Speaker: Don't let caps get in the way of the product

ITASCA, ILL. — Most of us have struggled to squeeze out the last few drops from a packaged consumer good. But did you know that 60 percent of consumers admit they made a mess? Or 18 percent reported farting noises from their bottles?

Sal Pellingra knows.

Consumers hate wasting products they buy more than going to the dentist, he said at the Plastics Caps & Closures Conference.

Pellingra is vice president of Ampac, based in Cincinnati, which merged with Prolamina Corp. when Wellspring Capital Management LLC bought Ampac earlier this year. He entertained cap conference attendees with some revealing statistics from research by LiquiGlide Inc., which develops surfaces that permanently slippery.

Slippery surfaces are needed for ketchup. For hand cream. Lots of products. Waste turns people off: money down the tubes, dumped onto the environment. Nearly 40 percent of consumers said they would not quit until they get every last drop. And 60 percent would spend more than a few minutes scraping and squeezing it out.

At the caps conference, Pellingra tag-teamed with Alex Hoffer, who told the story of Hoffer Plastics Corp.'s Trust-T-Lok closure for pouches.

Pellingra said people go to great lengths to get it all. Eighty-four percent store bottles upside down, 68 percent say they added water and 61 percent resort to cutting the container open. How many got injured to get that final bit? Thirteen percent.

Pellingra said nearly six in 10 admit making a mess. And 31 percent have slopped product all over themselves. He got a big laugh when he said that another 18 percent reported their bottles made farting noises when getting it all out.

Toothpaste and lotion are the worst offenders, he said.

And the key statistic: the overwhelming majority said they would try new products that they could get everything out of the package.

Hoffer rolled out the Tust-T-Lok in 2012 to enter the tamper-evident category, Alex Hoffer said. The closure is big and wide, and a white line appears when you open it. It also makes an audible locking sound when it opens and closes.

“To date, we've shipped over 300 million of those closure assemblies,” he said.

Hoffer is a custom injection molder based in South Elgin, Ill.

The closure got on baby food, which has moved to pouches. “Now you're starting to see older children start to accept it, but also young adults too,” Hoffer said. “That is changing the requirements for those of us in the supply chain.”

Hoffer, vice president of business development, said pouches need to be easy to open, for use by passengers in cars. “Don't text and drive, don't de-cap and drive” he joked. For lunch boxes, “Make it easy so the lunch lady doesn't have to open it.”

The company is seeing new opportunities in dosing requirements for packaging, he said. Dosing is becoming more popular in larger types of packaging, such as for detergent and edible oils. Pouches for oil for your car?

And food companies are getting into pouches. Hoffer cited YumButter peanut butter, which is starting from day one in pouches.