Register Interest

Agenda

Smithers is pleased to present the SmartPack 2022 agenda featuring presentations from Blue Bite, Wiliot, Avery Dennison, Digimarc and many more!
Registration & Breakfast
Registration Table Opens
Opening Remarks
Session I: Smart Packaging Industry: Today & the Future
<Session Description>
This session will kick off the conference by discussing with a variety of experts in the industry the current constantly changing smart packaging landscape, opportunities and growth being seen today, and where we are heading in the years to come. 
Keynote: The Future of Smart Packaging
James Harmer is an innovation leader at Cambridge Design Partnership, world leading innovation partners focused on science, technology and how to apply it successfully to future products. James’ focus for the last 25 years has been on brand and packaging innovations for the world’s largest CPG manufactures. James will be sharing CDP’s perspective on the Future for Smart Packaging, to kick off our event and inspire delegates with a thought provoking look at the world of opportunity ahead of us and some of the challenges!
James Harmer | Planning & Innovation Strategy Leader, Cambridge Design Partnership
Panel: Opportunities and Growth as the Industry Moves Forward
The smart packaging sector continues to develop and innovate so that it can exploit new opportunities in line with technological and societal changes. This panel looks to explore the views and thoughts of participants for opportunities (and threats) for the industry.

Panelists Include:
  • John Dwyer, Vice President of Business Development, WestRock Company
  • James Harmer, Planning and Innovation Strategy Lead, Cambridge Design Partnership
  • Brittany Gamez, Chief Operating Officer & Fundraising, Muuse
Networking Break
Ambient IoT & The Impact on Packaging
  • Why & when the Internet of Things will explode 100x
  • The technology driving Ambient IoT
  • What are the opportunities for Packaging?
  • How to address the opportunity

Louis Parker | Sales and Partnerships, Wiliot
Session II: Emerging Technology for the Industry
<Session Description>
This session will look at some new and exciting technology within the industry, and how it will be changing the game for the smart packaging industry.
Bring your Packaging to Life with Augmented Reality
  • What is Augmented Reality
  • What is Augmented Reality for Packaging?
  • The Evolution of Augmented Reality in Packaging
  • Augmented Reality Packaging Use-Cases & Case Studies

Navjeet Chhina | CEO, Genius Ventures Inc
Internet of Packaging
There are 4 trillion consumer goods packaged globally. The pandemic has revealed how vulnerable the supply chains are that deliver these goods to the market. Key areas of concern are product freshness, counterfeiting and gray market diversion. The Internet of Packaging is how these supply chain problems will be resolved. Products that are uniquely identified early in the supply chain can now be tracked to communicate provenance, journey and expected destination location. In this discussion we will share how machinery automation, packaging configuration, sensors and software integrations come together to create product packaging that is easily identified/validated in any node of the supply chain.
John Dwyer | Vice President of Digital Solutions, WestRock
Lunch Break
Session III: Working Session – Current Challenges and Gaps within Packaging
<Session Description>
Attendees are invited to break into “interest groups” with moderated tables of current challenges. Three tables will have a topic/challenge where there could be new solutions, innovations, and opportunities. Break out topic tables will be alotted 30 Minutes followed by 45 min panel with the moderators from each table and will be open to Q&A and discussion with the audience.
Break Out Topic Tables
Table 1: Sustainability: Continued significance of finding packaging solutions that utilize smart packaging while also having a positive impact with sustainability and recyclability
Moderator: Salisha Fingerhut, Market Development Manager, Connected Products, Avery Dennison Smartrac
 
Table 2: Cybersecurity: With smart packaging and connectivity increasing, comes the rise in importance of ensuring security. How can we stay ahead and ensure privacy is managed properly?
Moderator: David Hess, Sr. Client Engagement Manager - Adidas, HH Global
 
Table 3: Supply Chain: Active discussion on the current supply chain outlook and ways to improve and handle the existing issues within the industry and opportunities of growth to come.
Moderator: Pepin Gelardi, Partner - Innovation Strategy & Industrial Design, Tomorrow Lab
Panel of Moderators and Open Discussion with Audience
Networking Break
Session IV: Focus on Active Packaging & Food Safety
<Session Description>
Continued food safety is an always important topic of discussion, and in this session, we will hear from speakers focusing on how different types of smart packaging can be used to enhance this safety.
Smart Packaging and an Overview of the Emerging Connectivity to Food Packaging
The talk will focus on the emerging utilization of smart packaging in food packaging, with a focus on the integration of antimicrobial, sustainable, bioplastic and nanotechnology within multiple formats.
Scott Super | Business Development Manager, Reclosure & Pharmaceutical Label and Graphics Materials North America, Avery Dennison
Fighting Product Counterfeiting While Enhancing The Consumer’s Experience & Safety With Smart Packaging
Brands globally lose hundreds of billions of dollars worth of revenue annually due to product counterfeiting and pay billions more post point of sale to market to their consumers. This presentation will cover a real world user case on how smart packaging is being utilizing to alleviate both of those pain points. Join us to discuss how smart packaging can provide increased levels of product authentication while simultaneously creating a direct to consumer marketing channel for brands/companies!
Mayo Akindele | Chief Strategy Officer/Product Manager, Serpiente Ultra Premium Tequila, A Nomad Spirits Company
Session V: Pitching Hour: New Innovations for the Future of the Industry
<Session Description>
Speakers will have five minutes to pitch their company, introduce their technology or product, and explain their needs before taking questions from the audience. Following the Pitching Hour, the networking reception will begin in the main exhibit hall where you will have a space to display your technology/product to the delegates and further engage with your audience in real time.
Smart, Secure & Reusable Parcels for Last Mile Delivery
Explore the benefits of smart and secure parcels for customers, shippers and couriers for today and the future. How Smart & Secure packaging is the missing link for future of automated delivery of goods.
David Ruth | Founder & CEO, Motogo, LLC
Evening Networking Reception
Registration & Breakfast
Opening Remarks
Session VI: Sustainability & Reusability within the Sector
<Session Description>
We will start Day 2 by diving into the importance of smart packaging when looking at sustainability and reusability across industries. Hear from key drivers about what they are working on and where they see the industry moving in this space.
The Power of Intelligent Packaging: Using Digital Watermarks to Enable Circularity
While the world has evolved to leverage the power of the digital age, today’s consumer products and packaging largely have not. Information is conveyed on-package through traditional printing and labeling methods, which is limiting to commercial transactions, consumer education and use, and enabling recycling. What if packaging had the power to carry limitless digital information that could be accessed at all points of the product’s lifecycle, and used in a way that would better close the loop for packaging, reducing plastic waste and increasing the availability of quality recycled content? 
Digital watermarking is a means to give virtually any media or physical object a unique, “digital twin” identity to create a Digital Product Passport. Industry and governments see such digital identities as improving product sustainability, boosting material and energy efficiency, enabling new business models and circular value extraction based on data sharing.
What if a package could tell consumers the story of a fair-trade coffee farmer, whether the package is recyclable or not, or other sustainability attributes by simply pointing their smart phone at the package?  What if a package could tell the recycler if it is a food-contact quality container so it can be recycled back into food-contact applications?  What if a package could be recycled despite featuring some of the designs, like full shrink-wrap labels, that currently limit recyclability? 
How digital watermarking may be the technology solution for these questions is the subject of the HolyGrail initiatives, facilitated by the Ellen MacArthur Foundation and in HolyGrail 2.0 driven by AIM (European Brands Association) and ‘powered by’ the Alliance to End Plastic Waste. More than 175 brands, retailers, printers and plastics converters, recyclers, trade associations and NGOs, such as the World Wildlife Fund, have joined to demonstrate the deployment of watermarks to more accurately sort packaging waste as well as the economic viability of the business case at large scale.
This presentation will share with conference participants the latest insights and metrics from the various HolyGrail demonstrations, which have included over 700 industry participants. Visuals will show how plastics can now be detected with never-before accuracy in the sortation process, while overcoming the existing issues such as separating food versus non-food containers, carbon-black packaging, full-body shrink sleeves, and multi-layer flexibles. Also shared will be inclusion of digital watermarking in current EU declarations, such as harmonizing extended producer responsibility schemes. Although much attention has been focused on the technology for sortation, it also provides a means for consumers to merely point at an object and be told how to properly dispose based upon their geo-location or municipality’s acceptance guidelines.
Larry Logan | Chief Evangelist of Sustainability Solutions, Digimarc Corporation
Making Reuse a Reality Through Item-level Digitalisation
Integrating reusable packaging with intelligent labels opens up new digital capabilities, generating item-level data can be measured, aggregated and assessed to determine sustainability insights and operational performance of the system. Digitisation provides new ways to engage with stakeholders and consumers to share impact data and provide actionable insights and recommendations to optimize the reuse network and improve the environmental impact of products and facilities.

With new innovations from Avery Dennison with atma.io, a connected product cloud platform and PragmatIC’s ultra-cost-flexible integrated circuits, it now becomes more viable than ever for high-volume packaging to be smart and connected through RFID, delivering end-to-end digital supply-chain traceability. Enabling dynamic visibility allows for improved decision making that reduces the carbon footprint associated with the logistics network, routing products effectively, extending the product life cycle (keeping materials in-use longer) which in turn has a significant impact on reducing carbon emissions, solid waste, energy and water pollution relative to single-use packaging schemes.

Josh Young, Development Manager, Pragmatic
Pedro Garza | Market Development Manager, Avery Dennison Smartrac
Networking Break
Support Plastic Recovery worldwide while engaging with your community.
Plastic pollution is a widespread global threat, and because of this, this problem has increasingly been treated with great urgency and concern by the international community. However, today we depend on this material in so many sectors and eliminating it 100% is a long-term challenge. Saying this, how can we improve the "Plastic Economy"? How can we encourage each company to be responsible for its waste and to collaborate, so that plastic does not end up in our environment?
To face that issue, Nozama has launched the Plastiks’ Platform, to achieve our mission of connecting People, Organizations and Companies with Plastic Recovery Projects around the world to fight global plastic pollution by offering an ecosystem that gives everybody an equal opportunity to take verifiable environmental action.
Plastiks is tokenizing the data of recovered plastic and creating NFTs from the invoices generated by recovery projects and recyclers around the world. These NFTs confirm that certain types and quantities of plastics have been recovered, and become what we call "Plastic Recovery Guarantees" (PRG) - also known as Plastic Credits.
These PRG NFTs will then be available on our marketplace and can be acquired by companies that are producing or using plastic, but that want to commit and sponsor plastic recovery somewhere in the world. Companies that purchase these NFTs will have this information open, transparent and accessible on their sustainability profile in the Plastiks Marketplace, that uses blockchain technology to provide such proof of recovery and accountability.  On the other hand, plastic recovery projects will earn extra income from the sales of these PRG NFTs and will provide the narrative of how this extra income is helping them increase and improve plastic recovery.
Fernanda Accorsi | Marketing & Communications Director, Plastiks
Session VII: Material Science & Intelligent Packaging Design
Looking beyond the package to create transformational value
Session VIII: Brand Protection, Ecommerce, & Helping the Supply Chain
<Session Description>
In this session, we will discuss the importance of smart packaging to increase brand protection and the efficiency and usability across all values of the supply chain. Hear from companies that are pushing the boundaries and exploring new innovations in smart packaging.
Panel: Creating a Secure, Value Chain with IoT Solutions within Smart Packaging
Join us for an informative session and panel where we will dive into the latest IoT solutions that are driving innovation for all aspects of Smart Packaging turning the standard Supply Chain into a Value Chain. We will hear perspectives from industry leading organizations with innovative technologies that are pushing the barriers within Smart Packaging through RFID and BLE technologies and the solution stacks that intersect. Industry leaders from Identiv, Wiliot and Bluebite will be joining us for this panel.

Panelists Include:
  • Amir Khoshniyati, Vice President and General Manager, Transponder Business, Identiv
  • Louis Parker, Sales and Partnerships, Wiliot
  • Mikhail Damiani, Co-Founder and Managing Director, Blue Bite
Lunch Break
Insights-based Brand Integrity: Consumers Deserve Your Real Products
Counterfeit and diverted goods adversely impact trade, consumer safety, and brand reputation. As a result, demand is high for anti-counterfeit packaging. Our speakers will share insight into how the world's largest consumer goods brands are addressing the counterfeit challenge headon with a powerful combination of product digitization and innovative packaging. Millions of products around the world lack any digital presence, leaving companies in the dark about the lifecycle of their products including where they exist in the supply chain. Without a singular source for product data, companies lack actionable intelligence to fight counterfeiters. Insights-based brand integrity is shifting the weight of power back to brands and consumers. Through product digitization and supply chain visibility, consumer goods brands gain critical intelligence to ensure the authenticity of products, reduce costs, and increase operational agility.

Nathan Henson | Global Director - Global Design Solutions, Sealed Air
Curt Schacker | Global Head of Digital Printing and Packaging, Digimarc
Session IX: The Importance of the Customer Experience
<Session Description>
This session will discuss all the ways that smart packaging can be utilized to enhance a brand and product, and even further, increase the customer’s experience and their further engagement even after purchase.
Smart Packaging If you build it they won’t come, If your smart they will.
In today’s eco driven world there has seemingly never been a better time to launch a sustainable package offering. Consumers—particularly Millennials—increasingly say they want to select brands that embrace purpose and sustainability. A recent report revealed that certain categories of products with sustainability claims showed twice the growth of their traditional counterparts. However, a paradox remains at the heart of green business few consumers who report positive attitudes toward eco-friendly products and services follow through with their wallets.
Re-Universe has been pioneering Digital DRS (Deposit Return Schemes) using on packaging comms and is now driving forward with schemes based around reusable packaging. In this presentation Tony will explain how by utilising smart packaging re-universe has achieved return rates of 94% in the world’s first Digital Deposit Return pilot in Dublin Ireland. With learnings driven by enhanced consumer engagement with deposits and Tony will explain how Evian used tech to drive recycling at this year’s Wimbledon Tennis Championship. Tony will also explain what is coming down the line in terms of consumer engagement and where the future is heading.
Tony McGurk | Chairman, re-universe
Connecting Possibility - Unlocking the Full Potential of Product Packaging
Today’s consumers crave elevated and relevant experiences. Connected products and packaging have become a new sales and communication channel that cuts through today’s digital noise and can be controlled end-to-end by brands. Learn how to employ engaging consumer experiences through connected packaging that deliver the right message to the right consumer at the right time.
Findings of the recently released Blue Bite 2022 Connected Packaging Trend Report reflect consumers’ changing attitudes, habits and brand interaction preferences that reveal actionable insights to make informed decisions about packaging design that brings value to consumers and brands.
  • Tell your story directly to consumers, create new product commerce opportunities, provide transparent sustainability and overall brand protection.
  • Leverage first-party data through 1:1 data collection
  • Utilize connecting technologies like QR Codes and NFC within packaging to engage consumers throughout the entire product lifecycle with exclusive and customized content, authentication, and more.

Mikhail Damiani | Co-Founder and Managing Director, Blue Bite
Panel: Continued Focus to Enhance the Customer Experience
This panel will discuss the ever-growing need to continue to enhance the customer experience to increase loyalty and overall customer happiness. We will dive into how smart packaging can help with this, discussing current new innovations and contemplate what is on the horizon.

Panelists Include:
  • Chantal Emmanuel, CTO and Co-Founder, Limeloop
  • Moustafa Sharawy, Account Manager, Niantic
  • Mayo Akindele, Chief Innovation Officer, Nomad Spirits Company
Closing Remarks