LAS VEGAS, Nevada – ORBIS Corporation used PACK EXPO Las Vegas to do something it hasn’t done before: exhibit with sister division Menasha Packaging and walk brand owners through a staged, end-to-end retail execution flow. The joint presentation tied inbound component handling, filling, repack, display creation, and retail delivery into one coordinated storyline built around reusable packaging and retail packaging.
“We partnered with our sister division, Menasha Packaging,” explained Lynn Hediger, Vice President of Product Management at ORBIS.
“Under the Menasha umbrella,” he commented in a post-show interview, “we can collectively help our brands go all the way from inbound shipments into their factories to retail display and retail packaging. There are different handoffs along the way, but between the two parties under one umbrella, we’re able to help customers move product through their entire supply chain.”
A staged system from empties to end-cap
At the booth, ORBIS and Menasha Packaging laid out a step-by-step scenario using a familiar consumer products use case: club-store multipacks of shampoo and conditioner:
- Inbound to filling: Empty bottles arrive to the filler in an ORBIS OpteBulk sleeve pack, a reusable plastic pallet with a reusable cover and a corrugated-plastic sidewall. “There isn’t shrink wrap and all that,” Hediger said. “The pallet and the cover stay intact using a retractor, like a seat belt, to eliminate excess waste.”
- Transfer to repack: Filled bottles are shipped in ORBIS PlastiCorr reusable corrugated packaging, stacked on plastic pallets, to a Menasha fulfillment site.
- Retail pack & display: Menasha prints and converts the branded primary packaging (folding carton), the secondary display vehicles (corrugated), as well as any additional promotional side panel messaging. They then kit one shampoo with one conditioner, and distribute the finished customer-facing SKU directly to retail, or a retailer distribution center (for all retail channels: club, national grocery, mass, value, drug, and dollar).
- Retail delivery: Finished units ride to the store on a reusable pallet for merchandising.
The display generated curiosity and conversation. “People would come up and ask, ‘How do I get the shampoo bottles to the factory to be filled?’ and then, ‘Who in my organization takes it to the next phase?’” Hediger noted. “Being able to work with ORBIS and Menasha together became more compelling the more they thought through the whole flow.”
What drew the crowds: automation and identification
Two themes dominated booth conversations: automation (broadly defined) and identification/track-and-trace integration.
“Automation is a big, big thing,” Hediger said. “Customers want to leverage their reusable packaging to make whatever their definition of automation is, more usable and more reliable.” That begins with fundamentals: dimensional consistency, durability, and cleanability for high-uptime warehouse automation; and container geometries and placement that support robotic picking in industrial applications.”
On identification, attendees were “walking around the show seeing different technologies for track and trace,” Hediger noted. “They’re asking, ‘How can I utilize that on a container or on a pallet? Can it be positioned consistently and in the right space if it’s a 1D/2D barcode instead of RFID, where placement is more sensitive?”
The conversation is also moving from asset location to content visibility. “It’s not just, ‘Where is my pallet?’ It’s, ‘What’s on the pallet?’—especially for higher-value items like pharmaceuticals, where one pallet might hold half a million dollars of product,” he said. “Or think about shelf life in food applications. People want to use the technology to track the contents, not only to prevent theft.”
Packaging economics, barriers to reuse
Compared to prior shows, Hediger heard less overt sustainability messaging and more pragmatic economics. “A lot of conversations started with the economic case,” he said. “They need to make sure there’s an economic case to go with it,” he said. “In most cases, there is.” The long-term environmental impact of packaging decisions continues to influence strategy. Hediger noted that when the economic and sustainability cases align, companies are far more likely to move forward.
However, upfront cost remains a hurdle, but Hediger emphasized that reframing the decision on a per-turn basis and offering financing/lease structures can unlock movement.
“People come in thinking, ‘My company has to make this investment, some multiple of expendable packaging,’” he said. “When you show the value per use or introduce financing services, turning it into a program where they pay over time, you can help them get past the initial cost barrier. If their annual budget is a million dollars, they can’t spend five million up front. But if the container lasts five years and they still only pay about a million a year, they capture five years of benefits without breaking capital budgets.”
The bigger headwind today is uncertainty. “The biggest barrier we’re seeing is the uncertainty in the world of tariffs and volatility,” Hediger said. “If you can assure them the product is made in their same country, most projects tend to move forward. If you’re crossing a border, it becomes, ‘I don’t want to order this with a six-week lead time and have a tariff drop in the middle that blows up my budget and payback models.’”
That uncertainty is especially acute in automotive and other industrial flows with heavy Canada–U.S.–Mexico cross-border movements. “There’s so much passing of vehicle parts back and forth,” he said. Questions around EV policy, incentives, and retooling timelines are contributing to slower decision cycles. “We see a lot of projects where customers say, ‘We’re not ready to pull the trigger, but we want to dot the i’s and cross the t’s so we’re ready when the time is right.’”
ORBIS’ booth sat across from the Reusable Packaging Association pavilion, giving Hediger a front-row seat to education demand. “I was pleasantly surprised by how many people attended the learning center sessions,” he said. “Our sister company presented one as well. Extremely well attended. It’s exciting to see people trying to get educated on reusable packaging.”
Why the Menasha Packaging partnership matters
Beyond the public demo, Hediger underscored what the ORBIS – Menasha Packaging pairing signals to brand owners wrestling with siloed decisions.
“In many organizations, packaging for inbound components, filling, club pack repack, display, and store execution are separate conversations with different owners,” he said. “When we put it together, it opened a lot of engaging conversations. People started thinking beyond their one piece and how the choices upstream and downstream affect automation, labor, damage, and waste.”
That end-to-end view is also where identification ties in. Label and sensor placement standards, scan line-of-sight, and durability through multiple touchpoints can make or break ROI for track-and-trace rollouts. “Consistent placement and the right technology choice matter a lot more when you’re integrating with filling, repack, and retail,” Hediger said.
Hediger’s bottom line from the show: “Customers are ready to talk automation and visibility in practical terms. If we can give them a clear economic path and reduce uncertainty, whether that’s through financing or localized supply, they’re prepared to move.”
To find out more, visit www.orbiscorporation.com and to learn more about ORBIS’ sister company, Menasha Packaging, please visit www.menasha.com
Rick LeBlanc, EMBA, is the founder and editor of Reusable Packaging News (subscribe to the free newsletter) and editor of Western Pallet Magazine. A supply chain journalist with more than 30 years of experience, he specializes in pallets, reusable packaging, material handling and related operations. Rick is co-author of Pallets: A North American Perspective and Pallets & Progress: A Collected History of Pallets and Palletized Handling 1922–1945. He is also an advisory board member of the Virginia Tech Center for Packaging and Unit Load Design. Read Rick’s full bio.
