Conveying & Product Handling

German medical products maker bags new IV material

Serum-Werk Bernburg introduces IV bags for hospital use in a new structure that eliminates the need for an overwrap. New hf/f/s machines at a new plant fill medical solutions into the bags.

December 31, 1998

Leaders (UNIVERSAL TAXONOMY PFW): Page 513

Prepared & Canned Foods

Clinton serves up food safety

Food companies seem likely to face tighter scrutiny of how packaging is stored and used under proposals. New EPA testing could finger some materials.

December 31, 1998

Beverage

EPA caps VOCs in products

Manufacturers will be required to reformulate, repackage or retire some products. However, most national brands already comply.

December 31, 1998

Beverage

Supplier news: Domestic acquisitions, agreements

Honeywell Inc. (Freeport, IL) has executed an agreement to acquire Data Instruments Inc. (Acton, MA). The purchase is awaiting final government clearance.

December 31, 1998

Beverage

Label invites an escape to the islands

The new labels on bottles of Lemon Bay Virgin Island rum are as vibrant as the Virgin Islands themselves. Bottled for Owensboro, KY-based Barton Brands, Lemon Bay is a new citrus rum designed to compete with Bacardi Lim*n.

December 31, 1998

Beverage

Tropicana twists again

In April Tropicana Products of Bradenton, FL, will launch Tropicana Twister in a new 20-oz five-layer bottle made by Continental PET Technologies (Florence, KY).

December 31, 1998

Beverage

In brief

FDA has granted citrus juice processors an eight-month extension (ending July 8, 1999) to comply with a requirement to put warning labels on unpasteurized juiceso/ooThe Center for Science in the Public Interest petitioned FDA to either ban or require specific label disclosures for the food colorings cochineal extract and carmine that can cause severe allergic reactions.

December 31, 1998

Beverage

Gallo gets shapely

Two new bottle shapes from Ernest & Julio Gallo of Modesto, CA, are shaking things up in the retail wine rack. The brands involved are Gossamer Bay and Ernest & Julio Gallo.

November 30, 1998

Prepared & Canned Foods

Brewers pouring into plastic

Brewers around the world have been on the fence about plastic bottles. Suddenly they're commercializing a variety of plastic barrier structures.

November 30, 1998

Beverage

Miller's plastic beer bottle solves first of three marketplace puzzles

Those of us who thought Anheuser-Busch would be the first American brewer to market beer in plastic bottles at retail were surprised when, in early November, A-B turned out to be no more than a very interested observer as Miller Brewing Co., Milwaukee, WI, commercially introduced three beers in unique, five-layer, oxygen-scavenging plastic bottles from Owens-Illinois' Continental PET Technologies, Inc.

November 30, 1998

Prepared & Canned Foods

'Combo' pack puts Tropical Cheese at ease

Checkweigher and metal detector combine to reduce giveaway and help enhance quality control for this maker of natural cheeses marketed to retail and foodservice accounts.

November 30, 1998

Conveying & Product Handling

Equipment brews benefits for Anheuser-Busch

From depalletizing to shipping, nearly identical packaging equipment on two new lines boosts efficiency at the brewer's Houston, TX, plant.

November 30, 1998

Conveying & Product Handling

Equipment brews benefits for Anheuser-Busch (sidebar)

Putting the wraps on A-B's lines

November 30, 1998