that’s coming, yes, flexible paper as well, coming through. And we’re seeing that in paper bags for potatoes, all printed on flexible lines. It’s incredible. But I think our time is up here with me.

Stephanie Gaddin 29:02
Yes, we’re coming through to the end of the segment

Deborah Corn 29:02
Why is there a time limit? She’s so mean

Stephanie Gaddin 29:06
They don’t! Lindy, you can stay on as long as you like. You gotta go. You got a deadline. I know

Deborah Corn 29:13
the conversation, but I

Stephanie Gaddin 29:15
That was fabulous. That was amazing. So I’m, I’m gonna say thank you so much for joining us. It was lovely to have you on speaking

Deborah Corn 29:23
good day, coming and going. Is that proper? Good day?

Lindy Hughson 29:27
Good day, yeah See ya later.

Stephanie Gaddin 29:31
See ya. Okay. Thank you. Okay.

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[Music] 29:46
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