An active contributor to Australia’s packaging industry during a career spanning 30-plus years, a past president and Fellow of the Australian Institute of Packaging, Ralph Moyle was recently recognised with the AIP Founders Award for his tireless work across many spheres of packaging, and especially in education and training. PKN asked him to share career highlights and his view on the future of the industry. This article was first published in PKN Packaging News July/August 2020.
What led you to a career in packaging and how has that evolved to culminate in your current role?
I started in technical/QA/product development then moved into various operational roles but packaging was always a component. My first job with packaging as its focus was with Golden Circle. I was the first manager appointed to this role. The first task was shelf-ready packaging being imposed by the retailers. Golden Circle was a very early adopter. The outcome was a great success for Golden Circle with increased sales and six-figure savings. Many of those designs are still industry standards today.
What area of packaging technology do you find most interesting and why?
Tough decision… aseptic packaging is high on the list but I will choose glass. Glass-making is part science, part engineering, and part alchemy, which is what makes it so special. A combination of sand and soda ash that becomes a fluid, then cools to a very hard and strong material that you can see through, the process delivers a fantastic result in so many shapes and sizes. And it’s recyclable if collected and sorted well.
In recent years your vocation as an educator has come to the fore. What does your role as AIP’s education co-ordinator involve?
For the AIP education team, bringing the latest relevant training courses to industry is the core. My role is diverse, from running our Diploma in Packaging Technology and Certificate in Packaging degrees (still the only formal packaging training courses in Australia and New Zealand), and working with the best and brightest students as they develop their careers, to taking our training courses in Sustainability/PREP Tool and shortly Sustainable Packaging Guidelines around Australia and New Zealand.
The AIP is currently transitioning a number of these course to the virtual world so we can reach regional Australia and Asia and new audiences. The AIP has a real presence in Asia after many years of working with the ProPak series of trade shows. This area, alongside working with the Australian Packaging Covenant Organisation (APCO), will be our growth pathway going forward.
What’s your view on the level of investment by Australian companies in employee education and training in packaging?
A generation of expert packaging technologists are leaving the industry in the next five years, so who is going to replace them as the industry gets into more complexity? There are so many countries that have dedicated packaging schools within their tertiary institutions as they recognise the value of having well-trained packaging technologists.
Australian companies tend to rely on a she-will-be-right attitude yet are demanding more sophisticated, lightweight, sustainable packaging that protects our products through one of the longest and toughest supply chains on earth.
Sustainability is core to your training curriculum. What is your view on the progress being made towards the 2025 National Packaging Targets?
AIP is so pleased to be APCO’s education arm to assist in delivering these targets. Progress towards these targets has been underway for 20 years and not just the last two, due to the skills of Australian Packaging Technologists throughout the industry.
While I am proud of what the AIP and the Australian packaging industry has achieved to date, let’s not forget this is a society issue that needs everyone’s involvement. Litter is still a massive issue and it has been forgotten by the politicians and the anti-packaging groups. How did that plastic bottle get into the ocean? It doesn’t have legs. People put it there.
The pandemic has brought many challenges, but what has been the upside for packaging?
Packaging protects the item from manufacturer to consumer. That is, and always has been, its primary role. In the case of food and pharmaceuticals, packaging provides essential life support.
Consumers confronted with the ugly reality of Covid-19, reacted swiftly and clearly; they left the open unprotected plastic-free zones in droves and when straight to glass jars, cans, and fully sealed plastic bags. So much so, the shelves were empty of these packaging formats and stayed empty week after week. I think that speaks volumes for the value of packaging.
