Kickstart: Holy guacamole, science is cool

You may have heard that leaving the pit in an avocado once it's cut open is a way to keep the flesh from turning brown. Now a study from Spanish research group Aimplas is asking: What if you used that pit in the packaging for guacamole to preserve it?

ITC Packaging and the Universidad de Alicante also are involved in the "Guacapack" project funded by the Valencian Innovation Agency that hopes to extend guacamole's shelf life by 15 percent while also using parts of the avocado that ordinarily go to waste. (The edible parts of an avocado make up a little more than half of the fruit, by weight.)

"Starch from the avocado seed will be extracted and purified to obtain a film that can be used to make multilayer IML labels that have oxygen barrier properties and prevent the oxidation of food," Aimplas said in an April 14 news release.

In addition, the avocado skin can go into bioplastics to injection mold the package.

I think I can safely say for every guac lover, this sounds like an awesome project.

News reports say medical products company Medline Industries is considering options for its future, which could include an initial public offering or a leveraged buyout.

Medline, based in Northfield, Ill., is the largest privately held medical supplier in the U.S., with annual sales of more than $17 billion. Joe Cahill, a reporter at our sister paper Crain's Chicago Business, warns that an LBO could be disastrous for the company and a medical supply line struggling to reconfigure itself during COVID-19.

"To prevent similar problems in future pandemics, companies need to boost inventories and add domestic manufacturing capabilities. Medline, for example, added capacity at a face-mask plant in Georgia and ramped up production of hand sanitizer in Wisconsin," Cahill writes. "Trouble is, inventory and factories take up space on corporate balance sheets, crimping returns. That's why many companies slashed inventories and outsourced production in the first place."

In a leveraged buyout, acquired companies are saddled with new debt, which could slow investments in production.

"At a medical products supplier like Medline, pressure to pay down buyout debt could encourage more outsourcing and inventory reductions, exacerbating the supply chain flaws revealed in the fight against COVID," Cahill wrote.

Excuse me while I brag on Plastics News' editorial crew for a moment.

Hopefully you had a chance to read Rebecca Kanthor's story on attending the first day of Chinaplas 2021 — the first major plastics trade show of the COVID pandemic.

We take a lot of pride here at PN on bringing you not just reheated press releases, but coverage with context and, when possible, on-the-ground reporting.

Rebecca lives in China and has been a correspondent for PN for nine years. Her presence meant we could bring you more than just the attendance numbers from organizers. How about this image from the show:

"Li HuaDa, general manager of Taizhou Datang Mould Ltd., sat in a nearly empty booth with his sales manager and wife. 'This year it doesn't feel like an international event,' he bemoaned. 'There used to be so many foreign visitors. I hope tomorrow there will be more people.'"

It's not just China, of course. Stephen Downer has been our correspondent in Mexico since 1989. Coverage of the shutdown of Braskem Idesa's massive polyethylene plant there due to a conflict with government supply lines? That was from him.

We also coordinate coverage with our sister publications Europe, and we have correspondents elsewhere throughout the globe to help us track what's happening and bring it to you.

OK, bragging done. But seriously, keep an eye out for Rebecca's Chinaplas coverage, both what's already online and what's coming.