OGDEN, N.Y. — ProAmpac cut the ribbon at its new global Collaboration & Innovation Center (CIC) in Rochester, alongside New York government officials and Rochester business leaders on July 14.

The $8 million, 35,000-square-foot facility will help the company solve packaging challenges for its clients through three different labs.

“This is ProAmpac’s new home for product development, rapid sample prototyping and evaluation of new packaging, as well as a training hub for customers and employees,” said Greg Tucker, founder and chief executive officer of the ProAmpac.

The Design and Sample Lab (DASL) will offer ideation, design and prototyping capabilities for new concepts. The lab has been in operation since 2014 and has now been moved from its former location in Ohio to the new CIC.

The Packaging Lab, equipped with filling trials, shelf-life studies, and testing capabilities for pouch sizing and stability, will allow customers to test advanced packaging materials for performance and sustainability.

The Analytical and Physical Packaging Lab will house physical and analytical testing capabilities previously sourced across ProAmpac’s production facilities. This new centralized lab in Rochester will feature environmental chambers for “hard-to-hold” testing, as well as SEM [scanning electron microscopy], FTIR [fourier transform infrared spectroscopy] and DCS [dual-comb spectroscopy] methods for film analysis.

“Our CIC is a one-stop center providing our customers with a resource that helps them address their packaging product development needs including product design, testing, graphic design and filling,” said Adam Grose, chief commercial officer at ProAmpac. “I am confident this facility will help greatly reduce the time required to go from concept to commercialization.”

The CIC sits near ProAmpac’s existing production facility in Ogden. The facility is now the permanent location for the company’s LEAD ProAmpac Academy, a training program in which its employees and customers can learn technologies for packaging extrusion, lamination, printing and sustainability.

“Virtually every consumer products brand owner has made sustainability a top priority,” Grose added.
 “Through ProActive Sustainability®, we have become the go-to source for sustainable packaging solutions.”

ProAmpac operates nearly 50 global manufacturing facilities and employs more than 5,800 people, working to serve more than 5,000 customers across 90 countries.

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