Ametek Mocon / The best testing equipment to make sure your packaging will perform / Joel Fischer

https://www.ametekmocon.com/
Joel.Fischer@Ametek.com 

Why is testing so important for your packaging performance? 
Which machines should you buy to include in your packaging lab? 
How to improve the shelf life of your food. 

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Transcript

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Cory Connors: 0:00

Welcome to Sustainable Packaging with Cory Connors. Today's guest is Joel Fisher from Ametek Mocon. How are you, Joel?

Joel Fischer: 0:07

I I'm doing well. I'm doing well, Corey, how are you? Really good. I'm,

Cory Connors: 0:10

I'm excited to hear about your background and your company. This is something very unique we haven't talked about on this podcast at all, and I think it's a really important aspect of sustainable packaging. Can you tell us a little bit about your background first and then we'll, we'll start talking about Amtech

Joel Fischer: 0:27

Mocon? Absolutely. My personal background is I grew up in Minnesota. Born in St. Paul. Lived raised here worked for Amec Mocon now in Minneapolis. Went to school studying chemistry. Really got involved with the instrumental side of analyzing chemicals and, and material properties and the like. And then went to work for a company using like electron microscopes or looking at something called surface science. And about a little over 25 years ago, I. The group here at my company, AMETEK Mocon, was looking for scientists and people to really do some more in-depth research and materials for, for a lot of clients. And I got hired here at that time. And then from that time I've kind of been promoted or worked my way up that I now manage our test laboratory here at moca.

Cory Connors: 1:15

Nice. Looks like you've won quite a few awards behind , you there? I'm seeing. Joel Fischer: Yeah. They're, they're, congratulations. Yeah. Thank you. There are, you know, definitely within the company, it's, it's a great group of people. Yeah. Also active, I dunno if it's up there, but have a patent like for measuring oxygen through contact lenses. Wow. And there's, and there's another award actually got through a s TM from, from my committee members of just helping out and working hard within within our packaging.. So that, that one is really special to me because the group of people at ASS TM are just, they're just awesome. for the audience, can you tell us what ASTM stands for?

Joel Fischer: 1:53

Yeah, so it used to be like American standards testing, you know? Yep. Methodologies. But there really are now like a S TM International, so they don't really define the acronym anymore., but I didn't know that.. Yeah. So, so, and cause they, what they are is they're global standards on everything. you know, testing concrete. Mm-hmm. to the polymers and packaging to things they're doing right now is with, even with like drug testing or medicals and pharmaceuticals and some things like that are even building prisons. There's a book on how, how to create those. Wow. So they're, they're in the standards. And my specific niche is when you look at polymers and things like that, I really focus on testing of packages. Mm-hmm. and and then properties of the, that packaging material.

Cory Connors: 2:39

very appropriate for this podcast and very important for the future of sustainable packaging. Can you tell us a little bit about how the lab that you work at or run tests and service test, packaging and service? Your clients.

Joel Fischer: 2:55

Yeah, absolutely. So the, the focus of. Companies in our laboratory here is we analyze packaging materials and packages. And, and that could be anything in a grocery store or in a pharmacy. When you look at that packaging, it, it's made very intentionally. You look like at a, at a potato chip bag, and you open it up and you can see that it's got the metalization on the inside. Well, it's there for a reason, provides good barrier for when they package that chip. And it is providing barriers. So the, the, the, the, the chip itself stay. Fresh and, and you know, and it doesn't degrade and gives it the shelf life it needs. And a lot of the things that really lead to product degradation are just in our environment. They're, they're humidity. Mm-hmm., and they're oxygen things. Oxygen. So what our equipment does is it measures how oxygen and water vapor and even co2, those transport properties through the packaging materials that really then tie into the shelf life of the product, inside of it.

, Cory Connors: 3:53

and what kind of challenges are you seeing your customers coming up against with new materials and sustainable packaging?

Joel Fischer: 4:00

That's a great question. I, I think overall, you know, they always wanna be picking appropriate materials to give them the shelf life that they need. Right. Things like, you know, , that's important. When you look at sustainable packaging,, you know, that that can be a focus of, you know, a lot of things like compostability recyclability and things like that, or adding re grind in. So you got post-consumer recyclables now added into things and you need 'em to have assurance that your product is going to. Be good. I mean, you can't have a a serum or medical thing, you know, that, that that's gonna be degrade over time. Or even your, your potato chip needs to be crunchy, you know, Right. So, so I, I think, I think a big challenge is, is you're trying to take materials, especially , if you look at compostable that this is something designed to degrade in, you know, in in a specific environment and, and go back to nature. So, you know, can be reused again against, try and also have something that provides really good barrier protection for, for the product. And, and they almost kind of go against each other in some ways. How can something be a really good barrier? To have the, you know, give me my shelf life and my freshness and my product, but then also allow it to, you know, compost and degrade over time. So that's a, that's a very interesting mix that needs to be balanced right now. And and, and that's very interesting on our part of helping customers. You know,

Cory Connors: 5:23

we often say there's nothing sustainable about rotten. And I think that's important to perform first and then, and then figure out how to be sustainable as you go down the line of testing. So it sounds like your, your customers are working hard on that.

Joel Fischer: 5:42

Absolutely. Absolutely. And it's everything, you know, it's, it's because you know, these, these are very smart people and, and, and that their joy to work with these, these packaging engineers and these brand owners who are protecting their products.. Yep. Are you

Cory Connors: 5:57

seeing any cool trends or interesting trends in the, in the packaging industry that you wanna talk about?

Joel Fischer: 6:03

Yeah, I think, I think a trend now, you know, when I grew up, so I'm, I'm in my mid fifties, you know, you had potato chips and they, they were like in a. in a wax paper, kind of kind, kind of kind of pouch. Mm-hmm.. And then you fast forward to today and now it's that nice metalize and polymer structure mm-hmm. and now people are really trying to go back to paper and coded papers. So as people are trying to utilize papers and coded papers and build more barrier into 'em, I think that's a really neat. Things that's going on in, in the progress of this, you know, that. And then the other thing now is, is also the post-consumer recyclable. Getting these things back into, into the polymers is pretty, is very interesting too. Does it have the same properties? Does it have the same barrier materials in performance? So, you know, working with that and trying to qualify all that to make sure that, you know, things live up to, to what they need to be in their specs. to me, it's, it's still, it's still cutting edge. Things are going on with it. That's, that's, that's pretty neat. Yeah.

Cory Connors: 7:01

Oh, well, well, well said. Very true. It's, it's exciting to see the investment of time and money that's going into this push towards sustainability. So your, your company. A customer would send you a new material and they would say, please show us how this material performs with oxygen transfer rate and things like that. Is that what I'm hearing?

Joel Fischer: 7:25

Yeah, exactly. The really, the, our company is really known for manufacturing the equipment to make those measurements. Okay. We're pioneer. Yeah, we pioneered a lot of the testing for oxygen transmission rate and water vapor transmission rate going back, you know, 50 years. So we've been around a lot just generically. A lot of times people call 'em, you know, what is, what is the mocon test or what are your mocon numbers? Which is a Wow, pretty, pretty nice niche. You know, like Kleenex, . Exactly. It really is. I mean, we. We're the leaders. I mean, we're active within ASTMs. We have patents and all this stuff around it. But not everyone can afford the equipment, you know, to do that testing themselves or hire the personnel and the expertise, you know, you know, to run it. So you'll see a lot of you know, material vendors That are, , or suppliers who are, you know, creating films, putting films together. They'll have our equipment, the brand owners will have it to verify things. But if there's someone new or starting up and maybe , that, that it's a big investment in this equipment, then they need to outsource it. So I, I oversee a laboratory. Roughly a hundred instruments that we do. Oxygen, water vapor, and CO2 measurements of all types of films, materials, packaging things. On a day-to-day basis. So we provide that service for people who just don't have our equipment or sometimes maybe they're doing a very large project. Because these times, you know, the, the test durations, unlike other physical tests, , aren't a matter of minutes. it can be hours to days, to weeks sometimes when you get really, really high, high barrier materials. Yeah. Mm-hmm. You know, when, when, when you put additives to packages, maybe you add some scavengers in them so , they really slow down the the transmission rates of these things. Hmm. They can be some really long tasks. So we provide overflow testing for, for people as well, and sometimes just third party verification. Materials really do perform as stated per their specs.

Cory Connors: 9:14

Does the material come to you as raw material or does it come to you as printed ready to be used? Or is it, or is it already been packaged and it's full of? Food or all three? Yeah,

Joel Fischer: 9:29

that is, you know what? That, that's a great question. So we don't, we, we don't do any extruding or LA thing or laminate or things like that. It's, it's gotta be kind of near its final form. So yeah, material would come as the film, you know, with the multilayers or, or assembled and, and the like, or it could come off the shelf. It could be a package. Maybe someone wants to know how this performs, because a lot of times maybe the, the pristine., especially when you deal with pouches is different after processing. There's been more wear and tear, there's more crinkling of of it. And when you're dealing with right materials that have laminates and coatings that can weaken its structure or just the shipping and distribution might weaken its seals and now, now you can get permeation through the seals and components like that. So we see more of the latter of those two things. You know, the, the. The package structures or the final full package and then we, you know, we'd have to empty the contents out of it, but then we can still test how oxygen and water move through that, that material.

Cory Connors: 10:29

I think that's a really important point to dwell on a little bit here is how. Material can transform through the process. Now, the raw material could, could have these properties, but then once it goes through , the heat ceiling process, it could change the makeup of the the molecules. Is that something that you're seeing, like the heat seal maybe not performing or, or things like that?

Joel Fischer: 10:55

Yeah, I mean, absolutely. If, if you take it to extreme sometimes, like cause we do things with like medical and pharma packaging, well, they'll use foil, you know, you know, multi-layered structure and maybe that's not as much. Renewable and recyclable at times, depending on, on, on the streams. But they, they've got pretty aggressive heat seals. And if you do a heat seal, that's too much pressure, too much time. A lot of times if you open up that pouch or you look inside of it, Maybe like, like, and what we do here is we'll have like, we'll darken the room and we'll put like a light bulb inside of it. If we can see light coming through it, that means we're gonna measure gas transmission through it. You'll see that like around the perimeter. So even though it's not a hole in the structure, but it means that the, the, the foils been compromised in a way. So even though you've got your sealant layers that are all intact, you will get a higher transmission rate than if you just thought it was the pristine film by. So the, the processing absolutely does impact the overall packages. Yeah. Barrier characteristics.

Cory Connors: 11:54

Well said. Are you seeing a lot more mono materials being tested and with, with the hopes that their performance will be as good as multi. Or I should say multi-material.

Joel Fischer: 12:06

Yeah, , I think what we're, we're trends we're trying to see , is maybe trying to get like some coatings applied that'll provide the barrier and still good, good, good wear and tear. So I, I think, I think a, a great, example is paper encoded papers, how they're, they're really kind of coming back and they're emerging and, and maybe the, the, you know, you put this really great coating down, but you know, maybe you don't have a good coating and maybe there's a pinhole in the coating. Well, if there's a pinhole in the coating, gas is gonna go through it pretty quickly. Yeah. So we, we, we do see. I, I see things like co like, like a coating. Mm-hmm. or maybe an additive that's put into there that still can be recycled through multilayers will still be there for, for sealant layers and, and things like that in place. But there are trends. They're trying to lightweight the barrier layers that that's a big trend right now. You know, some of it is for, for this whole, you know, you know, to, to be healthier and better with the, with the environment. And some just has to do with what, what can they get, you know, what, what does their extreme look like? Can they get the product or not? And maybe lightweighting a layer of like an E V O H or, or nylon or a barrier material helps them at least conserve. They're the, you know, it, they're, they're products, you know, in, in, in the, like, so supply chain, I guess

Cory Connors: 13:19

is where I was getting at. Very true, very, very tough. Last couple of years with getting materials, I'm sure you've, you've seen a lot of things recently that you've never seen before. people trying to do different things that haven't been done just so they can make a package that'll work with the materials available. Is that, is that pretty common right now?

Joel Fischer: 13:41

Yeah. It, it, it is, it, it, it definitely is. And it's, you know, it, it, it, yeah. I think it's, or they're just trying to source other vendors. If, if you, right, especially if you're talking about like medical or pharma where things are looking by the, you know, the fda and like you really have to show equivalency. and if any, any pre kind of testing on that material really helps them if, if down the road they actually have to put like real life stability and things in place so they can vet the materials before they have to go that far into it. Yeah. You know, I, I think one thing that I think is pretty interesting is, is I was talking with some, with a, with a professor who's. Help kind of consulting with the company of putting post-consumer recyclable in and making these, these shampoo bottles. And they had the conversation with them like five years ago and at that point they're trying to add a lot of p c r content and, but they still wanted the, the, the bottle look pristine. to make it almost look like it was virgin. Yeah. Now they're, they're coming back to it and, and they're saying, you know, that's not what they want anymore. Now they want it to look like it's got recycled content, . Cause the consumer really wants this now. Right. So I, I see that now in awareness in the marketplace, really being driven by a lot of consumers and what they want to do to be Yeah. Healthy and good for the.

Cory Connors: 14:55

That is so true and it's such an important topic for this show because sustainable packaging has become a selling feature and it's not just cool pr, it's. people are seeking out when making purchasing decisions and saying, I will move to this material if it's better for the environment, which is, yeah, it's exciting to see somebody like me and somebody like you who's interested in that But I interviewed , Frederick Drew from Unilever and he said the RIN brand. Their bottles are gray now, and they're, they're proud of it because it's a high PCR content, and he said, yep. They're, they're telling their customers, look, we're using PCR R and we're doing our best. And it's exciting to see this new trend.

Joel Fischer: 15:39

it really is. It really is.

Cory Connors: 15:41

Do you have like a most popular machine that you.

Joel Fischer: 15:44

It, it'd be like two instruments one's called an OX train. It measures oxygen transmission rate through things, and that's that's just so important for, for food. Yeah. You know, and, and a lot of times people think about food if you wanna extend the shelf life that they put additives in it, but there're the, but there's also a big trend not to have additives and, and keep that out. So the. The thing with with food is like, then they'll do a modified atmosphere. They'll flush it with nitrogen and seal it to keep the oxygen low. And then you need a barrier around it. So our ox tray instruments help with that measurements. And then our perma train instruments are our water vapor instruments that do, you know, the same type of thing. And look at how water vapor apron moves through material packaging. You know, whether it's a tray, a bottle, or, or a pouch type material. Those are our most common. So

Cory Connors: 16:30

how does the machine measure that? Does, do you, I'm imagining like you put the material over something and then it's got instruments that are pushing the, the I, you know, like I can't Yeah. Can you kind of explain that to us, like visually without being able to see

Joel Fischer: 16:45

it? Yeah, I, I, I'll try. So the, the, the core of any tests, any permeation tests is we're trying to measure how gas moves from one side of the film or membrane to the other. And, and what drives it is how much gas is there? Large concentration. So what we for an oxygen test is, is we place this film if, if it's just a film or a sheeting like a, you can use for a pouch. You put it across a thing called diffusion cell. And, and I envision that as if you take two coffee cups, two coffee mugs, clamped the mouse together with a film in between the two. Okay. on one. So now I've got these two cavities and, and on one side I'll flow oxygen at a known, known concentration at a known temperature. And if I need to add humidity, I can do that. So I've got a hundred percent oxygen on one side. On the other side, I'll flow a different gas nitrogen flows through the other side. And what that sets up is this differential and, and just like, It's kind of a law of nature of, of like decreasing entropy. Like everything wants to settle. Like, you know, if there's a bad smell in the room, , it permeates throughout the whole room., right? Well, well, oxygen will absorb its way into the film. And wanna get to the other side. It wants to drive through. Then we call that a driving force. Hmm. And what we're doing is if given it enough time in that situation, you'll come to equilibrium on both sides. Nitrogen will go one way. Oxygen, it'll, it'll all be at equilibrium cuz that's, that's, that's the harmony it's seeking. But because we keep. Flowing that nitrogen gas through, we keep sweeping away any of that oxygen perme, it's through, and we sweep it to a detector that's tuned specifically for oxygen gas. Mm-hmm.. And that way now we can quantify the amount of oxygen in that gas stream. And by knowing, wow. Basically by doing that, I get an oxygen transmission. How many ccs of oxygen per day are going through that? And, and incredible. Really? Yeah. It's the same way for water vapor or for co2. But like, and CO2 is like important for, you know, carbonate soft drinks, right? That's a big deal. Or like a lot of the cheese packaging you know, you look at that like, oh, it's vacuum packed. Well, initially it was packed with co2, but the CO2 absorbed in the cheese and makes it look like a. Oh, spreads and things like that too. So a lot of the food packaging, those are like the three big players that, that, that they're really interested in. Oxygen, water, and co2.

Cory Connors: 19:02

Can you provide your customer or can, if they buy your equipment, can they disseminate a shelf life based on these tests?

Joel Fischer: 19:12

Yeah. It, it, it works. It's it's hand to hand. I mean, they, that, what they need to know is their product. You know, they're, what is it that impacts it? Is it oxygen? Right. And how much it is. So they'd be working closely with food scientists mm-hmm. to determine what they need. And, and a lot of it's been done if you, kind of like in the industry where they. They use modified atmosphere, this map packaging. Mm-hmm., there's like known mixes of gases to put in there and what types of barriers you need, but it can still be very specific to the product, the, the specific product. I mean, there's so many foods that are dependent upon their, their, their moisture content and where they are in the curve. Like coffee, I mean Yep. They, you dry it out, but you also, they, they have to quench the process after roasting and they have to make sure, you know, it's dry then and when they do the packaging. Yeah. So, which shelf life will be based upon all these factors, but usually within the, the specific niche. They, they know what they need and if you don't know what you need find a similar product like it, and then, and then see what they do. I mean, that, that's a great place to start.. Cory Connors: That's incredible. I've had a few projects in my career that required testing like you're talking about, but also required atmospheric testing that simulates going over a mountain. Yeah. Is that something that you guys offer or, or work on as well? Yeah, so I'll be, my lab focuses on the how gas transport properties are looking at. We do have equipment that can like pressurize a package and then see like, is, are the seals gonna come apart? Is the package gonna burst? So you, you can do that type of thing. You can do it two ways. One, you can pierce into it and then. Like it, like, oh, and, and, and, and make it expand. Or the other one is you put it in like in a controlled vacuum environment and watch what happens there too. So we, we have equipment for doing those tests. A lot of those tests are very much faster tests. So people tend to just purchase and buy those, those testers and do 'em themselves, you know? Right. But yeah, so yeah, that, that's a big test, especially for seal integrity, to make sure that things can move through. different altitudes and the like. I think

Cory Connors: 21:10

it's important for people to understand that their product may go over the mountain and may be exposed to extreme altitudes or maybe in an airplane someday, and you don't want it to pop open, so that's really valuable. What else does Amec Mocon have in store for sustainable packaging testing?

Joel Fischer: 21:30

Yeah, you know, I guess what, what, what tends to go in hand with, you know, you. with, with sustainable packaging. I look at it's, you know, especially with food but also with healthcare is, you know, I've talked about modified atmospheres to, to, to help extend the shelf life of my pro of products. So we do have an array of, of equipment that either the people who are doing online packaging and filling, you know, that we've got things that control, can control and monitor the gases that are used to flush and put in those. Potato chip bags or, or, or, or pouches with bread or things that like that. Or even, even those little snack trays. Like that you have, like the environment. Oh, yeah. Within the crack cracker side. All those little, little environments are, are engineered to be, you know, specific environments to prolong the shelf life of that, that cheese or, or, or, or that cracker to make sure it's still crisp. So we have equipment that can be used online as these modified atmospheres are being done to verify that you have it or after the fact. It's a obstructive test, but you'll, you'll poke and pierce into it to verify that you've got the right head space that you wanted, the right modified atmosphere, the right amount of nitrogen or CO2 that you wanted within that package.

Cory Connors: 22:38

Hmm. Well this is really very insightful. Thank you so much, Joel. I really appreciate your time. Yeah. What's the best way for people to get in touch with you and, and your company?

Joel Fischer: 22:47

Yeah, I mean, In specific, it would be my name, Joel, j o e l.fi, f i s c h e r, at amtech, A e t e k.com. I can be reached directly through that way. The company itself? Not, that was a great question. I, I guess I wasn't ready for that.

Cory Connors: 23:05

maybe website. LinkedIn.

Joel Fischer: 23:07

Yeah, we definitely have a website. I, I do have LinkedIn profile as well. Yeah, probably should have gone with the web website first. Otherwise people just, we'll, we'll put

Cory Connors: 23:15

all the links in the, in the show notes so people can just click on that for you. Awesome. Thank you sir. Really appreciate this and looking forward to meeting you someday in.. All

Joel Fischer: 23:25

right. Thank you. Thank you, Joel. Have a great rest of your day.