Creating the right packaging is key for MeadWestvaco

t's a ubiquitous part of the modern consumer economy, but packaging often isn't as simple as it looks.

A lot of science and engineering go into making the packages that protect, preserve and promote the foods, beverages, pharmaceuticals and other products we buy.

Some of that high-tech research is happening now at MeadWestvaco Corp.'s Richmond headquarters.

The glassy, nine-story addition to the downtown skyline that opened in late 2009 is much more than an office building. MeadWestvaco has outfitted almost two floors of the building to serve as its Center for Packaging Innovation, a research and development unit the company relocated to Richmond from Raleigh, N.C., last year.

The center, which includes a 30,000-square-foot laboratory, uses tools including climate-controlled rooms and electron microscopes to study packaging materials.

It has a staff that includes polymer chemists, paper scientists, mechanical engineers, chemical engineers and packaging scientists who work on projects that can take anywhere from a few days to several years to complete.

It's a key business strategy for MeadWestvaco, a Fortune 500 company and one of the Richmond area's largest private employers.

The company has shifted its emphasis in recent years from commodity products to working with some of the world's biggest retailers and consumer products makers on projects that have included everything from building a better soft-drink container to developing a safer, more efficacious dispenser for medications.

"In many cases, the (consumer product) companies are very focused on the product itself — what is inside the package, and most of their research dollars are directed at improving that," said Alex Cedeno, MeadWestvaco's vice president for global innovation.

"But when a consumer buys what is on the shelf, they don't just buy what is inside — they buy what is inside and the package, and the way the package interacts with the product," he said.

"We are never going to be as good as Kraft or P&G at understanding how to make better detergent or mayonnaise," Cedeno said. "But what we aspire to, and what we are succeeding at, is developing specific expertise on how packaging can enhance that first moment of truth."

That's the moment when consumers make a decision about what to buy, a moment highly influenced by the design, appearance and quality of the packaging. Once the product is bought, the consumer's experience with the package is key.

For example, MeadWestvaco has worked on ways to eliminate the so-called "wrap rage" that occurs when a product's secure packaging makes it too hard to open.

Sustainability also is a key issue, as more consumers expect packaging to be environmentally friendly without adding to the price. "How does (a package) go into the waste stream, or into recycling?" Cedeno said.

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MeadWestvaco moved the center from Raleigh to Richmond to bring its research and development under the same roof with its other business units, managers said.

"It makes a lot of sense to have that innovation organization co-located with the other businesses and the (company) leadership," Cedeno said.

The company also moved part of its packing innovation work into a 48,000-square-foot, leased building in eastern Henrico County that researches products closer to the manufacturing stage, performing tests that could not be done in a downtown office.

In the downtown center, some of the research is done at the microscopic level, using procedures such as infrared spectroscopy.

For example, the company studies how to improve the oxygen barriers in packaging materials to improve freshness in food products. The lab also is equipped with a "Jungle Chamber," a room kept at 100 degrees Fahrenheit and 80 percent humidity to test how different types of packaging hold up in extreme climate conditions.

MeadWestvaco has been working to develop packaging innovations for a long time.

The company played a key role in bringing the flip-top cigarette box to widespread market use.

It also has worked closely with customers such as Coca-Cola to develop beverage packaging that helped to popularize the FridgeMaster soft-drink dispenser package — a carton designed to slide into a refrigerator and tear open along a perforation on one side for ease in grabbing a single drink can.

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One of the company's biggest projects in recent years on the packaging front has been working as part of a joint venture to develop packaging for Walmart's generic prescription drugs program.

Walmart started the program in 2006, offering 30-day supplies of generic prescription drugs for $4.

As part of the program, the world's largest retailer wanted to use packaging that could be mass-produced to fill millions of prescriptions monthly in a cost-effective way, said Ted Lithgow, MeadWestvaco's chief science officer for health care.

MeadWestvaco's solution was its Shellpak adherence packaging, a type of injection-molded package with an outer shell designed to be child-resistant but easy for the elderly to open. The shell protects the drug tablets inside, which are packaged in a 30-day calendar blister card designed to be easy for the consumer to understand.

"Not only did we develop the package, but we developed the machinery that makes the package," Lithgow said.

Walmart is using the Shellpak packaging for 13 medications and 41 dosage levels at its pharmacies. Kroger grocery chain also is testing the packaging for five medications at its stores nationally.

While traditional pill vials remain the dominant way that pharmaceuticals are sold at pharmacies, MeadWestvaco has been promoting Shellpak as a way to cut health-care costs by reducing the estimated $290 billion annual cost of patients failing to take their prescriptions properly.

The company has been promoting a research study published this year in the journal Clinical Therapeutics.

The study indicated that the way medication is packaged can have a significant impact on whether patients take it as prescribed. It showed that Shellpak was associated with improvements in patients adhering to their medication plans when compared with traditional pill vials.

The study indicates that by switching to adherence packaging, "you can have a pretty sizable impact on the cost of health care," Lithgow said.

Shellpak prescriptions are packaged by pharmaceutical companies or their suppliers before being shipped to stores, which means pharmacists have to spend less time preparing the prescriptions and can spend more time interacting with customers, Lithgow said. "It is a pretty significant time savings for pharmacists," he said.

The company also is continuing research on how to reduce the environmental impact of the packaging by making it more biodegradable, for example.

"For us, it is constantly about how do we improve the product, make it better and reduce cost," Lithgow said.

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MeadWestvaco's Natralock packaging was born out of a need to balance retailers' security needs, consumer demands for easy-to-open packaging, and a desire to reduce energy consumption.

The packaging was designed as an alternative to traditional clamshell packaging, which is used to help prevent theft in the store and to protect the product.

Natralock was designed to preserve the anti-theft qualities of plastic shell packages, but to be easier to open with scissors once the consumer takes the product home.

With Natralock, "we have eliminated the 'wrap rage' problem," said Christopher Costa, director of product management and packaging for the U.S. subsidiary of Switzerland-based Victorinox, which makes Swiss Army Knives and other types of cutlery.

The company switched to Natralock for its knives and some other products because it needed to meet retailers' security demands, but it also wanted to offer a lighter and easier-to-open package.

"Now we have 80 percent less plastic material" in the packaging, Costa said. "And we use 20 percent less energy to seal the product during a packaging run. It is 25 percent lighter and takes up less space."

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In its research and development, the company must serve several masters. First, there are the product manufacturers who have their own standards and packaging needs, then the retailers who have expectations and demands about what goes on their shelves.

And then there is the end user — the customers who buy the products.

"We are working on projects that impact the retailers by, for example, making it easier to restock their shelves, and making it easier for consumers to shop a (product) category by giving them a better organization of the various offerings on the shelf," Cedeno said.

"Then we are doing projects that are more consumer insights-based," he said. "We actually will go to the end users — the consumers — and learn about their experiences and frustrations, for example, with frozen foods. What is working and not working? What leads to spoilage?

"It is really identifying an unmet consumer need and trying to invent, whether it is by design or materials, a solution that improves that consumer experience."