The State of Packaging Ahead of PACK EXPO 2026

Guest: Jorge Izquierdo, Vice President, Market Development, PMMI

In this episode, PMMI’s Vice President of Market Development, Jorge Izquierdo, breaks down the top challenges facing packaging and processing operations heading into PACK EXPO International 2026. He also explains what "operational resilience" means today and how to use new tools, such as PACK EXPO's AI search, to walk away with real solutions.

Sean Riley: You are listening to UnPACKed with PMMI, where we share the latest packaging and processing industry insights, research, and innovations to help you advance your business.

Narrator Intro: Hi everyone, and welcome back to UnPACKed with PMMI. In today's episode, PMMI's vice president of market development, Jorge Izquierdo, breaks down the top challenges facing packaging and processing operations heading into PACK EXPO International 2026. He also explains what operational resilience means today and how to use new tools such as PACK EXPO's AI search to walk away with real solutions. Let's have a listen.

Sean Riley: So, with all the fancy introductions out of the way, welcome back to the podcast, Jorge.

Jorge Izquierdo: Hey, Sean, thank you for having me. It's always a pleasure to chat with you.

Sean Riley: It's a joy to speak with you, and I'm glad to have you back here on UnPACKed. We're heading into PACK EXPO season. What are the biggest concerns that you're coming across with your research over there in business intelligence, global marketing, that's keeping operations and engineering up at night right now? What are those things that are keeping them up at night, and how have those concerns maybe changed a little bit in the last couple of years?

Jorge Izquierdo: As part of our research, we normally track the key priorities in packaging and processing operations. You have the typical ones there: productivity and automation normally are the top two. And then you have the other ones, like going up and down. During COVID, we have workforce challenges, and then we have supply chain problems. Also, you have growth up there. Now, it's interesting: we've seen all these variables going up and down. Again, this year, productivity and automation are at the top, but there's a new variable that is popping up, and it's operational resilience.

Sean Riley: Really?

Jorge Izquierdo: Yeah. And it's interesting, because it's a lot of things coming together under this label now — a lot related to flexibility. I guess with all the realities, the labor shortages, the cost of materials, problems with tourists and tariffs, all the way up to geopolitical tensions... We've seen in the past year or two that some of the companies are pausing on the investment, waiting for things to normalize. And now, what's happening is they have normalized this uncertainty. So it's pretty much understanding that this is a new way of living — it's just dealing with it. And how to work better, how to select equipment, how to select your partners, how to design your products to be more agile — I think that's the main message here.

Sean Riley: Okay, I get that. And I'm hoping there's some light at the end of the tunnel for that, because that has to wear on people.

Jorge Izquierdo: Absolutely. And when you're talking about people, you're touching absolutely on one of the most significant concerns for the industry, and that's workforce.

Sean Riley: Right. With workforce, there's already problems. And with shortages and skills gaps, it's a challenge that it almost seems we can't have a conversation without talking about it. So, are there any things out there that you're seeing that are helping with that, whether it's automation, whether it's AI, or are companies still kind of struggling to make the technology mesh?

Jorge Izquierdo: So, Sean, first of all, just to give you an idea of the size of the problem: 95% of the end users that we interview explain that it's difficult for them to find skilled operators, and 60% of them expect that to get worse, not easier. So it's certainly very complicated. And when you think, "Well, that's an HR problem," — well, it's not an HR problem only.

Sean Riley: No.

Jorge Izquierdo: It has an operational impact. More than two-thirds of the participants in our survey declare that the lack of skilled operators is affecting their operations. There's more downtime. When we ask them to give us an idea of the impact, they said more than 10% of their productivity is being lost due to issues related to workforce.

Now, in terms of the light at the end of the tunnel, yes, there are many things the industry is doing to bring in a more qualified workforce. In terms of technology, it's interesting, Sean — we've heard a lot about AI, and applications, and ChatGPT, Claude, all these kinds of things. When we ask the people responsible for packaging and processing operations where they are using AI, the number one answer is knowledge transfer. So it's totally related to the workforce, and it's about how to use AI, from recording your experienced employees — what they do, how they perform, how they go through troubleshooting procedures — and capturing all that information and making it available for other people in the company, maybe for that night shift that doesn't have the super expert operator running the equipment. So that's the number one thing: making all the information searchable. The AI — there are many applications.

Making the equipment more reliable also calls for things like predictive maintenance. That's something that's been around now for a while. It used to be like, "Wow, it's like science fiction." Now it's not science fiction anymore — it's implemented in many, many pieces of equipment. If it's not new equipment, it's retrofitted into an old piece of equipment, but it's now very common. And the key here is you don't have surprises. You know that you're going to have a problem; you can plan for it, plan for maintenance, and address significant amounts of downtime there.

Other opportunities where we've seen the application of AI are the combination of vision and robotics. A lot of the vision-related work is inspection and quality control — that's also helping a lot there. But I was talking about AI — there are also other different strategies. Many of the OEMs are developing much more user-friendly HMIs. You see more and more QR codes on the machine now. So if there's a problem, the operator can quickly scan the QR code, and it refers them exactly to the part of the manual, or maybe a training video, on how to address the problem.

It's about making technology easier to operate for the workforce. That's really the challenge, and what the industry is doing to address the problem.

Sean Riley: Okay. The other buzzword that we always talk about — if workforce is on one hand, the other big one is sustainability. And I feel like we've been hearing about it — you and I have been doing this a long time — we've been hearing about sustainability for probably a decade now. And I feel like we're finally getting to where it's not just packaging materials, but the machinery itself. Is that fair to say? And what demands are manufacturers putting on equipment suppliers to meet sustainability goals?

Jorge Izquierdo: You're totally right, Sean. Recently, we released a report called The Ripple Effect, and basically, the highlight here is that the biggest change is that sustainability is moving upstream into the equipment specification.

When you're talking about sustainability, you're talking about a lot of different initiatives, many of them related to material reduction — that's maybe the most significant one. But also, many of them are related to the materials being used, as you mentioned. And the trick here is to make sure the equipment is compatible with those materials. If you're using a thinner bottle, make sure the automation can handle it. If you're using a recyclable material, a lighter board, or smaller pack sizes, make sure your equipment can handle them well. Make sure that new film — you can seal it. Yes, maybe you can tweak the machine so it can work with the material.

The trick isn't just that it can work the material — the trick is that it can perform at the same level it was performing with the original material. That's really the trick. You don't want to lose 10% or 20% of your productivity because you're moving to a different material. So that's where the new approach is taking over: how important it is to bring both parties — the manufacturers of the consumer products and the suppliers of the equipment — together early on. So before they even specify a new material, the OEM can weigh in and say, "Hey, yeah, this is a good selection, it can run well." Or they can say, "Hey, this one will require a little more maintenance — you'll need to clean the sealing jaws of the machine more frequently."

You need to get that input early so you don't have surprises at the end of the project. So that's the importance of early involvement from OEMs.

Sean Riley: Okay. And we talked about it a little bit, but when you talk about resilience, how are companies standing out in terms of being resilient? What sets the companies that are successfully navigating that pressure of remaining resilient apart from those that are having a hard time adapting?

Jorge Izquierdo: It's very clear, Sean, from our interviews, from our different surveys — it's very clear. It's those companies that are able to integrate people, equipment, and data, and manage their supplier relationships better, that are the ones that do better. They're better at responding to new things. Their people may not be the most experienced staff, but they're flexible enough — they're prepared, they're ready to learn, to understand the equipment.

You have the right equipment. In many cases, when you're talking about equipment, equipment has a life cycle. You need to be ready, you need to understand, and have a solid sense of the components in your equipment. So those companies that understand the whole picture — that understand the equipment, that have the right amount of data, and good-quality data, and can make decisions based on that data — at the end of the day, those that have a very good relationship with their suppliers, those that can get equipment up and running quickly if there's a problem — those are the ones being more successful.

And on the other side of the spectrum are those who aren't paying attention to their staff, depend heavily on a couple of highly experienced people to run the equipment, don't have the right data, or buy the equipment but don't have a relationship with their suppliers.

Sean Riley: Okay. So we have this big show coming up, and we've listed a bunch of challenges that manufacturers are facing. If they're coming to the show with two or three of these major challenges to solve, how should they approach the show to make sure they're leaving with actionable solutions rather than just a laundry list of technologies they've seen?

Jorge Izquierdo: A lot of this is in terms of metrics. It's not about how fast the equipment runs theoretically — it's about how fast it runs in relation to your workforce, to the rest of your equipment, to your data infrastructure. When you talk about investments in technology and equipment, it's important to use the right metrics. For example, mix-adjusted throughput attainment, which basically shows whether the equipment performs across the SKU mix, including changeovers, sanitation, and staffing conditions. Again, it's not just how fast the equipment runs — it's how fast it can run within your real operation.

Sean Riley: Product. Yeah.

Jorge Izquierdo: Also, how fast you can restart and minimize losses — that's another metric — a startup to a stable state when you install new equipment. Pay attention to the metrics you use to understand the performance of the equipment. That would be my one recommendation.

Sean Riley: You have to, as you said, come prepared with what you're looking for. Are there any tools out there for attendees that they can use?

Jorge Izquierdo: We do have the traditional tools. We have, of course, our directory of exhibitors, we have our website, and we recently released a new AI search function on packexpo.com. It's very cool — I've been testing it. What's extremely good is that sometimes smaller companies don't necessarily have a super expert in packaging, and trying to find the right piece of equipment itself is hard. With this new platform, they can go as far as taking a picture of their product. Say it's a cookie in a bag — they take a picture, upload it, and then the website will tell them what equipment they need —

Sean Riley: Oh, that's amazing.

Jorge Izquierdo: — to make that piece of equipment. And not just that, it gives you other recommendations too, like what's normally the machine that goes behind or after that one. You can even ask questions in different languages, but it's really flexible. And one more thing, if your audience hasn't tried it: ProSource. It links directly to those exhibiting at PACK EXPO International. So that's another tool.

Sean Riley: Perfect. Well, as I said earlier when we started, it's always a treat to talk to you, Jorge. So thank you for coming on here and giving us a lay of the land on what's happening out there in the industry, and what people can do to find solutions to their challenges at PACK EXPO.

Jorge Izquierdo: Thank you very much, Sean, and see you at the show.

Sean Riley: Thanks for listening to this episode of UnPACKed with PMMI. If you liked what you heard, be sure to follow or subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen. That way, you won't miss any of the industry insights coming your way. While you're there, we'd really appreciate a rating or review.

Want more? Visit pmmi.org/podcasts for all of our past episodes and additional resources. Thanks again for tuning in. I'll see you next time.

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