Our society has developed a taste for the local, and it’s led to a paradigm shift within the packaging industry.

Normally, the packaging industry works within a vertically integrated system. This means companies often have the capacity to produce its own packaging in-house. On the surface, it doesn’t make sense to outsource this process. However, the “farm-to-table” movement has shaken up the industry in ways that are both exciting and innovative.

If you shop at a farmer’s market, belong to a “community supported agriculture” organization, or are a member of a food co-op, you’ve seen these changes for a while. Only over the past few years has this movement made its way to supermarkets. Consumers are moving away from industrial processed food in favor of organic, locally raised, and locally harvested foods. The benefits of mass production and economies of scale are less desirable when you need packaging that “gets” the market. Every micro-market requires that its packaging reflect the region’s demographics as well as its staple foods.

That’s why contract packaging manufacturers are now sought out by the larger food companies. They are more nimble and able manufacturer multiple smaller runs of custom packaging films tailor-made for each market. Moreover, the quantity of packaging is not the only issue. The desires of the new customer requires these packages reflect their belief system. Those that shop local typically want packaging that is minimal, sustainable, and more portable.

The production of the packaging must have less of an impact on the environment. That means less packaging for the product, more sustainable raw materials used in the process, and less waste throughout the production and transportation processes. Packaging engineers are constantly looking for materials that are better for the environment – it makes the product more appealing. Moreover, creating flexible and “lay-flat” packaging also reduces environmental saves money now; more packages can be shipped using less fuel. Beyond the financial benefits, which are substantial, this process also reduces the amount of carbon emitted.

Holistic approaches advocated for by the farm-to-table movement have integrated amongst most facets of the food industry. You will continue to see this influence within the packaging industry in ways that provide benefits – financially, environmentally, and healthwise – to our entire population.

DUNMORE Corporation is recognized in the 2016 edition of NASA’s Spinoff magazine for its ability to develop products that protect and allow spacecraft and satellites to operate in the rigorous environment of space. DUNMORE, a leading supplier of coated, laminated, and metalized films for more than 40 years, has served the aerospace industry since 1985, supporting scores of National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) space missions as well those of the European Space Agency and others around the world.

The NASA Spinoff publication explores technologies originally developed for space missions, and adapted for applications right here on earth. These technologies are expansive, from radial tires to baby formula, and in DUNMORE’s case, Spinoff technologies make up a large part of the company’s product offerings today. Aircraft materials and reflective insulation are product examples of the company’s collaboration with space exploration.

These cooperative developments have fundamentally changed DUNMORE into an industry leader in handling specialty films, foils and fabrics for technical applications. It let us to new markets entirely such as Photovoltaic backsheets and the films & foils used in the manufacturing of batteries.

Learn more about DUNMORE’s work with NASA and the aircraft applications in its Spinoff magazine article or read the full press release.

Since functional films are so important in day-to-day living, it’s no surprise that they’re also part of the most important meal of the year: Thanksgiving dinner. Here are a few ways functional films are vital to a few turkey day favorites.

The Turkey

You can’t just pop a turkey in the oven and expect it to come out juicy and delicious. It takes work, and that’s where the first functional film comes into play: the oven bag. The oven bag traps moisture and essentially bastes the bird for you. And let’s not forget, it makes cleanup a breeze. A critical challenge in this application is heat. To address this, the turkey bags are made of heat treated nylon or polyester film to withstand the temperature during the cooking process. While this requires some engineering, the larger concern when handling anything that comes in contact with food is safety. The FDA approved materials used for oven bag applications are free from toxins like BPA and plasticizers.

Green Bean Casserole

You may be wondering how functional films go into making green bean casserole. In fact, it starts with how the beans are actually grown. Green beans are often grown in greenhouses, especially in more metropolitan areas where the farm-to-table movement has gained ground. Greenhouses often use films and laminates to create the optimum control needed over light and radiation transmission. These films protect the vegetables grown inside — including the green beans you’ll enjoy at Thanksgiving — from contaminates. These materials also allow farmers to increase the length of the growing season for their crops, as well as locally grow vegetables that might not otherwise survive certain climates.

Delicious Pecan Pie

The ingredient in this dessert that uses films is the pecans. You like yours crunchy, right? Since they are typically delicate and often sensitive to the amount of humidity in the room, they need to be stored in a way that protects them. That is where the functional films come into play. They are used to create the vacuum-sealed bags that are used to store the pecans. These bags have been created to control the moisture, the oxygen, and the light allowed in the bag. This keeps your pecans fresh and ready to be made into your delicious pie.

Now that you see how engineered films are incorporated into common items found on your Thanksgiving table, where else do you see them used?

As a consumer, we often do not give much thought to the packaging used for our products. There is a whole industry and group of people who have a deep understanding of the design and engineering that goes into the development and production of packaging. Instead of taking a deep dive into the $800 billion global packaging industry, we are going to look at packaging from the shoppers perspective. The journey starts as a consumer walks down an aisle and ends when a product is used. There’s different functionalities needed at different parts of the journey. At a distance, when the products is being compared to competitive products on the shelf, up close when the customer handles the package and looks closely, and lastly when the customer opens the package.

At a distance, when products are being compared to competitive products on the shelf, visual appearance is paramount. As products fight for limited shelf space, packaging designers look for ways to attract the eye. Metallic packaging and bright colors are ways packaging engineers look to differentiate their product. In order to print on packaging film, a coating is applied to make the film printable. Based on the printing method used on the package or label, different chemistries must be used or developed. The packaging industry will continue to see new developments in printing methods and inks as companies continue to look for new ways to gain a competitive advantage on the store shelf.

Next, as the consumer picks up the package, the way the package feels becomes a factor in addition to sight. Is the package smooth or rough, does it feel like thin, cheap plastic, or does the material feel like it’s soft, but strong. The visual element is still relevant because poor graphic quality or illegible print lower the perceived quality but the takeaway here is that the sense of touch has an impact on perceived quality and is therefore a consideration for package engineers.

Our journey concludes with the customer opening and using the product. Believe it or not, there is great consideration given to how a package tears when you open it, after all, perceived quality diminishes if they can’t open the package or struggle and tear the package, spilling the contents. And let’s not forget the smell, touch and taste of the product. Protecting the product is obviously the primary reason for the packaging. The package must protect the contents from moisture, oxygen, contaminates and handling so that the product remains fresh. Barrier films and multi layer structures often add this functionality to many of the flexible packages prevalent on store shelves today.

The packaging industry, like most things, is a microcosm that often goes unnoticed by the casual observer.

Buildings have used reflective insulation since the eighties. Back then, the product was a foil-layer laminated to a bubble-layer similar to the familiar packaging material. Around 2006 a new ASTM burn test was developed to simulate a full room burn. The reflective insulation manufacturers, comprising about 10% of the insulation industry, realized that the foil / bubble product would not pass this new burn test and their market share would disappear altogether if they could not pass this critical test.

Foil based reflective insulation wouldn’t pass a full room burn test (or an improved tunnel burn test) because it would not quickly burn away from the flame. The material would remain in direct contact with the flame to the point of ignition.

The industry looked toward the past to engineer a solution for the future.

Going back to the late seventies, spacecraft used reflective insulation has for thermal protection. These constructions are slightly more complex, as you might imagine being for other-worldly applications, but are fundamentally the same. The spacecraft insulation consists of multiple reflective layers separated by non-conductive spacer material and assembled up to forty layers depending on the spacecraft operational environment.

Low-emittance (high reflectance) is the foundation of spacecraft insulation. Materials with low emittance reflect energy, heat, away from the structure. Or, they can also reflect heat back toward the structure to protect from the cold. The space industry has been using films for thermal protection for nearly three decades. Could space-age film materials be the solution here?

Yes! A brilliant company with spacecraft heritage engineered such a product. Film has been used as the reflective layer ever since and is used in all forms of reflective insulation from bubble to board and bulk.

Where should reflective insulation be used?

Reflective insulation can be used independently or in conjunction with mass insulation, like fiberglass. This increases the r-value of the bulk insulation by making it low-e (emittance). Thus, any structure using mass insulation can benefit from reflective technology. The benefit increases substantially the closer you get to the equator where radiant energy is more intense.

Furthermore, reflective insulation is ideal when there isn’t much space. Both bubble and board insulation are a fraction of the width of a bulk insulation system. In walls and other areas where space is limited, reflective insulation is often the best choice. The only thing reflective insulation needs to function is an adjacent air gap. The air absorbs the heat and acts as an insulator.

Why isn’t reflective insulation used more frequently?

The largest barrier for reflective insulation is the performance predictability. When an architect is designing a building there needs to be cost justifications, a calculated ROI. The number of variables and calculations for energy savings are complex, so architects rely on simulation models to calculate. Most of these programs do not take into account the value of the reflective insulation.

An example is the Energy Star Program. Their position is that the reflective surface has no value. Their quandary is not based on the product effectiveness, but rather the uncertainty on how to measure and predict savings. As a result, no reflective insulation product carries the Energy Star label.

Building shape, materials, air space and other variables play a part in calculating the r-value that can be achieved with a reflective product. Until the benefits of reflective technologies are incorporated into programs to calculate energy savings, the technology will never attain widespread adoption no matter the impact of the actual savings.

This is not a test…

DSCOVR’s primary mission objective is to monitor space weather and serve as an early warning system for a potential catastrophe caused by solar storms and coronal mass ejections (CME). CME’s interfere with modern electronics and communication infrastructure.

Solar storms can induce high electrical currents in utility power lines, potentially crippling large areas of the planet. Experts project an extreme solar storm could result in one to two trillion dollars damage and could require a decade for us to recover. DSCOVR is expected to provide an hour or more early warning of solar storms, giving those responsible for maintaining and protecting vulnerable technology the time needed to take appropriate action.

Credit: SOHO-EIT Consortium, ESA, NASA

The likelihood of one of these storms or a CME spewing extreme solar winds directly at Earth is low because of our planets tiny size in proportion to the Sun, however the more we rely on technology, the greater the risk of damaged infrastructure from a solar event.

What is DUNMORE doing to save the world as we know it? DUNMORE MLI Films and Polyimide Tapes Used to Protect Refurbished DSCOVR Satellite

Unlikely but not impossible

The Solar Super Storm of 1859 was caused by a direct CME impact to Earth’s magnetosphere. The storm wiped out the global telegraph system and was said to be so strong that it actually shocked the telegraph operators.

A storm of similar magnitude was recorded in 2012, but missed the Earth. If it had struck Earth directly, we may not been sent back to the middle ages but you can forget about Netflixing for the next 520 weekends.

Dunmore’s Roll-to-Roll smartphone app was rated as one of the Top 10 New Products for 2014 by Paper, Film & Foil Converter (PFFC) readers.

To determine the top ten new products, PFFC tallies click-troughs from its E-clips newsletter. Dunmore’s Roll-to-Roll Conversion calculator was fourth most popular.

The Roll-to-Roll Conversion Calculator includes a comprehensive list of conversions useful for label converters or professionals working with continuous web substrates. The free application conveniently places common calculators including, roll diameter, roll length, area, weight and more in one place. Details on the app and download instructions can be found on Dunmore’s website (http://www.dunmore.com/roll-to-roll/).

Since 1927, PFFC (http://www.pffc-online.com/) has provided an unbiased perspective on the business trends and technical innovations shaping the converting industry. PFFC is an on-line resource in which recognized experts and experienced staff assist converters around the world to become more efficient and profitable in their manufacturing and business practices.

DUNMORE continues to stress its commitment to quality control and speed to market, announcing the hiring of Julio Enriquez, PMP, MBA, to the position of Quality Systems Manager.

Julio brings years of impressive results and experience in corporate strategic and tactical planning, and full project life cycles. His expertise will further strengthen DUNMORE’s speed to market for quality contract coated, laminated and metalized films.

“Julio brings to our company a record of success and an innovative mind to the position of Quality Systems Manager,” said DUNMORE Director of Strategy and Systems, Diana Dunbar. “When you are a leader in the field of film technology, the last thing you want to do is be satisfied with status quo.”

Read the full release: DUNMORE Adds Quality Systems Manager to Increase Contract Manufacturing Speed to Market

Flexible modules offer benefits over traditional crystalline silicon rigid modules for flat rooftop applications. The longer thin film modules cover more area per module at a fraction of the weight. Additionally, flexible modules can be placed directly on the roof, eliminating the need for mounting racks, structural reinforcement and penetration. This design dramatically reduces installation material and labor costs. So despite, not quite reaching the efficiencies of wafer-based crystalline silicon cells per square inch, they can often offer better paybacks, or enable solar installations in places that can’t handle glass panels, such as light weight roofs, high wind areas, curved surfaces, etc.

The flexible design must have some backbone and be rigid enough to protect the PV cells from damage, the thin film technology can break if folded or bent at too sharp an angle. To support the thin film module foil can be laminated into the module construction. This allows the module the desired amount of flexibility but also provides enough rigidly to protect the photovoltaic cells, typically copper indium gallium selenide (CIGS), from mechanical damage.

Although foil adds structural support to flexible modules, there are other means to meet that requirement without the cost and material handling complexities of foil substrates. However, another issue with CIGS PV technology is its moisture sensitivity. Traditional rigid solar modules typically allow ~3g/m2 per day moisture transmission without affecting the module performance. Thin film modules, on the other hand, require a near 100% moisture barrier.

The foil laminate meets the requirements for moisture barrier and structural support, making it among the most advantageous substrates for flexible PV applications.

The landing of Rosetta’s lander Philae is a first for humankind. No man made object has ever soft-landed on a comet; sure we’ve smashed into them but it’s difficult to gather data post-collision. The Philae lander will gather information about the chemical composition of our early solar system. Like an insect inside amber, the ice and dust at the comet’s core has been preserved for nearly 5 billion years. Philae will attempt, with its many instruments, to analyze the chemical makeup of this remnant from the birth of our solar system.

As as a primary contractor for the Rosetta mission, Dunmore provided insulating materials that have protected mission-critical components and delicate electronics over a decade-long flight. Dunmore materials are used in the construction of multi-layer insulation (MLI) blankets; these blankets are the spacecraft’s primary thermal control system. Thermal protection was particularly important during Rosetta’s mission because the spacecraft had to power down for almost three years of its journey to conserve power. Read more about Dunmore’s role in the mission.