IDFA recently recognized Amcor for upgrading its membership to Gold Business Partner. Amcor is a global leader in developing and producing responsible packaging for food, beverage, pharmaceutical, medical, home- and personal-care, and other products.
The company’s roots began in the dairy space, and it continues its commitment to grow and innovate in the dairy industry today. Amcor offers cheese and dairy manufacturers a full product portfolio across rigid and flexible dairy packaging, meeting the needs of retail, bulk and foodservice customers.
Amcor
Company Website: www.amcor.com
Contact Info
Amcor Rigid Packaging North America Contact Info
Terry Madden
Business Development, Dairy
517-416-5360
terry.madden@amcor.com
Amcor Flexibles North America Contact Info
John Kearney
Marketing Director, Dairy
562-756-7936
John.Kearny@Amcor.com
Product Offerings
Amcor is proud to be a total solutions provider in all aspects of dairy, from cheese and cultured to aseptic and ESL fluid products.
“Amcor’s portfolio provides greater flexibility to our customers,” says John Kearny, market manager, dairy, Amcor. “With our wide range of standard products, we can offer 3-week lead times to our customers. Along with our technology and product quality, we feel this level of responsiveness will enable us to support our customers at the highest level in the industry.
Kearny notes Amcor’s cheese portfolio includes products for specialty cheese applications as well, including cheese foils with easy opening and paraffin-free paper-based packaging.
Amcor’s product applications span a range of cheese styles as well as other dairy products.
The company offers flow wrap, forming and non-forming films for chunk, sliced and crumbled cheese, as well as vertical and horizontal form-fill-seal options for shredded and cubed cheese.
With continued growth in the snacking segment, Amcor offers flow wrap, forming and non-forming, lidding films and trays, as well as overwrap and innerwrap for individually wrapped singles. The company also offers solutions for bulk shredded cheese and natural and processed loaf and sliced cheese, including films, shrink bags, wax and non-wax offerings.
In addition, the company provides form-fill-seal cups and lidding films for creamers and yogurt.
In the fluid dairy space Amcor has assembled a team of dairy experts ready to assist manufacturers with end to end solutions to reduce costs and optimize production. Terry Madden, Business Development Manager for Dairy notes that the dairy processing space is changing as technologies are introduced. “We believe that focusing on the package without looking at the process holistically does not address the challenges faced by manufacturers and processors daily. The industry is changing and Amcor offers aseptic/ESL processing and packaging expertise to help our customers optimize their systems”.
Amcor Rigid Packaging offers PET bottles and preforms in the sizes and profiles needed for successful application in the dairy space. These include various finish configurations and barrier applications to maximize shelf life in the aspetic and ESL space. Also, with our flexibles team and joint venture partner Bericap, Amcor can offer a one stop solution for bottle, label/shrink sleeve, and cap.
“Amcor’s model is to work with our customers and act as a part of their team. With plant manpower resources sometime hard to find, Amcor can help bridge gaps for our customers with our dairy team. Amcor doesn’t want to be a vendor, we want to be a partner” said Madden.
Amcor also offers customers a Flexibles Innovation Center in Wisconsin and a Rigid Packaging Innovation Center in Michigan to accelerate packaging ideas through collaboration, prototyping and hands-on research.
“We have one of the greatest collections of polymers scientists in the industry,” Barr adds. “The Innovation Centers are a great resource for our customers and end users.”
Sustainable solutions
Amcor is the first global packaging company pledging to develop all its packaging to be recyclable or reusable by 2025. The company also is committed to significantly increasing its use of recycled materials.
“We’re making strong progress against this ambitious goal and are developing and working on innovative initiatives across the business,” Betker says.
“We’re very proud to be the first company out there to make this pledge,” Kearny says, adding the company wants to be able to create products that perform well in its customers’ facilities and drive sustainable solutions.
Kearny says it is important for the industry to provide responsible stewardship for the planet’s resources, and Amcor is in a leadership position with the scope of resources that it is deploying to address this challenge.
“If your company is trying to figure out how to implement sustainable solutions, there are a number of options that can be acted on before moving to a recyclable or reusable package,” Betker adds. “These include optimizing pack sizes to reduce food waste, using higher performance packaging films to reduce leakage rates, increasing shelf life and providing high abuse resistance to reduce waste and improve efficiencies, or using less material through light weighting while still maintaining key performance attributes.”
Moving with the market
As consumer preferences change, it’s important for Amcor to understand how its packaging can fit into the evolving consumer lifestyle, Kearny says, noting the company is focusing on differentiation on the shelf.
“Our customers face challenges every day, but our high performance materials allow them to run faster and drive opportunity in the market. We want to help everyone be profitable,” he says.
Amcor’s size and scope allows it to offer resources competitors may not have, it was added.
“The opportunity lies with increasing the usage of cheese, particularly during snacking occasions,” Kearny says. “More than 50% of consumers say that packaging influences their snacking decisions as convenient on-the-go and minimal prep or clean up formats are key. With our broad offering, we can collaboratively find a solution that meets our customers’ operational and market needs.”
He adds that as the consumer base evolves with various generations, packaging options need to satisfy all of them.
“We have great people and a great culture that wants to see our customers succeed,” he says. “We’re out there fighting for the dairy business and its growth in the marketplace.”