Get to know more about Michael including, his experience as a barrier food packaging expert, and the solutions he is most excited to bring to the rigid barrier food packaging industry as part of the ICPG team!
Tell us a bit about the career path that led you here and what your role is within ICPG.
I followed my father into the business. He was a 45 year packaging professional. On my 18th birthday I started a job working in the sample shop at a thermoforming company. Best birthday present ever. I spent the hottest summer of my life up to my elbows in a shuttle forming machine. I spent the next four winters and summer breaks working in nearly every department of that factory, soaking up as much as I could, eventually graduating into a customer facing, product development/sales role. I never looked back and from there worked on commercial opportunities serving the Medical, Electronics, Consumer and Food markets. Now my customers are those same thermoformers and brand owners. I know their processes, can anticipate their challenges and help them improve and innovate. The most recent stretch of my career has been spent focusing on the development of multilayer rigid barrier food packaging structures for extended shelf-life thermoforming and form-fill-seal applications, working directly with many household name brand owners in the food packaging space.
How did you first get involved with ICPG?
A mutual industry connection suggested Dave Kingeter, Impact's President, and I have a conversation. We spent 3 hours digging into our experiences, the gaps in the packaging market and how Impact could disrupt and transform it. The conversation flew by. We spoke later that weekend and, I believe, we each understood that we were looking at the opportunity of a lifetime.
Simply put - innovation, agility and entrepreneurship. In all of my experience working in the industry I had often seen technically capable companies encumbered by the limitations of old equipment. They were caught in a tough place, putting a great deal of effort into defending their technology every day. As a result, my customers - top tier CPG's - were having their innovation and desire for change limited. They needed better. They need faster. They needed consultative suppliers who could anticipate problems and innovate holistically sustainable solutions.
ICPG is not the first to offer extended shelf-life solutions to this market. What do you feel is the key to these material solutions really working for the extended shelf-life food packaging market?
The key is to develop "win/win's." Product innovation doesn't exist without commercialization. We need to develop solutions that are wins for the consumer, brand owners, converters, recyclers and ICPG. We have assembled a team, invested in the technology, built a strategy, and established a portfolio of innovative products that deliver sustainability AND cost savings throughout the value chain.
What about ICPG as a company will serve to benefit of their customer base?
Ultimately, it is trust. I believe our customer will understand that ICPG can be trusted to invest in the best technology, employ empathy and experience in equal measures, and deliver quality, innovation and operational excellence. We won't rest on yesterday's best results nor will we compromise their satisfaction for ours.