Innovative packaging materials and concepts give new and established products greater functionality, sustainability, shelf life and shelf impact.

If market share numbers are indicative of trade show attendance, 27,000 packaging machinery buyers from food and beverage companies prowled the aisles at the 2012 PACK EXPO event, and they had the kind of checkbook balances that make equipment fabricators’ eyes water.

Survival of the fittest applies to packaging systems, too, and pulsed UV light is the apparent winner of the nonchemical sterilization competition for food containers.