Sean Riley: Hi and welcome to the End of the Line video podcast, where the editors here at PMMI Media Group come together every week or so. Once in a while we're out and about and don't get to it, but this week we have a full house.
We have five of us today. As always, we have Liz Cuneo from Healthcare Packaging, Matt Reynolds from Packaging World, Derrick Teal from ProFood World, and joining us is Casey Flanagan from ProFood World, who also pinch hits for many of our other publications.
Since we have four guys, the proper thing to do would be to start with ladies first. Liz, what's happening this week?
Liz Cuneo: Thank you, Sean. I don't know if anyone else is feeling the summer slowdown a little bit. News is a little lighter, emails are a little lighter, so I'm not complaining. We only get so much summer.
One thing we did a post about, and that I've been talking to a few people in the industry about, is SnapSlide. We've covered it in the past. It's a one-handed prescription bottle. Most prescription bottles require two hands—you have to push down, twist, hold the bottle, and so on. SnapSlide has a pretty cool one-handed design made for people with limited dexterity.
While the bottle itself isn't new, what is new is that a few pharmacies have officially started using them. It's pretty neat to see. They've gotten really good user feedback. These are small, local pharmacies in Pennsylvania, actually, so shout out to Pennsylvania.
People are really liking it—not just people with dexterity issues, but people without dexterity limitations as well. Nearly 90% of consumers prefer SnapSlide to conventional prescription vial closures, and that's across both groups.
It's kind of a cool thing to see. In the interview I did with one of the pharmacy owners, they mentioned there's been very little innovation in the pharmacy bottle over the last 50 years. Maybe it's one of those things where it works, so why change it? But it's interesting to see something new in that space.
Matt Reynolds: We've been following inclusive packaging more broadly. Whether it's the guidelines from the Arthritis Foundation and Target or other initiatives, the drumbeat we hear over and over is that it's not just for people who are otherwise excluded. It's actually improving packaging design for everybody.
It becomes a single package design for everyone—a universal design. You'll hear the folks at PTIS talk about universal design instead of designing specifically for individuals with certain needs or disabilities. So it's really interesting to hear that even those without disabilities are really liking the design because it makes life easier for them, too.
Liz: Yeah, it's cool. And I have to say, it is still child resistant.
Sean: That was my question.
Liz: Yeah, because it kind of sounds too easy. But they assured me it still meets child-resistant requirements and tamper-evidence regulations. So it still has all of those safety features in place while also being operable with one hand.
Sean: Beautiful. Matt, you stepped in there, and it looks gorgeous where you are, so why don't you bring us up to speed on what you're working on?
Matt Reynolds: I am in sometimes—or let's say infrequently—sunny northern Wisconsin. It looks like there are skiers behind me, so I hope to be joining them in a few hours, but not quite yet.
I'm keeping an eye on something that's been brewing for a long time but is finally coming to a head. The National Association of Wholesaler-Distributors (NAW), which is essentially the connective tissue between brand owners and retailers, is involved in litigation challenging Oregon's extended producer responsibility (EPR) law. The trial starts next week.
They're challenging it on two fronts. One is a due process argument—that a governmental function should be carried out by a government entity rather than by a private nonprofit like the Circular Action Alliance (CAA), which includes companies like Kraft Heinz, Procter & Gamble, PepsiCo, and others. The idea behind CAA is to keep industry aligned instead of having 50 different state-by-state systems.
NAW is considered a producer under Oregon's EPR law, even though you wouldn't necessarily think of a distributor as a producer. They often have their own private-label brands, and they're also responsible for secondary and tertiary packaging—cases, cartons, pallets—that enter states like Oregon.
One argument is that producers shouldn't be delegating what should be a governmental responsibility to private organizations that could have financial interests.
The second argument involves the Dormant Commerce Clause, claiming the law places an undue burden on interstate commerce. Essentially, they're weighing the benefits of improving Oregon's recycling infrastructure against the costs imposed on companies outside the state that ship products into Oregon.
I'm not a lawyer, and I probably got some of the terminology wrong. The extent of my legal education comes from my wife's frequent viewing of Law & Order: SVU. But I know a lot of brand owners are watching this closely because it could either become the first crack in EPR's armor or reinforce and validate the momentum behind these programs.
Sean: It's interesting because when all the EPR stuff started, I thought there would be more legal pushback than there was. Whenever money is involved, there's usually legal pushback. I'm surprised it took this long for someone to step up and challenge it.
Matt: I think the issue is that, by design, brand owners have generally been on board with EPR. It's sort of an "if you can't beat them, join them" mentality. I also suspect—and this is just my opinion—that they don't want the negative press associated with fighting recycling initiatives.
I think there's also some genuine altruism. Many companies do want to create a circular economy. Rather than turning it into a legal battle between major CPG companies and individual states, brand owners got involved early to help shape a system that industry could help manage.
That's why CAA is a private nonprofit governed by companies like PepsiCo, Procter & Gamble, and Kraft Heinz. They're able to have some control over how the system develops. Organizations like NAW, however, may feel they don't have a seat at the table even though they're classified as producers and have to pay into the system—despite operating on even smaller margins than many CPG companies.
I think that's why we didn't initially see legal challenges from brand owners themselves. Instead, we're seeing it from the organizations that connect the supply chain.
Again, I don't have a dog in the fight. I'm just laying out what I'm seeing, and I'm interested to see what happens next week.
Sean: Very cool. Fascinating stuff. Now I've got to choose between two ProFood World people. I want to hear about humanoid robots. That's why I busted out the Transformers earlier.
Casey Flanagan: Absolutely. That really is a perfect example of sci-fi coming to life.
I picked up some interesting insights on humanoid robots from the Automate show, specifically the Humanoid Robot Forum they hosted there. They also had an expo, so there was a lot happening around this technology.
One major theme that kept coming up was safety. That's both one of the biggest barriers to humanoid robots in industry and the biggest challenge to solve if companies want to bring them into factories.
One interesting point was safety for something that can move around the facility. With a traditional industrial robot, you're usually focused on one work cell and one task. But a humanoid robot moves from station to station and task to task.
NVIDIA announced a collaboration with Agility Robotics around its Halos for Robotics system, which is the industry's first full-stack open robotics safety system. As I understand it, they're adapting the safety technology originally developed for autonomous vehicles and applying it to robots.
The important part is that the safety system is onboard the humanoid robot itself. Rather than focusing on individual work cells, the robot carries its safety decision-making with it as it moves through the factory.
Agility Robotics is the first company to incorporate elements of that system into its Digit humanoid robot. It's really interesting to see how they're addressing the challenge of keeping a moving robot continuously safe.
Another major discussion was legs versus wheels.
Right now, legs are still a ways off because safety standards haven't fully caught up. Many early adopters may actually start with wheeled humanoid robots because there are already established safety standards around autonomous mobile robots.
Wheels work well on flat factory floors and are simply a more familiar starting point.
One of the speakers from Apptronik explained that legs still offer advantages for navigating stairs, gravel, and uneven surfaces. He also pointed out the benefit of full-body mobility. He demonstrated how a person can kneel down, pick something up, and maintain a relatively small footprint while doing so. Legs allow for more dynamic movements.
But before bipedal humanoid robots become commonplace, there will need to be a lot more testing, data, and safety standards. After all, you're talking about a 100- to 200-pound machine that could potentially fall over.
That was reflected on the expo floor as well. Most of what I saw were wheeled robots. The few full-size bipedal robots were either being guided by a person holding a handle behind them or were operating inside safety cages. That tells you the industry isn't quite ready to have those machines freely operating next to people.
Matt: It's interesting that we're willing to get into Waymos—1,000- to 2,000-pound autonomous vehicles traveling 60 miles per hour—but we're hesitant about a 100- to 200-pound robot walking around a factory.
It seems like an interesting difference in what kinds of risk we're willing to accept. It's also interesting that NVIDIA is leveraging technology originally developed for autonomous vehicles.
Casey: That's a good point. One thing they mentioned is that industry will probably be the first frontier before humanoid robots eventually make their way into homes.
Factories are already environments where people work around heavy machinery, so workers understand those risks. That doesn't mean companies are ready to deploy humanoid robots everywhere today, but it explains why manufacturing is likely to be the first place where they're adopted.
Sean: Derrick, was that enough humanoid robots for you?
Derrick Teal: Oh no, now we're just getting started.
I know how hard it is to get one of these little guys to stand up straight, so I can't imagine 200 pounds of metal walking around next to me.
Is it gyroscopes that keep them upright, Casey?
Casey: Good question. I don't know for sure. I know there are a lot of vision systems involved for manipulating objects with the hands, but I'm not certain exactly what keeps them balanced from step to step.
Sean: They're cool to see.
Derrick, I don't want to call them toys—that's probably the wrong word—but your Transformers always seem to be nearby whenever we're on a call.
Derrick: Yeah, this guy right here is the original. He's probably older than Casey. Maybe older than you too, Liz.
Liz: Is that Optimus Prime?
Derrick: No, that's Jetfire. Some people call him Skyfire from the cartoon.
The reason they're always nearby is because my boys and I each have one. There are three of them: Skywarp, Starscream, and Thundercracker. I've got Skywarp. My oldest has Starscream, and my youngest has Thundercracker.
We keep them on our desks as reminders of each other.
Sean: Love that.
Derrick: Yeah, and today Jetfire needed somebody to fight, so I brought him out. Plus, they're perfect props whenever we're talking about humanoid robots.
So, something else I wanted to mention—I was disappointed we didn't record last week because right before we usually film these, I got a pretty interesting news item from Mars Petcare.
We've talked before about knowing your vendors and properly vetting incoming materials. Mars Petcare had almost the opposite problem. Through its own food safety protocols, it identified foreign contaminants in some lots of Pedigree canned dog food. They decided those products should be destroyed and sent them to a third party for disposal.
Somehow, those products ended up back on store shelves.
There's clearly some kind of food fraud—or perhaps human error—going on there. It doesn't directly relate to manufacturing, but it's another reminder that you really have to be careful throughout the supply chain.
I'm not saying the third party was necessarily at fault because they're still investigating, but I was amazed that products intended for destruction somehow made it back into commerce.
Reading the press release, it wasn't especially strong in its wording, but I almost felt apologetic just reading it. You know how one dog gets scolded and the other dog cowers even though it didn't do anything wrong? That's kind of how I felt reading it.
I don't think I've ever received a press release quite like that.
Matt: By putting those products back into circulation, imagine how much food waste they prevented.
Derrick: That's certainly one way to look at it.
Matt: It doesn't matter if any animals were harmed, but hey—we prevented food waste.
Derrick: Fortunately, there haven't been any reports of animals getting sick. It was only a couple of lots.
The system actually worked. They caught the issue. Somehow, though, whether through human error or something more intentional, those products still ended up on store shelves.
Matt: I do wonder how often we attribute things to bad actors when they're really just human error.
Derrick: Yeah, that's why I hesitate to jump to conclusions.
Sean: Interesting. Well, I think we've covered a lot today. We don't want to keep everyone too long. Derrick has toys to play with.
Derrick: That's right.
Sean: Matt has fishing to do.
Matt: Yep.
Sean: Liz has houses to look at.
Casey, I don't know what you and I are up to, but we'll find something.
So, with that in mind, thank you everyone for taking time out of your day to join us for End of the Line. Be sure to check us out again next week. Bye, everyone.
All: Thanks, everyone.
