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50 Years Of Interpack：1960~1969
At the beginning of the sixties, the world economic climate is positive. Virtually unlimited growth seems possible. In the leading industrial nations there is a labour shortage. Optimism remains during the following years. The moon landing of 1969 proves what can be achieved through technical progress. At the same time, however, there are also the first signs of uncertainty towards the end of the sixties. During the past two decades, individual companies had the impression that they could grow without limits, but the pressure of competition now becomes noticeably stronger.
People’s expectations have risen together with economic success. Life should be comfortable and the household should be practical. Leisure is no longer just the period of time in which one is not working, but should be made entertaining. Holiday trips become possible for ever broader strata of society. For young people, the swinging sixties are the dawning of a new era. In many areas, this attitude towards life no longer fits in with social norms that have been inherited from the fifties. Towards the end of the decade, this break becomes plain to see with the hippie movement and the student revolts.
In 1962 there are already 30,000 selfservice shops in the Federal Republic of Germany. These shops then become supermarkets, with growing sales area, and the addition of non-food items. The new form of goods presentation in the supermarket brings challenges for packaging design. Many competing products are placed on the shelves on more or less equal terms. Branded products have the advantage due to their unmistakable outer appearance. The brand principle is extended to groups of goods that have been relatively unaffected by it, such as milk products and baked goods. Impulse purchases make up an ever-increasing proportion of turnover. Individual offers are especially emphasized, and sales aids such as displays are used to do this.
The typical product of the time is the ready-made meal. There are hot tinned foods, freeze-dried sauces and soups out of a bag as well as the TV dinner. Deep frozen food boasts enormous rates of growth, because it fits in with the arrangement of everyday life and the distribution channel of the supermarket. The plastic shopping bag, accessory of mass consumption, becomes ever more wide-spread. The trend towards single-use packaging also illustrates the departure from a kind of consumption characterized by frugality and sustainability. Milk in composite cartons is increasingly in demand.
With just its second event the interpack advanced to being the world’s biggest packaging trade fair. Even producers from the packaging materials industries were now represented in large numbers. The number of exhibitors more than trebled in this decade. For the 1969 exhibition, the premises had to be expanded by temporary extensions to 100,000 m2. In order to provide space for all the exhibitors, tents were set up in which temperatures soon became tropical. The management of Messe Düsseldorf planned to build a larger fair site for the next interpack. In 1960, the interval at which the event was held was extended to three years. It was thus ensured that each time there would be striking developments. In the 60s, the international character of the interpack was consolidated. The interpack had a decisive influence on international cooperation in the packaging industry.
It is necessary to adapt to the idea of self-service when developing new packaging materials, packaging containers and packaging aids. Among other things, this requires that the goods have a long shelf life due to appropriate packaging. The barrier quality of plastics is thus improved and cardboard packaging is optimized for use at deep-freeze counters.
The bar for functionality is higher. Products are meant to be convenient to buy, transport, use and dispose of. The English expression “convenience“ enters international use in the specialist language of packaging development. One way of offering a special service through packaging is the variation of the size of packaging. Foods are offered in portion packs and/or multiple packs.
In the pharmaceutical industry, there are changes in the pharmaceutical form. Tablets, capsules and pills are increasingly often presented in blister packs instead of in little glass tubes. Hassia Verpackungsmaschinen GmbH (Germany) brings push-out packages onto the market in 1964.
Plastic is a sought-after material for solving packaging problems. Only since recently has it been possible to produce polyethylene economically in large quantities, and this is widely put to use as film. Polystyrene, developed by BASF (Germany) in the fifties, now starts its career. Classic packaging materials such as paper, cardboard, glass and wood still remain up-to-date, however, and are further improved.
New applications are found for aluminium. The so-called TV dinner is packed on an aluminium tray and can be heated like this straight away. The beverage can undergoes an improvement that makes it substantially easier to enjoy the contents. It is no longer stabbed open, but can instead be opened by pulling a metal strip on a ring from the lid of the can. This ring-pull system is patented in 1963.
Carton packaging for liquids, in particular milk, has become a trend product. Filling companies may choose from a number of different concepts. The Pure-Pak system came over from the USA to Europe during the sixties. The Perga-Pack by Günter Meyer-Jagenberg was manufactured by a subsidiary of Jagenberg-Werke AG, later Papier- und Klebstoffwerke Linnich GmbH (today SIG Combibloc). Ruben Rausing formed Tetra Pak (SE) in 1951, launching the characteristic tetrahedral-shaped carton one year later. The packaging material is supplied on a roll. A pioneering innovation was the technique of aseptic filling introduced by Tetra Pak in 1961.
In order to make packaging more rational, individual machines are joined up to form a packaging line. The demand of the packaging industry for such systems is great. The synchronization of the individual machines remains a technically demanding task, however, which can only be solved by leading companies in the industry.
Multipacks become more important. The insertion into the multipack machine is, however, only solved to an insufficient degree, especially when machines from different manufacturers are involved. On the other hand, performance is successfully increased. Machines in which the carton has to be set up manually become rarer. The industry looks for ways to accelerate the turnover of goods and at the same time to make it safer. Stacks of pallets, but also individual shipment units are shrink-wrapped with plastic.
In every area, it is being attempted to increase the working speeds of the machines. For example, there is an increase in performance in tube-filling and sealing machines. In 1966, Maschinenfabrik Ganzhorn + Stirn (Germany), promotes a new revolving machine that processes 3,600 tubes per hour. In the second half of the sixties, speeds of over 50,000 bottles per hour can be achieved in beverage filling. The technology of the so-called “Bodymaker” has brought substantial progress in the processing of fine tin at the beginning of the sixties.
The higher the performance of the machinery is and the more areas are automated, the more important it is becoming to build checking into the packaging process, by means of scales. What is needed are checking scales that can keep up with the speed of automatic filling machinery. Thanks to the advances in weighing technology, it is also possible to build filling plants that are controlled by fully automatic scales.
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