Packaging Trends & Hot Topics from Pack Expo Las Vegas 2025

Our team gathered together for a roundtable recap of the highlights of Pack Expo Las Vegas 2025 and what packagers were talking about. The show was very well attended and Enercon got to meet with many packagers looking for the latest insights on induction cap sealing technology. Get all the official highlights here including:

• 0:04 | Trends in food safety & a post-event award
• 1:32 | Industry’s response to new features of the Super Seal™ Pro & Super Seal™ Max
  • Integrated operator help, recipes, operator lockout and network control
• 3:24 | Sealing head solutions for new product configurations
• 5:08 | Why packagers are switching from pressure-sensitive liners to induction seals
• 6:05 | How Enercon rescued a packager from a line shutdown caused by a low-cost imported induction sealer

TRANSCRIPTION

00:06 Food Safety and Enercon Wins Award 

So, Jim, you brought up food before, and how that related to our experience at Pack Expo. And interestingly enough, right after Pack Expo, I attended the conference for the Association for Dressings and Sauces. And one of the topics that was talked about was related to food safety and how there’s a huge push to start to remove preservatives and artificial ingredients in our foods. And how that relates to how induction sealing plays a role, and will continue to play a role in the industry in terms of food safety, as the hermetic seal adds to shelf life and extends freshness of foods. And so, it was a really interesting conversation and I think it’s going to be interesting to see how it affects our industry, as we go along in the coming years. 

I think I also heard, did we get an award? 

In fact, we did. We were awarded the Supplier Partner of the Year for ADS. So, it was a huge honor. That organization has been a really great partner of ours and an organization we’ve been a part of for many years. So, it was really an honor to be recognized like that at the conference. 

01:35 New Cap Sealing Technology 

So, at the show, we had both the Super Seal Pro and then we had the Super Seal Max, both on display in the booth. What kind of feedback did you guys get from customers when they came to our booth? 

I had great feedback. It was fun to demonstrate the bigger screen and walk customers through all the different functions of both systems, especially all the new software content that we’re storing right on the sealer to help the operator, whether it’s setting up the sealer correctly or if they’re having some issues with sealing, there’s a lot of troubleshooting information that’s also available. And the other thing that came up a lot was now the multi-layer password protection.  

Yeah, it gives our customers like an added layer of control. And speaking of control,  I think one of the things that really stands out about these machines is the network control options that we offer on it now. And it allows someone to communicate via Ethernet IP or really any module that a customer would need. And it has taken the integration capabilities of the pro configuration to a level that we haven’t been able to achieve before. So, it was really fun to be able to show people that in person. And I think it really highlights the innovation that we’ve achieved with these units. 

The one thing I’ll just add is that I got questions about recipes. We have 50 recipes that are on the system now. So, for line operators, they can just program in exactly what they want to do for their different applications. Then management can say, hey, just hit the button which one you want to run, and they’re off and running. 

03:27 New Cap Applications for Induction Sealing 

It was really great to see how many customers came to the booth with different applications; some things that are just unusual, sometimes they have a bigger cap with a small liner. How did you guys talk with them? Is there something we can do for them? 

Well, at the show we had a sealing head display in the booth and I think that was so valuable to show customers in person an example of some of the sealing heads that we’re able to use and accommodate such a wide variety of applications. But it’s really just a small example of what we have to offer. Jim, can you think of an example?  

Most definitely. In fact, several times customers would show up with different spouted caps in different diameters, and they’re always concerned. They know that because of the air gap, it’s difficult to seal. And then I could show them the sealing head display. Well, we have different deep tunnel ceiling heads to accommodate the different spouted caps. And the idea is: we target the liner from the side only instead of from the top down. It’s a very efficient way to seal spouted caps. 

And not only can we accommodate different diameters that way, but we’re also able to accommodate some taller spouted caps that way now. Our engineering team has managed to develop some new, even deeper deep tunnels for us. 

Seems to be a trend. The spout’s getting taller. 

Yeah. 

And some caps are getting smaller, like 15 millimeters. We had a customer come in and he wanted to seal something tiny. And we have an extra narrow tunnel that we can also seal for those types of closures. 

05:10 Demise of Pressure-Sensitive Liners 

So, we found out about a year ago that the pressure sensitive liner supply chain was starting to become a little bit unstable. And I mean, I remember you saying at Pack Expo, you had a couple people come up to you and bring that up. Is that right? 

That is right. We’ve had multiple customers that came to the show saying that finding a pressure sensitive liner is really tough right now. And the supply chain is kind of dried up. That benefits us and it benefits the customer. You get a nice induction liner inside the cap, especially with liquids. Pressure sensitive is just kind of like a sticker. As you guys know, you’re not going to get the nice seal that an induction liner will provide. 

The nice hermetic seal. 

So, you can ship it, you can squeeze the bottle and you’re not going to get any leakers coming from that. 

And the true tamper evidence as well that induction provides. 
 

06:22 Rescuing a Packager form a Low-Quality Induction Sealer 

During the show, I had a conversation with a customer that was struggling with a low-cost imported sealer where the containers were barely moving under the sealer for them to even get a good seal at all. Did you have any experiences, any conversations like that? 

I did. I had a company come to us at the show. In fact, it was a company that we quoted about a year ago. They opted to buy the low-cost sealer from overseas because of cost. In less than a year, that machine died on them. And they were pretty desperate for a solution. And we were able to get them a new machine in less than a week, in less than a week after the show and got them back up and running. So, you definitely get what you pay for.