on its attributes for fast handling, speedy turnover and minimum inventory problems. Of retailers checked, 47% criticized some products for poor packaging; collective opinion was that better packaging could cut operating costs 4.5% and boost sales 7.4%.

Machine speeds are reaching toward unheard-of limits. One rotary machine designed to apply pressure-sensitive tapes to packages has been operated at 1,800 applications per minute. The question soon may be not how fast the machine will operate, hut how fast the packages can be fed and carried away.

Predictions that plastic containers will replace paper milk cartons were voiced before the National Dairy Council by Richard J. Speirs, president of Abbott Dairies, Inc., Philadelphia. He called attention to the spiraling use of paper containers, pointing out that in Chicago at least 60% of all the milk sold is packaged in paper. "It seems entirely possible that before many years we will have plastic bottles that may perhaps be even cheaper to produce than the paper carton,"� Mr. Speirs said.

Package changes are driving cigarette dealers frantic. Just to cover the topmost popular brands, the average cigarette counter is now required to stock no less than 35 different shapes and sizes of packages, as against seven or eight a few years ago. Crowning touch, say dealers, was Marlboro's move to add a companion soft pack to its flip-top box the package which touched off the revolution in 1955. Marlboro found that close to 50% of smokers preferred the soft pack. Not counting the variations in package-�and most leading brands now have two or three there are no less than 92 brands now available to dealers.

Legibility testing is beginning to get serious attention from the Food & Drug Administration. So intent is the FDA on cautionary labeling that it would be interested in machines to set up reproducible standards for the legibility of such words as "poison"� or "caution"� on package labels. Manufacturers of such machines are now dickering with the FDA.

Steel containers represent the third largest use of steel products, according to latest figures from the American Iron & Steel Institute. Containers (including cans, closures, barrels, drums, shipping pails, etc.) account for 12.6% of consumption, being exceeded only by automobiles (15.2%) and construction (15.8%).

Watch the rise of film coatings containing volatile corrosion inhibitors. Among the users of polyester films with such volatile protective coatings are manufacturers of surgical blades and components for aircraft and missiles. Research in another direction takes in coatings with antioxidant ingredients. One laboratory has found that polyester film with an antioxidant ingredient in the coating will preserve wheat germ for at least four months at 120 deg. F.

New idea in bread wraps is a method of positioning design elements in the finished wrap so that brand identification can be spotted on the top and sides where it is most wanted, leaving 15 or more square inches on the bottom of the package for mandatory copy. Positioned design provides greater flexibility in the preparation of a basic design compared with continuous-printed bread wrappers, in which the basic design must be repeated frequently and at random. (See "The Forgotten Side,"� MP, June '58, p. 87.)

Screw caps, heralded as an answer to consumer complaints about the inconvenience of pry-off caps on glass containers, may not be an unmixed blessing. Although the screw caps are easier for the housewife to remove, there has been considerable trouble with curious shoppers opening and reclosing them in stores, causing food products to go back or the shelf with vacuum broken, resultant spoilage and potential food poisoning.

Background

for

packaging

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