Packaging companies increased capacity, shifted quickly as pandemic spread

Packaging manufacturers began the year with business as usual, but about two months into 2020, when the coronavirus pandemic swept across the globe, many had a mad dash to expand production or create new products.

Film and sheet extruders dove into making face shields and personal protective equipment for consumers to fight the pandemic. Others jumped to expand capacity to meet demand for highly sought-after disinfectant wipes, both for the cannister and the nonwoven fabric within.

Richmond, Ind.-based Primex Plastics Corp. is most known for producing returnable packaging for the automotive industry. When auto companies essentially came to a halt at the height of the pandemic in the spring, Primex was able to quickly switch to make PPE and more.

The idea transpired on a Sunday evening when Business Director Doug Borgsdorf's 16-year-old son came downstairs and said, "Dad, you have to make face shields. Turn on the news; they need face shields."

Borgsdorf said, "OK, I make boxes," but that did get him thinking and quickly he and his son, Andrew, cobbled together a mock design that the Primex team later fine-tuned to make face shields.

The local hospital, Reid Health, was in dire need of a shield and came to Primex and signed off on a design within just a few hours of negotiating.

"Off we went to the racetrack," he said.

The first delivery of PPE to the hospital received a police escort, a sign that Borgsdorf said pointed to their small, blue-collar community working together.

Packaging giant Berry Global Group Inc. made similar quick moves — in its case, the nonwoven fabric sector, said Mark Siebert, executive vice president and general manager for health, hygiene and specialties in North America.

"I would say there's been a fundamental change, specifically for us in health, hygiene and specialties," he said. "We've shifted asset capability to support health care products made from nonwovens in face masks, surgical gowns, isolation units, filtration and hard-surface disinfecting wipes."

The company has seen "explosive" growths in those areas as hospitals and medical centers scrambled to provide PPE for its doctors, nurses and support staff fighting the pandemic across the globe, he said.

The polypropylene resin used for the three-layer material typically used in N95 masks, which are considered the best masks for filtration to ward off infection of the virus, has been a difficult resin to source for some.

"It's no secret the market has been tight," he said, "but that's where our scale is an advantage: We haven't had a supply issue and we don't anticipate one."

A lighter grade of the meltblown fabric being produced in Europe and Berry plants in China quickly shifted to bridge the supply gap. An additional four facilities dedicated to meltblown fabrics would make up to 1 billion masks annually. The face masks initially were for Berry's 43,000-plus employees around the world, dedicated customers and later customers with similar needs.

Berry announced Oct. 8 it will be investing in new equipment to increase capacity at its Nanhai, China, facility to serve a growing Asian market. The company will implement a Reicofil R5 to further manufacture nonwoven materials for health care, slated to start up in September 2022.

Comar LLC, a New Jersey-based packaging, device and component molder, has found itself at an integral position as disinfectant wipes came flying off of consumer shelves at the height of the pandemic.

Comar manufactures disinfectant wipe containers — including the injection-molded lid and extruded bin — for a variety of leading brands.

Former Clorox CEO Benno Dorer said earlier this year the brand's disinfectant wipes will be facing a shortage until 2021.

And while the shortages are primarily because of materials that go into the nonwoven wipes, Scott Conklin, Comar executive vice president of sales and marketing, said their part of the product was also a contributing factor to the overall market shortage.

"We made strategic decisions to make sure COVID items were prioritized in our plants and looked to improve asset utilization and equipment, increasing yield and output," he said. "That could only get us so far; demand was far in excess of what that could get us."

The company quickly invested in several additional machines to secure additional square footage for production, which can often take about six months for installation and validation of the molds and the machines themselves. The moves are expected to begin operating late this year or in the first quarter of 2021.

"Once those are in place, the bottleneck that exists from a packaging component will be alleviated," he said. "But there are constraints in every category, nonwoven and including the disinfectant itself."

Amcor Rigid Packaging also made similar moves to support a blowout in hand sanitizer.

The Ann Arbor, Mich.-based blow molder addressed the demand to help get its PET bottles and jars to the spirits, home and personal care markets for its bottling needs, Eric Roegner, president of Amcor, said in a statement. The demand had created an opportunity for U.S. distilleries and wineries to transform their operation to produce and package FDA-approved hand sanitizer.

"Our teams also supported smaller distilleries as they activated locally," he said. "Shifting from wine or spirits to hand sanitizer requires adjustments to the entire operation, including a necessary shift in the packaging format, typically from glass to PET bottles."

Roegner cited a report from McKinsey & Co. that because of the pandemic, grocery and convenience store trips have declined, making PET bottles a better option to avoid leaks, breaks and dents.

The automotive and construction industries came to a grinding halt in the immediate month as the pandemic spread and many packaging companies, who were also getting in on health care supply, continued to innovate as both markets came slowly back online.

Berry Global repurposed some of its house wrap, Typar, in the building and construction sector.

"We took some of that material and worked with some Canadian companies to produce hoods for infection prevention," Siebert said.

The teams worked with local customers to take a nontypical fabric and make necessary modifications to make an entirely new product.

"I give our team all the credit. It was amazing to see how the teams worked together," he said. "I won't use the word desperation, but necessity breeds invention."

Automotive packaging supplier Primex also saw a huge slowdown in that sector, but it was able to make a surprising turnaround product requested by local golf courses and schools.

"The golf course called and said, 'We can only put one person in a cart. Do you have any ideas?' And we came back with a golf cart divider," said Borgsdorf.

The idea grew to include dividers for classrooms in their local community so kids could go back to school. Primex is still making the dividers even though the automotive industry is slowly recovering.

"We're still picking up more business because we kept our staff in place," he said. "Our food distribution [packaging] is back up, too."

Summit, Miss.-based polyethylene film and sheet maker Gigantic Bag pitched in partitions for the health care market and for prisons. The company prototyped and patented a new isolation gown for health care industry, alongside other barrier products, according to a release.

In addition to wet wipe canister and lid production, Comar is also heavily involved in the health care space, particularly in pharmaceutical, nutraceutical and over-the-counter products, including diagnostic testing items and symptom relief, Conklin said.

Comar makes containers, and some closures, for nutritional supplements.

"It's another market category we've seen an uptick in," Conklin said. "Vitamins, A, C and D, anything elderberry or immunity boosting is where we've seen a huge uptick in demand."

Conklin expects the company's strategic shift to consumables in the detection of COVID-19 and other health indications is here to stay.

Many of these companies have experienced the quick turnaround of eyeing investments, enacting them and seeing them culminate during the last seven months of the pandemic or in the near future.

"[At Berry] we've really accelerated an investment plan," Siebert said. "In a typical year, we would make the investment, start the conversation in about 12 months and then have the asset producing, but now we've entered a compressed cycle."

Berry completed its spunlace disinfectant wipe investments in January with plans for more discussions coming in 2023, but Siebert said Berry leadership is already having those conversations and reaching general agreements on supporting more investments.

"It's satisfying and fulfilling that our products are making a difference," he said. "It's truly provided validation that plastic-based materials make a difference in people's everyday lives."

Primex's Borgsdorf, a war buff along with his son, likened the "essential worker" drive during the pandemic to the war bonds issued during World War II.

"Everybody went to work — this time instead of making military might, it was shields and masks — I saw that across the nation," he said. "You want to change your whole process. My hourly employees were trying to be more efficient, offered to stay longer or wanted to go back in because they weren't done yet. It's truly been eye-opening."