December 9, 2025 • 39 mins
Every day, millions of packages are shipped in boxes that are too big, filled with plastic, padded with unnecessary materials, and wasting money, space, and fuel. This inefficiency costs e-commerce brands billions, increases carbon emissions, and clogs supply chains with avoidable waste — yet most companies still don’t realize how harmful their packaging systems really are.
In this episode of the Conscious Design Podcast, Ian Peterman sits down with David Murgio, Chief Sustainability Officer at Ranpak, to break down the root causes of packaging waste and the rise of paper-based packaging, sustainable materials, right-sizing technology, packaging automation, and data-driven fulfillment. Discover how leading brands are eliminating empty space, reducing shipping costs, improving sustainability metrics, and moving toward a circular, low-waste supply chain.
If you work in e-commerce, product design, sustainable packaging, supply chain, or logistics — this conversation will transform how you think about packaging efficiency and environmental impact.
🔎 This episode covers:
• How paper-based solutions are finally outperforming plastic
• The rise of AI-driven box sizing and packaging automation
• How Ranpak’s EVO Machine cuts waste, cost, and emissions
• Why efficiency is sustainability
• Global trends reshaping packaging regulations (EU + beyond)
• How Gen Z is accelerating the sustainability movement
• The data revolution coming to shipping and fulfillment
⏩ Jump to your favorite parts
00:39 Meet David Murgio: SVP & Chief Sustainability Officer of Ranpak
00:59 The History and Evolution of Ranpak
02:09 Innovative Packaging Solutions by Ranpak
03:49 The Philosophy of Sustainability
14:30 Generational Shifts in Sustainability Mindset
16:58 Global Trends and Future Outlook
19:41 Engineering and Design Challenges in Packaging
20:15 Automation in Packaging: The Evo Machine
21:19 Sustainability and Cost Efficiency in Shipping
30:29 The Future of Packaging: Data and Innovation
38:06 Conclusion and Final Thoughts
About David Murgio & Ranpak
David Murgio oversees Ranpak’s global sustainability strategy, regulatory reporting, product development alignment, and their annual Sustainability Impact Report. He also serves as General Counsel for One Madison Group and played a key role in the acquisition of Ranpak. His background includes roles at Harbinger Capital Partners and Weil, Gotshal & Manges LLP, with degrees from Dartmouth College and Columbia University.
About Ranpak
Founded in 1972, Ranpak is a global leader in environmentally sustainable, paper-based packaging and advanced automation solutions for e-commerce and industrial supply chains. Their mission: replace plastic with renewable, recyclable, and high-performance packaging that reduces waste and increases efficiency.
Website: https://www.ranpak.com
LinkedIn (David): https://www.linkedin.com/in/david-murgio-98a1a816/
LinkedIn (Ranpak): https://www.linkedin.com/company/ranpak/posts/?feedView=all
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ranpak_global/
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Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
What we should be doing, the substrates we should be using
for these functions that take one to five days to substrate,
like paper that biodegrades in acouple of weeks to a month.
It can be recycled, comes from arenewable resource.
Plant trees. Harvest trees, plant.
Again, you can make paper out ofall kinds of.
Plants you make paper out of, right out of, out of all kinds
(00:20):
of things out of grasp. Hello and welcome to the
Conscious Design podcast. I'm your host, Ian Peterman, and
I helped turn product ideas intosustainable 7 figure businesses.
Join me for another episode where sustainability meets
innovation and business savvy. Today, I'm really excited to
have David Murgio. He's the chief sustainability
(00:43):
officer of RAN Pack. They're advancing sustainability
for supply chain automation and materials.
Welcome to the show. Thank you, Lee.
It's a pleasure to be here. Yeah, absolutely.
Well, a couple things I would like to 1st, everyone loves to
get a little bit idea of the background of the company that
(01:04):
we're talking with. So very first, if you could a
few minutes talk about, you know, what is Ranbac, what is
how to get founder like what's the brief?
Happy. It's a brief synopsis.
So oddly enough, Ranbac's been around for a long time.
I say oddly enough, because thiswhole sustainability and
packaging, you know, is kind of a newer idea, but Ranpac was
(01:25):
founded in the early 1970s, so over 50 years old.
It was originally a family business where the family
created some IP around creating a machine that molded and, and
shaped and quilted paper to use it for blocking out and
packaging items for shipment. Over the years, over 50 years,
(01:46):
the, the, the company's gone through a number of ownership
changes and we've grown a whole lot such that today we're a
packaging company. We provide secondary packaging.
So that means packaging protecting products within boxes
for shipments. So think when you order
something online and it comes ina big brown box, ours is the
packaging inside that box aroundthe product that protects it.
(02:07):
So when it gets to you, it doesn't break, it's not broken.
So today we've got a whole number of ways of shaping and
forming paper. And the key to everything that
we do is it's all around using paper for packaging, packaging
protection. We've got a whole bunch of
different systems. We've got void fill systems that
(02:30):
dispense paper into boxes. We've got wrapping systems that
wrap products, think paper version of bubble wrap.
We've got what we call cushioning systems, which are
more about shaping and quilting and crimpling paper to protect
industrial items, heavier metal products, industrial items, B2B
shipments, auto parts, that kindof thing.
(02:50):
And then we also have a newer business as of the last 5-7
years where we've broken into automation where we've created a
whole bunch of large kind of higher volume for higher volume
customers, machines that shape boxes or size boxes according to
the size of the product to reduce the void so you don't
(03:10):
have to ship, so you're not shipping air basically that.
Always a good. Use AI to dispense the right
amount of tonnage into the box, all sorts of different
automation principles and those are larger piece of equipment
for very high volume users. But that first piece about
filling voids and wrapping all of that, we've got a whole suite
(03:31):
of machines that work from the, I always say a mom and pop
ceramic store at working out of their garage to wrap their
ceramics all the way up to the largest, most complex
fulfillment Centers for the largest e-commerce players that
are shipping out millions of boxes a day.
Amazing. Yeah, it's, it's funny you
mentioned, you know, the the sustainability thing and, and
(03:53):
people think of it as only new, but because the average
consumer, right, is absolutely hasn't.
Well, it was hippies and it was weird and then it was, you know,
it's it stayed weird and on the fringes for so long that, you
know, people forget that company.
There were actually companies thinking about this.
(04:14):
Absolutely. Way back when we like to say we
were sustainable before it was cool, right Are the
Interestingly, the first patent was filed within a month or two.
I can't remember. It was a month or two before, a
month or two after the very first Earth Day, when Earth Day
was totally, like you say, a lotof hippies out there.
It was it was less so it was a conventional, conventionally,
(04:36):
conventionally celebrated than it is today.
Yeah, that's a, that's a good way to put it.
Yeah. So I think it's, it's always
great to have companies like youthat you can go, Hey, what we
have this history of we've been doing things we've been involved
in, in this kind of, we've been thinking about these things
because that evolution for me personally, it's always
(04:58):
fascinating to look at the evolution of what we call
sustainability. And I, you know, not to turn
into a history thing, but I liketo all look all the way back,
you know, 150 years to when the idea of trash, and this is
something I've I've talked to the idea of trash is actually, I
would argue a more recent invention rather at the scale.
(05:20):
And we've always had we've always had trash, but unusable
trash. That's a little bit new at the
scale right For we do. I mean, if you want to get
philosophical about it, I mean, in, in a way, right,
sustainability is kind of a new label for just a very old idea,
which is kind of waste not want not and, and to use only that
what you need, right? And, and that's something that
(05:42):
people have been focused on for thousands of years, right?
In a weird way, what we're seeing today in this new
sustainability movement. I mean, it's got its roots going
back to biblical times about being conscious and prudent
stewards of your resources and leaving.
You know, I always say for me, the definition of
sustainability, I always kind ofcut through everything and say
(06:05):
at the end of the day, all it means to be sustainable is to
leave the world a little bit nicer than it would otherwise be
for your children. That's really all it is.
Right. Well, all it takes.
That's that's all it is, all it is, all it means to be
sustainable is let's just do what we have to do today with
the least possible adverse effect on our children's lives.
(06:26):
And that's really what it's all about.
All that said, right? I mean, we've come, you know, I
mean, there's been such technological change over the
past thousands of years, but that's less over the past
decades, 50. Years now.
Yeah, exactly. 50 years, 20 years, 10 years on
sustainability, we've learned all sorts of different ways to
to kind of live that mantra about leaving the world just a
little better off than it would otherwise be.
(06:47):
And one of the things that I, I also, I always point people to
when we talk to about sustainability because we have,
I work with clients where I'm trying to tell them that, hey,
we should be more sustainable inhow you're developing your
product and avoid waste. And really sustainability is
efficiency. If you're super efficient, I
(07:09):
mean, yeah, there's, there's a part where you could be really
efficient and, you know, leak out radioactive material.
So I skip that one. But for every everything else,
more efficient is more sustained.
You're not wasting material. You're not.
If you're not creating waste, then there's no you're not
causing problems anywhere. Else if there is a.
Waste and so that for me, as I've gone through even just my
(07:35):
career, I've been doing this 20,just 20 years, right, a little
little window in life for the last bit, changing the language
from, you know, sustainability obviously is a great at this
point buzzword to use. But on the business side, when
you go, OK, well, efficiency, like just be more efficient and
(07:55):
plan ahead. And like we were just talking
about before we start recording,thinking about, you know, some
planning, planning ahead, is this the right material?
And I think that. That's the key to me.
Question, we didn't ask. We found petroleum.
They're like plastic and we didn't ask.
We didn't. And I think part of it is
(08:17):
there's so much rapid change or anything about the last, yes, 50
years. There's so much change.
And when you have behaviors for thousands of years, it's really
hard to change your change civilization behavior around a
new material that we also use everywhere.
Right. I mean, that's interesting.
I mean, like you were saying before, I mean, to me when I
(08:39):
think about design and and what it is that we do at Ram Pack, I
mean, there's this first question, which is to your
point, if we were planning out asystem, right, a global economy
where today we ship things and it takes two.
I mean, I live in New York City,it takes me 12 hours when I
(08:59):
press send by sometimes before Iget my product.
Other places, maybe it takes a day or two or five days, right?
Five days, an incredibly long shipping time.
So you've got this function, right, this function, which is
how do we protect something for five days, for one to five days?
And if we were planning this outfrom the beginning, we would say
we should use something that's not going to be around for a
(09:21):
long time, right? I mean, how crazy is it that
we've kind of morphed into this world, into this?
And I know how we got here because of our addiction to
plastic or addiction's the wrongterm because our reliance on
plastic. But to use a substrate that's
going to last for 100 years thatour kids are going to have to be
dealing with for the next 100 years to fulfil a function that
(09:42):
is literally done and over with in one to five days.
It's just backwards and not the way you would plan this out if
we had tried foresight of designand and it was more of a
deliberate design problem as opposed to an evolution, as you
say. I mean plastic, you know,
plastic's an amazing thing. And when it was discovered
(10:03):
invented, when it was created inthe 50s and 60s, there were all
these uses that people couldn't even imagine.
And the point isn't that it's not, it is an absolutely amazing
thing, right. I mean, I always say that when I
go to the hospital or I go to the doctor and I get something
stuck into my arm right at the hospital, I want that to be
single use plastic. I want that to be clean.
(10:24):
I want it to come out of a plastic wrapper.
I want it like thank God for plastic when I'm in the when I'm
at the doctor's office. But that's not to say that it's
really the right substrate when we're talking about shipping
something and we have a useful life of one to five days.
So part of the way I think aboutRAM pack and part of where I
(10:45):
think this kind of fits into this whole question of, of as
you say, kind of like efficient design is what we should be
doing, what we should be using, the substrates we should be
using for these functions that take one to five days is a
substrate like paper that biodegrades in a couple of weeks
to a month. It can be recycled, comes from a
(11:07):
renewable resource. We can plant trees, we can
harvest trees. We can plant again.
We can make. Paper out of all kinds of
plants. You make paper out of, out of
out of all kinds of things out of grass.
We make. We have a product in Europe
that's that's part grass paper. When we sit back and we say for
one to five days, we're going touse something that can't be
(11:28):
redone, right? We're pulling oil out of the
earth. We're creating this amazing
substrate that can do all these wonderful things, but it's going
to last for 150 years. It just seems like it's a, it's
a mismatch to me, which is why Ithink what we're doing at
Rampack is so important and exciting.
Yeah, it's interesting material choice, right?
We think about and I feel like we're kind of just we became
(11:49):
used to oh just plastic packaging plastic this like it's
like he's a easy cheap and yeah,I don't know if it dicted his
right word, but yeah, we're kindof sucked into it and a little
bit lazy now. Yeah, where we're just like and
just. Click.
Well, it's inertia. You say?
Lazy. It's inertia.
I mean, it's human nature, right?
(12:10):
If it's not broke, don't fix it.It's human nature.
I mean, I don't mean to cast blame.
It's just the way we do things, right?
I mean, not a, yeah, not a blame, but it always takes more
effort to change the behavior. It's just.
I mean, that's interesting. I mean it, it, it, it does take
a lot of effort, but it takes a lot of effort at least where we
(12:30):
sit and the way that we conduct our business, where our business
operates, it's really a change in the mind more than anything
else. I mean, so for, as I said, we
have a, a, our kind of historic,what we call our paper packaging
systems, which are void fills, which you get in the box when
you for e-commerce, we've got our cushioning for the
industrial, we've got our wrapping, which wraps housewares
(12:53):
and things. The way our business is set up
is actually we only make money on the paper.
So a new customer comes in and wants to transition from plastic
to paper. They get, we effectively lease
them our machines. But when I say lease, I mean at
a very, very, very low cost and we retain ownership of the
machine and, and they just startbuying paper from us.
(13:15):
And we found that that is our business model that works really
well because if you don't own the machine and something
happens to it, it breaks. It needs to be fixed.
I could just come bring you a new one and take your old one
and fix it back at that, you know, back home at the shop.
Right. Keep your downtime.
Yeah, it keeps downtime low and it allows us to take back
machines and refurbish them. And so you don't.
Have anybody messing with it andbreaks?
Anymore and making exactly but what that means for the customer
(13:39):
who wants to shift papers there's little to no upfront
investment required right. You're not buying machines.
We're showing up, we're bringingthe machines, and you're just
buying the paper that you're using.
So it's actually the ability to shift I think comes back to it's
this idea that somehow we've always done it this other way
(14:00):
and we, you know, and it's shifting that mindset.
And we're seeing a lot of companies increasingly shift
that mindset, which is wonderful.
But that's always the first step.
Much, much more so than the technicalities of, you know,
the, the required investment or the technicalities of getting
the machines there and setting everything up.
I mean, we've got people who canorganize your fulfilment center
and do it in a snap. And, you know, that's all easy
(14:23):
peasy. It's really getting people to
change their mindset, which I think is super interesting.
And it's also generational. It takes time, right?
Unless there's, you know, excruciating pain involved with
something that forces fast change, really fast change.
Yeah, it takes, it takes some time.
It takes some time to to show that, yeah, this is the way it's
(14:45):
going or, you know, customers look expecting it more.
That's the key. That.
Therein is the key, right? That is the key at the end of
the day, right, Because we're thankfully getting to a point
where people kind of expect thiseven regardless of the politics,
regardless of everything that happens kind of on on the
(15:06):
surface level is, you know, we can chart the politics, state
abilities up, state abilities down, whatever.
But all that aside, there's justa mindset that's taken over,
which really is a very old mindset.
It's back to what we said before.
Waste not want, not like why waste, right?
And people, I, I mean, I see it,I always refer to my own family.
(15:26):
I mean, I see it in my mother, but you know, who I really see
it in is in my children. I mean, my kids are in their 20s
and they have no patience at allfor anybody who doesn't have
this mindset, for any company that isn't willing to see the
future the way they see the future, the importance of these
things to their future. So I think it ultimately comes
back to customer demand in making this shift.
(15:49):
That is a really good point too is generational kind of
expectation. It has started to come online
and that's what when I'm talkingto companies even too that are
like, if any of them are thinking long term, which at the
company you should be, if you'renot, you need to be.
(16:10):
But if you are, you're paying attention.
And anybody that's paying attention knows that the
generation that early 20s now our teenagers are in this.
They, you know, ours have jobs. They're spending their own money
now. They think about these things
they were doing thrifting because they're like, this is
(16:31):
cool and it's better and it's better.
There's there's more and more and I can only imagine the
generation after them, right? There's going to be 0.
Any wiggle room right now that exists is going to be gone.
It's going to be. Gone one more generation I I
can't imagine any of the things that companies were selling and
(16:52):
doing in our. Exactly.
In our generation when we were kids, absolutely.
The forward-looking companies know this.
They recognize this. I mean, you know, you saw Amazon
a year. Has it been a year?
No, I can't remember when they put out there.
Not quite. I think it was last summer, last
June, July announced their wholeshift to paper from plastic.
(17:13):
And you know, for an organization like that, I say
it's an easy lift. It's in the mindset.
It is. But when you're an organization
like that, anything is a heavy lift, right?
I mean. Yeah, everything.
Everything's a. Billion dollars, a heavy lift,
right. So we see that with
forward-looking companies who are doing this and we see it,
you know, not surprisingly, our,our business is a global
(17:35):
business. So we do about 45% of rough
numbers, 45 ish percent of our sales are European, 45 ish
percent of our sales is North American, 10% ish Asia Pacific.
And we see, you know, as a global business, we see it
happening in Europe at a much faster pace, I shouldn't say at
a much faster pace. They're just a few steps ahead
(17:57):
of us here in North America as to how to think about this and
the seriousness with which they approach these questions, which
is good. You know it's good.
Yeah, I mean, someone's always going to be faster and everyone
else OK, and everyone else will catch up.
We'll catch up. Yeah.
So, so to me, the first big question, as I said, is the
(18:18):
substrate and you just kind of get your head around that.
And if we're deliberately planning it, we would be
choosing A substrate. But then there's so much and I
know this, this podcast focus ondesign, there's there is so much
what I'm going to call that kindof making widgets design going
on, which is so interesting. I'm not an engineer, I'm not a
(18:38):
technical person. I do not have a technical
background or an engineering background, but it's amazing to
go into R&D facility and to see the awesome ways that our
engineering professionals think about how to basically form
paper, to do new things, to package new things, to cushion
(19:01):
things better. And we put a whole lot of effort
into both improving those business, you know, those
machines that we have now, there's interesting design
questions in shifting to a more recycled paper, right?
There's the kind of general view, and I subscribe to this,
is that recycled paper made fromrecycled content is better from
a sustainability perspective. And The thing is that as you
(19:23):
recycle paper, the fibers get shorter and shorter and the
paper just gets softer and softer, right?
So when you think about, you know, something like this, which
is a really hard, you know, it'sjust a pervergent printer paper,
it's a really stiff paper as opposed to say a, you know,
newspaper, old fashioned newspaper.
If you still touch newspapers, right, which is heavily
recycled, you're not looking online, right?
(19:45):
And that's an engineering problem and a design problem in
and of itself in shifting, trying to figure out ways to the
way I think about it, have the recycled softer paper cut a
migrate up the chain into the applications that have typically
needed more rigid paper as a kind of rule of thumb, the
cushioning? Applications that are designed
to cushion heavier things, heavier piece of equipment that
(20:06):
you're shipping. The rule of thumb is you
typically want a more rigid paper because you're dealing
with a heavier object. But that's a super interesting
design question that our guys are working on constantly.
And then there's we've rolled out in the past 6-7 years this
automation business, which is all about engineering and
design. And and that's super, super
interesting because that's about, if you imagine like our
(20:28):
EVO cut it, which is one of our flagship machines.
It's a very large piece equipment about the size of
minivan, maybe taller than a minivan, maybe the footprint of
a minivan. And basically a product comes in
on a carton and machine vision looks at it, computes the amount
of the void needed around the product.
And then it goes into the machine and the machine cuts the
(20:49):
box down to meet, to produce thebox to fit the packets, to fit
the product basically. And that's like talk about an
engineering problem. Getting all these interfaces
together with the machine visionand the AI background and the
brain and everything talking to each other to both reduce insert
donnage and to happen at a superfast rate that works for a large
(21:09):
high volume customer is a massive engineering, I'm to say
problem. It's a massive engineering
challenge in the best kind of ways and it's a challenge that
we've pretty much perfected. I mean, our machines are, we're
on. To have if Amazon boxes could
have those that yeah. Shorter, smaller, right, yes, a
lot of more, again, more in Europe.
(21:31):
Europe has some regulatory things going on that there's a
regulatory reason for them to, to reduce the voids.
But reducing voids and reducing the size of the box has first of
all, cost less because people typically ship on a dim weight,
right? Dimensions of the box times a
weight factor. So you're literally shipping
smaller boxes. So you're paying less to ship,
you're putting less void in. All of that's great and all of
(21:53):
that is important. And as business people, we, I
love all of that. But what else it does is it from
a sustainability perspective, right?
You're getting more of those boxes on a pallet, right?
Because if you've got smaller boxes, they fit on a pallet.
What does that mean? You're sending out fewer trucks.
You're sending out. When you scale this up for these
large company, you know, for these large, large shipping
companies that ship millions of boxes a day, if you can get on 2
(22:17):
trucks what you used to get on three trucks, you're really
significantly cutting the environmental effect.
Hey, it's your host, Ian. I'm really glad you're enjoying
this episode. I absolutely love highlighting
amazing brands and founders for the awesome things they are
doing. I've helped hundreds of
entrepreneurs and businesses like yours turn their boldest
ideas into powerful, purpose driven brands.
(22:38):
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Brand that stands out, tracks loyal customers and drive
(23:00):
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Enjoy the rest of the episode and don't forget to like,
subscribe and share. Well, two, the biggest problems
(23:23):
in shipping, the biggest wastes are when we ship air and water.
And, and that's why companies are coming out with, you know,
there's versions of soaps and there's versions of other things
that you don't need to ship the water because water, water is
super heavy and air just takes up space.
You're just. Takes up space exactly so and.
(23:45):
Combined that's a lot of wasted space on your truck.
And like you said, if if you're and even you know the last
especially lat when you get to the last mile, it's not the
weight that kills you, it's the space.
If half of your truck is air because of the air in the
package, that means your driver can deliver half the number of
(24:06):
packages they could, which meansthey have to go out twice.
Absolutely. That's.
Double the fuel cost, that's double the we.
Should sign you up. This is that's what Evo cut it's
all about. That is what it is all about.
And yeah, I mean, those are the problems that this machine is
designed very deliberately to fix and to make better.
(24:26):
And it's exciting because everything you're saying is 100%
true. And it's nice to have something
that both helps on the cost, on the labor, on the difficulty,
and is also just more sustainable.
It's like this trifecta of of terrific that's going.
On is the on demand part too, right?
If you think about being able to, there's the other, you know,
(24:49):
another huge waste space is, well, how many size boxes do you
have to have 100%? How many pallets of those boxes
do you need to have on your floor?
How much are you paying a month and what your utilities or rent
or any of the above to have all of that to store the boxes that
you hope that you are calculating.
(25:10):
You know, it's all based on forecasting guessing at 100% how
many are going to sell of each thing to magically have the
right. So which means you're gonna end
up with some. There's gonna be some pallets
somewhere of just boxes. You'll never.
You're just sitting there and never used.
Absolutely. So I mean, I'm gonna get all
this wrong because I'm not on the technical side in its
(25:30):
detail, but it's it's going to be correct ballparks.
Exactly. We've had experiences with
customers with our automation equipment.
So our Evos basically there's like a footprint box size and
there's like kind of small, medium and large footprint box
size. And they cut down the height of
the box. And we have this software pre
cubit that helps analyze what they used to ship and helps
(25:52):
predict how they could transition to our equipment and
give that and fit in for optimization box that, you know,
pallet optimization, all that kind of stuff.
And where we've had large customers with a start and
they'll have, they'll carry literally like 10 or 12 box
sizes. So you go into their filming
center and there's just, you know, 10 different box sizes all
(26:18):
the way down from like this to this, right?
That you have to inventory manage, bring in on a pallet,
then make it easy for somebody to get.
Because to come and get the pallet, the right box, it's
awesome. Crazy, right?
I mean, I shouldn't say it's crazy.
It's just where we've, you know,it's the way the evolution came,
right? Well, it's just expected now.
It's expected. So we've come in and we've said,
(26:41):
hey, listen, we've done the analysis of what you ship out.
We found that you can get one Creek 1 EVO with the smaller
footprint, 2 with the medium footprint and one with the
larger footprint. Right now we've reduced those 10
box sizes to three footprinted boxes.
That one, each one goes through specific machine and all of the
rest of the sizing can happen just on the vertical plane by
(27:03):
the machines natural box sizing.You know what the machine does
It's it's what it was designed to do to to size the vertical
plane of the box. So you go into some place where
they've got 12/10/12 different box sizes and they come out with
three standardized footprints that they run through these
three machines and they end up with an infinite number of
(27:23):
actual box sizes coming out because the machine it doesn't
sound like a full cut medium cutsmoke.
You can get a lower time. It's not the machines the.
Ones that you can. Buy right, No, it's not
perforated or anything. The machine vision looks at each
box determines how deep it needsto be.
So it'll end up with an infinitenumber of box sizes
theoretically that are all perfectly suited to their needs.
(27:45):
Again, more boxes than on the pallet, less air shipping, less
tonnage inside, fewer trucks on the road, fewer vans for the
last mile. All of these real life economic
and kind of what I'm we're goingto call sustainability making a
better world ramifications. It's a pretty amazing piece of
equipment in line that we have. How long has that line been out?
(28:06):
Oh, it's been out for, I want tosay a couple of years.
I mean, we're on our version two, Yeah, it's pretty new, but
I mean it's within the last five, four to five years.
I think our initial ones were about 5-6 years ago, but the
ones that we have now that have evolved and gotten much, much
better. I mean, we have an automation
facility that we built in Shelton, CT where they're all
(28:27):
assembled there for the US market.
And we have a trick showroom that has, you can look online
and see the cut it and see what the machines look like.
They're really amazing pieces ofequipment and it's wild to sit
there and watch them run when the boxes come in and you get
these boxes of all different sizes, you know?
That's awesome. And it can, I'm assuming it can
(28:49):
do this, but if you put like a collection of like if you're
thinking Amazon right where you're gonna grab off the shelf
3 randomly shaped items, put it in a pile and then send it
through and it just goes. Box it yes, 100% the way the
again, I'm not a technical guy, I'm gonna get this wrong
probably and it's very specific,but basically the camera, the
(29:12):
machine vision, both can take a picture of the inside of the
box, which is super helpful for quality management, for quality
control, for everything else. Right.
Make sure you're shipping what you're supposed to.
Right. Make sure you're shipping what
you're supposed to do. But that's like the easiest,
simplest thing. And then there are other cameras
or other eyes, I guess, that create these pixelated dot maps
(29:34):
of what's in the box, which thenfeeds to the machine to tell it
exactly how much tonnage to put in.
So it doesn't matter if it's onething or five things, it just
reads what's in the box. Here's.
The space, right? Here's the space and this is
what's in it and speaks to, you know, communicates with the
cutter head in the dispenser so that everything comes out
(29:56):
perfect. And I would imagine this also
reduces your, I don't know what the correct term, maybe tertiary
packaging, but like all the paper you would stuff in in
order to fill the void, you're you're.
Reducing. You're not having to pad it.
Put stuff in, pad the sides. Absolutely, 100 percent, 100%
Obviously depends on what you'reshipping.
Some things need more packaging if they're.
(30:17):
Well, yeah, don't do that. It depends, don't skip it, but
but 100%, I mean, it absolutely does do that.
The other cool thing about and this is kind of more of an
engineering problem and it kind of leads to kind of the bigger
question, right? I mean, we talked about the
substrate, we talked about the widgets, what I'm calling the
widgets, the machines. And the bigger the question is
kind of this ecosystem and how we put together this whole
(30:37):
ecosystem of fulfillment. These machines, in looking at
what's in the empty, what's in the box, the packed box before
it's closed up, they collect an incredible amount of data,
incredible amounts of data. As we know, data is super
important super. Important right when you're
shipping millions of boxes a day.
(30:59):
Have you seen the value of Facebook?
That will tell you. That's exactly when you're
shipping. Well, I don't mean it's not
valuable like Facebook's data. We're not taking back the data
and selling. I'm just saying data, all data
is valuable. If those companies exist, we
can. So what those machines then tell
is our customers, right, who have the machines, who own the
machines, they're able to collect all this data about
(31:22):
their own fulfillment, analyze it, make it or figure out ways
to make it more efficient. There's in Europe, there's
actually, I don't know how they are with the kind of European
sustainability regulation. But right now in Europe, there's
packaging directive that isn't quite fully in place yet, but it
mandates void. It says to everybody you cannot
(31:43):
ship a box with more than 50% void.
I mean 50%. No, no, it's great.
It it makes great sense. I was.
Expecting like 20% or you know, like really just be like no air
guys. I want to say they started at 30
or 40, but then it all went intothe whole rig and roll and it
ended up picking it up, right? It ended up there.
(32:04):
But the point is that these systems, what we call the
decision tower, which is the tower, it's basically a like a
door frame that the conveyor belt runs inside.
And it has all of these, this equipment up there that can
sense all the sensors that sensethe the inside of the box
collecting that data to allow people to calculate with
(32:25):
certainty what the void is of everything they're doing.
You're not guessing. It tells you exactly what the
void. Is right, right.
They can ensure that they're compliant in case somebody's
like new you're shipping 51%. Of that, yeah.
No, no, no, no, no, no. Here it is.
But when you think about the future and the ability to
collect all this data, and that's just a regulatory
response, that's responding to kind of an externality that
(32:47):
government is saying you got to do in Europe.
But the crazy thing about data, right?
And as you say, that is so valuable because we can't even
imagine what we could be using it for, right?
We collect the data and then we let smart people not like me,
smart people who knows how data works and how to.
Let the data engineers do all that.
Right. Let the data engineers do it and
(33:07):
then who knows what they're going to figure out about making
it more efficient and these fulfillment centers being more
efficient. And that to me is the most
exciting thing is when I think about the future, is the ability
to really see in a different kind of holistic sense and to
collect this holistic information in a way that will
allow people who are much smarter than me figure out how
(33:29):
to make it ever yet more efficient.
Which then goes right back to what we're talking about at the
beginning. Efficiency at the end of the day
brings you right back into sustainability because you're
doing more with less. And that's super exciting to me.
And that ran pack we're at the leader of, I mean, we're at the
forefront of that. Our decision tower is amazing.
Fight y'all to look online, check it out.
And it's really simple piece of equipment in the sense that it's
(33:52):
just a frame that reads the boxes as they're going through.
And when you're shipping millions of boxes a day, you end
up with a lot of information to figure out how you can make it
more efficient. Well, and for me the taking a
little bit step farther, it's exciting when you have bigger
companies like that doing that because you have right, because
100 data samples is OK. But if you're doing a million a
(34:14):
day for two years, you have realdata.
And then what it means is that companies like yours can go, OK,
show us your average, you know, anonymize it, whatever, do all
the security stuff, but give us that data.
And then that allows you to build better machines and then
it's able to trickle down. So like, you know, you work with
small mom and pop size store, right?
(34:36):
You work with a small ones, you're not going to get enough
data from two people working outof a garage to be able to
improve it. So you're able to that data,
yeah, it's super value for them.But it also ends up when you're
doing it right, be able to develop better and better
equipment. And then it becomes accessible
to smaller companies. And now the efficiency actually
(35:00):
goes the whole way up and down big enterprise Fortune 500 to
never heard of a person with a garage and that efficiency
because that if I were like UPS,it doesn't matter whether who's
shipping it, if the small mom and pop is shipping boxes of
air, it still impacts my it's. Still impacting my right?
(35:21):
Absolutely. It's still impacting my van
100%. Right.
Well, that's amazing that what you're able to do with that and
the improvements and meeting EU regulations is always, I think
it's always a good thing to be able to do that because then it
trickles, it helps. The more we can trickle that
into the US faster, the faster we'll catch up.
(35:42):
And then like if it's efficiencystuff where nobody loses.
No, absolutely. And I mean, I guess at the end
of the day, that's where it really all comes down to is that
they're properly done. And and I'm saying properly done
because I'm trying to take my hat off to a lot of what's
happening in the world right now.
But properly done, sustainability is really an
(36:03):
endeavor that nobody loses on. No, Everybody wins.
Everybody wins and this notion that there has to be a loser,
there's got to be a cost. I think certainly in some cases
it's true, right? I mean their costs to
everything. But there are myriad ways that
we everyday that we as individuals that companies from
(36:24):
the smallest to the largest choices that we can make that
really are no lose situations. It's just about again, changing
the mindset, believing that it can happen, believing that it's
possible, convincing yourself that it's possible, right?
Accepting that it's that it's possible.
And then once that happens, thenthe doors are wide open.
(36:47):
And there's so many ways that wecan affect, we can change what
we do at little to no cost. That's really just a win, win
for everybody for us today. And at the end of the day, like
I said, I think I said earlier today for our kids, I mean, who
doesn't love their kids? Who doesn't want their children
to have it a little bit easier than they had it, right?
I mean, like, that's like if there's a universal thing,
(37:08):
that's got to be it, right? Yeah, even if you don't have
kids, you should still want the next generation to not.
Maybe you have nieces and nephews, or maybe you've got you
know. That you know somebody with a
baby, you don't want that baby to have life come on.
All things being equal, wouldn'tyou prefer that that baby is a
little easier than a little harder?
Of course, we all want that, youknow.
(37:30):
Absolutely. Yeah.
I think it's a good point to youbrought up is that I feel like
we've culture wise we're used tolike oh, where's the cost?
Where's the expense, you know more of the pay the piper kind
of expression and we need to be more of the rising tide rises of
all boats greatly if you can switch over to that one more.
100% Well it's like all medicinedoesn't taste bad.
(37:52):
Yes, there's bad tasting medicine.
All medicine doesn't taste bad, right?
And there's medicine we could take today that isn't gonna
taste bad at all. It's not gonna increase anything
for us, and we're really just gonna do that little bit to make
the world better. Absolutely.
Well, this has been a pleasure talking to you.
My pleasure too. I appreciate it, Ian.
Absolutely. And just for, you know, wrapping
(38:14):
up here, for people that want tofind you guys online, reach out.
Where's the best places? These places just start at our
website, www.ranpakranpak.com. We've got all of our products
there. We have our sustainability
reports. We didn't even talk about that
kind of corporate sustainabilitystuff and lots of information
(38:36):
there. And if you're interested in
reaching out, there's a place onthere that you can reach out.
And we have somebody who looks at all those emails that people
send in and DVS them out to me or to whomever, depending on the
question. So somebody will be looking if
you should send something in. Perfect.
Well, amazing. And for everyone listening and
watching, we'll have links in the show notes, so take a look
(38:58):
there too. And David, I really appreciate
your time. Thanks for being on the show,
it's been fun. Yeah, it's been fun.
Thanks a lot. It's been my pleasure.
And that wraps up another episode of the Conscious Design
Podcast. If today's episode inspired you
to bring your product idea to life and turn it into a
sustainable 7 figure business, visit petermanfirm.com or click
(39:19):
the link below. Your ideas have the power to
change the world, and we're hereto help make that happen.
Thank you for joining us, and I'll see you on the next
episode.
What we should be doing, the substrates we should be using
for these functions that take one to five days to substrate,
like paper that biodegrades in acouple of weeks to a month.
It can be recycled, comes from arenewable resource.
Plant trees. Harvest trees, plant.
Again, you can make paper out ofall kinds of.
Plants you make paper out of, right out of, out of all kinds
(00:20):
of things out of grasp. Hello and welcome to the
Conscious Design podcast. I'm your host, Ian Peterman, and
I helped turn product ideas intosustainable 7 figure businesses.
Join me for another episode where sustainability meets
innovation and business savvy. Today, I'm really excited to
have David Murgio. He's the chief sustainability
(00:43):
officer of RAN Pack. They're advancing sustainability
for supply chain automation and materials.
Welcome to the show. Thank you, Lee.
It's a pleasure to be here. Yeah, absolutely.
Well, a couple things I would like to 1st, everyone loves to
get a little bit idea of the background of the company that
(01:04):
we're talking with. So very first, if you could a
few minutes talk about, you know, what is Ranbac, what is
how to get founder like what's the brief?
Happy. It's a brief synopsis.
So oddly enough, Ranbac's been around for a long time.
I say oddly enough, because thiswhole sustainability and
packaging, you know, is kind of a newer idea, but Ranpac was
(01:25):
founded in the early 1970s, so over 50 years old.
It was originally a family business where the family
created some IP around creating a machine that molded and, and
shaped and quilted paper to use it for blocking out and
packaging items for shipment. Over the years, over 50 years,
(01:46):
the, the, the company's gone through a number of ownership
changes and we've grown a whole lot such that today we're a
packaging company. We provide secondary packaging.
So that means packaging protecting products within boxes
for shipments. So think when you order
something online and it comes ina big brown box, ours is the
packaging inside that box aroundthe product that protects it.
(02:07):
So when it gets to you, it doesn't break, it's not broken.
So today we've got a whole number of ways of shaping and
forming paper. And the key to everything that
we do is it's all around using paper for packaging, packaging
protection. We've got a whole bunch of
different systems. We've got void fill systems that
(02:30):
dispense paper into boxes. We've got wrapping systems that
wrap products, think paper version of bubble wrap.
We've got what we call cushioning systems, which are
more about shaping and quilting and crimpling paper to protect
industrial items, heavier metal products, industrial items, B2B
shipments, auto parts, that kindof thing.
(02:50):
And then we also have a newer business as of the last 5-7
years where we've broken into automation where we've created a
whole bunch of large kind of higher volume for higher volume
customers, machines that shape boxes or size boxes according to
the size of the product to reduce the void so you don't
(03:10):
have to ship, so you're not shipping air basically that.
Always a good. Use AI to dispense the right
amount of tonnage into the box, all sorts of different
automation principles and those are larger piece of equipment
for very high volume users. But that first piece about
filling voids and wrapping all of that, we've got a whole suite
(03:31):
of machines that work from the, I always say a mom and pop
ceramic store at working out of their garage to wrap their
ceramics all the way up to the largest, most complex
fulfillment Centers for the largest e-commerce players that
are shipping out millions of boxes a day.
Amazing. Yeah, it's, it's funny you
mentioned, you know, the the sustainability thing and, and
(03:53):
people think of it as only new, but because the average
consumer, right, is absolutely hasn't.
Well, it was hippies and it was weird and then it was, you know,
it's it stayed weird and on the fringes for so long that, you
know, people forget that company.
There were actually companies thinking about this.
(04:14):
Absolutely. Way back when we like to say we
were sustainable before it was cool, right Are the
Interestingly, the first patent was filed within a month or two.
I can't remember. It was a month or two before, a
month or two after the very first Earth Day, when Earth Day
was totally, like you say, a lotof hippies out there.
It was it was less so it was a conventional, conventionally,
(04:36):
conventionally celebrated than it is today.
Yeah, that's a, that's a good way to put it.
Yeah. So I think it's, it's always
great to have companies like youthat you can go, Hey, what we
have this history of we've been doing things we've been involved
in, in this kind of, we've been thinking about these things
because that evolution for me personally, it's always
(04:58):
fascinating to look at the evolution of what we call
sustainability. And I, you know, not to turn
into a history thing, but I liketo all look all the way back,
you know, 150 years to when the idea of trash, and this is
something I've I've talked to the idea of trash is actually, I
would argue a more recent invention rather at the scale.
(05:20):
And we've always had we've always had trash, but unusable
trash. That's a little bit new at the
scale right For we do. I mean, if you want to get
philosophical about it, I mean, in, in a way, right,
sustainability is kind of a new label for just a very old idea,
which is kind of waste not want not and, and to use only that
what you need, right? And, and that's something that
(05:42):
people have been focused on for thousands of years, right?
In a weird way, what we're seeing today in this new
sustainability movement. I mean, it's got its roots going
back to biblical times about being conscious and prudent
stewards of your resources and leaving.
You know, I always say for me, the definition of
sustainability, I always kind ofcut through everything and say
(06:05):
at the end of the day, all it means to be sustainable is to
leave the world a little bit nicer than it would otherwise be
for your children. That's really all it is.
Right. Well, all it takes.
That's that's all it is, all it is, all it means to be
sustainable is let's just do what we have to do today with
the least possible adverse effect on our children's lives.
(06:26):
And that's really what it's all about.
All that said, right? I mean, we've come, you know, I
mean, there's been such technological change over the
past thousands of years, but that's less over the past
decades, 50. Years now.
Yeah, exactly. 50 years, 20 years, 10 years on
sustainability, we've learned all sorts of different ways to
to kind of live that mantra about leaving the world just a
little better off than it would otherwise be.
(06:47):
And one of the things that I, I also, I always point people to
when we talk to about sustainability because we have,
I work with clients where I'm trying to tell them that, hey,
we should be more sustainable inhow you're developing your
product and avoid waste. And really sustainability is
efficiency. If you're super efficient, I
(07:09):
mean, yeah, there's, there's a part where you could be really
efficient and, you know, leak out radioactive material.
So I skip that one. But for every everything else,
more efficient is more sustained.
You're not wasting material. You're not.
If you're not creating waste, then there's no you're not
causing problems anywhere. Else if there is a.
Waste and so that for me, as I've gone through even just my
(07:35):
career, I've been doing this 20,just 20 years, right, a little
little window in life for the last bit, changing the language
from, you know, sustainability obviously is a great at this
point buzzword to use. But on the business side, when
you go, OK, well, efficiency, like just be more efficient and
(07:55):
plan ahead. And like we were just talking
about before we start recording,thinking about, you know, some
planning, planning ahead, is this the right material?
And I think that. That's the key to me.
Question, we didn't ask. We found petroleum.
They're like plastic and we didn't ask.
We didn't. And I think part of it is
(08:17):
there's so much rapid change or anything about the last, yes, 50
years. There's so much change.
And when you have behaviors for thousands of years, it's really
hard to change your change civilization behavior around a
new material that we also use everywhere.
Right. I mean, that's interesting.
I mean, like you were saying before, I mean, to me when I
(08:39):
think about design and and what it is that we do at Ram Pack, I
mean, there's this first question, which is to your
point, if we were planning out asystem, right, a global economy
where today we ship things and it takes two.
I mean, I live in New York City,it takes me 12 hours when I
(08:59):
press send by sometimes before Iget my product.
Other places, maybe it takes a day or two or five days, right?
Five days, an incredibly long shipping time.
So you've got this function, right, this function, which is
how do we protect something for five days, for one to five days?
And if we were planning this outfrom the beginning, we would say
we should use something that's not going to be around for a
(09:21):
long time, right? I mean, how crazy is it that
we've kind of morphed into this world, into this?
And I know how we got here because of our addiction to
plastic or addiction's the wrongterm because our reliance on
plastic. But to use a substrate that's
going to last for 100 years thatour kids are going to have to be
dealing with for the next 100 years to fulfil a function that
(09:42):
is literally done and over with in one to five days.
It's just backwards and not the way you would plan this out if
we had tried foresight of designand and it was more of a
deliberate design problem as opposed to an evolution, as you
say. I mean plastic, you know,
plastic's an amazing thing. And when it was discovered
(10:03):
invented, when it was created inthe 50s and 60s, there were all
these uses that people couldn't even imagine.
And the point isn't that it's not, it is an absolutely amazing
thing, right. I mean, I always say that when I
go to the hospital or I go to the doctor and I get something
stuck into my arm right at the hospital, I want that to be
single use plastic. I want that to be clean.
(10:24):
I want it to come out of a plastic wrapper.
I want it like thank God for plastic when I'm in the when I'm
at the doctor's office. But that's not to say that it's
really the right substrate when we're talking about shipping
something and we have a useful life of one to five days.
So part of the way I think aboutRAM pack and part of where I
(10:45):
think this kind of fits into this whole question of, of as
you say, kind of like efficient design is what we should be
doing, what we should be using, the substrates we should be
using for these functions that take one to five days is a
substrate like paper that biodegrades in a couple of weeks
to a month. It can be recycled, comes from a
(11:07):
renewable resource. We can plant trees, we can
harvest trees. We can plant again.
We can make. Paper out of all kinds of
plants. You make paper out of, out of
out of all kinds of things out of grass.
We make. We have a product in Europe
that's that's part grass paper. When we sit back and we say for
one to five days, we're going touse something that can't be
(11:28):
redone, right? We're pulling oil out of the
earth. We're creating this amazing
substrate that can do all these wonderful things, but it's going
to last for 150 years. It just seems like it's a, it's
a mismatch to me, which is why Ithink what we're doing at
Rampack is so important and exciting.
Yeah, it's interesting material choice, right?
We think about and I feel like we're kind of just we became
(11:49):
used to oh just plastic packaging plastic this like it's
like he's a easy cheap and yeah,I don't know if it dicted his
right word, but yeah, we're kindof sucked into it and a little
bit lazy now. Yeah, where we're just like and
just. Click.
Well, it's inertia. You say?
Lazy. It's inertia.
I mean, it's human nature, right?
(12:10):
If it's not broke, don't fix it.It's human nature.
I mean, I don't mean to cast blame.
It's just the way we do things, right?
I mean, not a, yeah, not a blame, but it always takes more
effort to change the behavior. It's just.
I mean, that's interesting. I mean it, it, it, it does take
a lot of effort, but it takes a lot of effort at least where we
(12:30):
sit and the way that we conduct our business, where our business
operates, it's really a change in the mind more than anything
else. I mean, so for, as I said, we
have a, a, our kind of historic,what we call our paper packaging
systems, which are void fills, which you get in the box when
you for e-commerce, we've got our cushioning for the
industrial, we've got our wrapping, which wraps housewares
(12:53):
and things. The way our business is set up
is actually we only make money on the paper.
So a new customer comes in and wants to transition from plastic
to paper. They get, we effectively lease
them our machines. But when I say lease, I mean at
a very, very, very low cost and we retain ownership of the
machine and, and they just startbuying paper from us.
(13:15):
And we found that that is our business model that works really
well because if you don't own the machine and something
happens to it, it breaks. It needs to be fixed.
I could just come bring you a new one and take your old one
and fix it back at that, you know, back home at the shop.
Right. Keep your downtime.
Yeah, it keeps downtime low and it allows us to take back
machines and refurbish them. And so you don't.
Have anybody messing with it andbreaks?
Anymore and making exactly but what that means for the customer
(13:39):
who wants to shift papers there's little to no upfront
investment required right. You're not buying machines.
We're showing up, we're bringingthe machines, and you're just
buying the paper that you're using.
So it's actually the ability to shift I think comes back to it's
this idea that somehow we've always done it this other way
(14:00):
and we, you know, and it's shifting that mindset.
And we're seeing a lot of companies increasingly shift
that mindset, which is wonderful.
But that's always the first step.
Much, much more so than the technicalities of, you know,
the, the required investment or the technicalities of getting
the machines there and setting everything up.
I mean, we've got people who canorganize your fulfilment center
and do it in a snap. And, you know, that's all easy
(14:23):
peasy. It's really getting people to
change their mindset, which I think is super interesting.
And it's also generational. It takes time, right?
Unless there's, you know, excruciating pain involved with
something that forces fast change, really fast change.
Yeah, it takes, it takes some time.
It takes some time to to show that, yeah, this is the way it's
(14:45):
going or, you know, customers look expecting it more.
That's the key. That.
Therein is the key, right? That is the key at the end of
the day, right, Because we're thankfully getting to a point
where people kind of expect thiseven regardless of the politics,
regardless of everything that happens kind of on on the
(15:06):
surface level is, you know, we can chart the politics, state
abilities up, state abilities down, whatever.
But all that aside, there's justa mindset that's taken over,
which really is a very old mindset.
It's back to what we said before.
Waste not want, not like why waste, right?
And people, I, I mean, I see it,I always refer to my own family.
(15:26):
I mean, I see it in my mother, but you know, who I really see
it in is in my children. I mean, my kids are in their 20s
and they have no patience at allfor anybody who doesn't have
this mindset, for any company that isn't willing to see the
future the way they see the future, the importance of these
things to their future. So I think it ultimately comes
back to customer demand in making this shift.
(15:49):
That is a really good point too is generational kind of
expectation. It has started to come online
and that's what when I'm talkingto companies even too that are
like, if any of them are thinking long term, which at the
company you should be, if you'renot, you need to be.
(16:10):
But if you are, you're paying attention.
And anybody that's paying attention knows that the
generation that early 20s now our teenagers are in this.
They, you know, ours have jobs. They're spending their own money
now. They think about these things
they were doing thrifting because they're like, this is
(16:31):
cool and it's better and it's better.
There's there's more and more and I can only imagine the
generation after them, right? There's going to be 0.
Any wiggle room right now that exists is going to be gone.
It's going to be. Gone one more generation I I
can't imagine any of the things that companies were selling and
(16:52):
doing in our. Exactly.
In our generation when we were kids, absolutely.
The forward-looking companies know this.
They recognize this. I mean, you know, you saw Amazon
a year. Has it been a year?
No, I can't remember when they put out there.
Not quite. I think it was last summer, last
June, July announced their wholeshift to paper from plastic.
(17:13):
And you know, for an organization like that, I say
it's an easy lift. It's in the mindset.
It is. But when you're an organization
like that, anything is a heavy lift, right?
I mean. Yeah, everything.
Everything's a. Billion dollars, a heavy lift,
right. So we see that with
forward-looking companies who are doing this and we see it,
you know, not surprisingly, our,our business is a global
(17:35):
business. So we do about 45% of rough
numbers, 45 ish percent of our sales are European, 45 ish
percent of our sales is North American, 10% ish Asia Pacific.
And we see, you know, as a global business, we see it
happening in Europe at a much faster pace, I shouldn't say at
a much faster pace. They're just a few steps ahead
(17:57):
of us here in North America as to how to think about this and
the seriousness with which they approach these questions, which
is good. You know it's good.
Yeah, I mean, someone's always going to be faster and everyone
else OK, and everyone else will catch up.
We'll catch up. Yeah.
So, so to me, the first big question, as I said, is the
(18:18):
substrate and you just kind of get your head around that.
And if we're deliberately planning it, we would be
choosing A substrate. But then there's so much and I
know this, this podcast focus ondesign, there's there is so much
what I'm going to call that kindof making widgets design going
on, which is so interesting. I'm not an engineer, I'm not a
(18:38):
technical person. I do not have a technical
background or an engineering background, but it's amazing to
go into R&D facility and to see the awesome ways that our
engineering professionals think about how to basically form
paper, to do new things, to package new things, to cushion
(19:01):
things better. And we put a whole lot of effort
into both improving those business, you know, those
machines that we have now, there's interesting design
questions in shifting to a more recycled paper, right?
There's the kind of general view, and I subscribe to this,
is that recycled paper made fromrecycled content is better from
a sustainability perspective. And The thing is that as you
(19:23):
recycle paper, the fibers get shorter and shorter and the
paper just gets softer and softer, right?
So when you think about, you know, something like this, which
is a really hard, you know, it'sjust a pervergent printer paper,
it's a really stiff paper as opposed to say a, you know,
newspaper, old fashioned newspaper.
If you still touch newspapers, right, which is heavily
recycled, you're not looking online, right?
(19:45):
And that's an engineering problem and a design problem in
and of itself in shifting, trying to figure out ways to the
way I think about it, have the recycled softer paper cut a
migrate up the chain into the applications that have typically
needed more rigid paper as a kind of rule of thumb, the
cushioning? Applications that are designed
to cushion heavier things, heavier piece of equipment that
(20:06):
you're shipping. The rule of thumb is you
typically want a more rigid paper because you're dealing
with a heavier object. But that's a super interesting
design question that our guys are working on constantly.
And then there's we've rolled out in the past 6-7 years this
automation business, which is all about engineering and
design. And and that's super, super
interesting because that's about, if you imagine like our
(20:28):
EVO cut it, which is one of our flagship machines.
It's a very large piece equipment about the size of
minivan, maybe taller than a minivan, maybe the footprint of
a minivan. And basically a product comes in
on a carton and machine vision looks at it, computes the amount
of the void needed around the product.
And then it goes into the machine and the machine cuts the
(20:49):
box down to meet, to produce thebox to fit the packets, to fit
the product basically. And that's like talk about an
engineering problem. Getting all these interfaces
together with the machine visionand the AI background and the
brain and everything talking to each other to both reduce insert
donnage and to happen at a superfast rate that works for a large
(21:09):
high volume customer is a massive engineering, I'm to say
problem. It's a massive engineering
challenge in the best kind of ways and it's a challenge that
we've pretty much perfected. I mean, our machines are, we're
on. To have if Amazon boxes could
have those that yeah. Shorter, smaller, right, yes, a
lot of more, again, more in Europe.
(21:31):
Europe has some regulatory things going on that there's a
regulatory reason for them to, to reduce the voids.
But reducing voids and reducing the size of the box has first of
all, cost less because people typically ship on a dim weight,
right? Dimensions of the box times a
weight factor. So you're literally shipping
smaller boxes. So you're paying less to ship,
you're putting less void in. All of that's great and all of
(21:53):
that is important. And as business people, we, I
love all of that. But what else it does is it from
a sustainability perspective, right?
You're getting more of those boxes on a pallet, right?
Because if you've got smaller boxes, they fit on a pallet.
What does that mean? You're sending out fewer trucks.
You're sending out. When you scale this up for these
large company, you know, for these large, large shipping
companies that ship millions of boxes a day, if you can get on 2
(22:17):
trucks what you used to get on three trucks, you're really
significantly cutting the environmental effect.
Hey, it's your host, Ian. I'm really glad you're enjoying
this episode. I absolutely love highlighting
amazing brands and founders for the awesome things they are
doing. I've helped hundreds of
entrepreneurs and businesses like yours turn their boldest
ideas into powerful, purpose driven brands.
(22:38):
So if you're serious about building a brand people love,
like our guests and clients too,and one that you're proud to
stand behind, I invite you to dive a bit deeper with our book
Conscious Design. Inside, you'll discover the
exact framework and steps we useto help entrepreneurs like you
turn purpose into a powerful, impact driven brand.
Brand that stands out, tracks loyal customers and drive
(23:00):
sustainable growth with social and environmental responsibility
woven into its DNA. Grab your copy today.
You can find it on our website consciousdesignhouse.com or just
find the link below in the show notes.
Enjoy the rest of the episode and don't forget to like,
subscribe and share. Well, two, the biggest problems
(23:23):
in shipping, the biggest wastes are when we ship air and water.
And, and that's why companies are coming out with, you know,
there's versions of soaps and there's versions of other things
that you don't need to ship the water because water, water is
super heavy and air just takes up space.
You're just. Takes up space exactly so and.
(23:45):
Combined that's a lot of wasted space on your truck.
And like you said, if if you're and even you know the last
especially lat when you get to the last mile, it's not the
weight that kills you, it's the space.
If half of your truck is air because of the air in the
package, that means your driver can deliver half the number of
(24:06):
packages they could, which meansthey have to go out twice.
Absolutely. That's.
Double the fuel cost, that's double the we.
Should sign you up. This is that's what Evo cut it's
all about. That is what it is all about.
And yeah, I mean, those are the problems that this machine is
designed very deliberately to fix and to make better.
(24:26):
And it's exciting because everything you're saying is 100%
true. And it's nice to have something
that both helps on the cost, on the labor, on the difficulty,
and is also just more sustainable.
It's like this trifecta of of terrific that's going.
On is the on demand part too, right?
If you think about being able to, there's the other, you know,
(24:49):
another huge waste space is, well, how many size boxes do you
have to have 100%? How many pallets of those boxes
do you need to have on your floor?
How much are you paying a month and what your utilities or rent
or any of the above to have all of that to store the boxes that
you hope that you are calculating.
(25:10):
You know, it's all based on forecasting guessing at 100% how
many are going to sell of each thing to magically have the
right. So which means you're gonna end
up with some. There's gonna be some pallets
somewhere of just boxes. You'll never.
You're just sitting there and never used.
Absolutely. So I mean, I'm gonna get all
this wrong because I'm not on the technical side in its
(25:30):
detail, but it's it's going to be correct ballparks.
Exactly. We've had experiences with
customers with our automation equipment.
So our Evos basically there's like a footprint box size and
there's like kind of small, medium and large footprint box
size. And they cut down the height of
the box. And we have this software pre
cubit that helps analyze what they used to ship and helps
(25:52):
predict how they could transition to our equipment and
give that and fit in for optimization box that, you know,
pallet optimization, all that kind of stuff.
And where we've had large customers with a start and
they'll have, they'll carry literally like 10 or 12 box
sizes. So you go into their filming
center and there's just, you know, 10 different box sizes all
(26:18):
the way down from like this to this, right?
That you have to inventory manage, bring in on a pallet,
then make it easy for somebody to get.
Because to come and get the pallet, the right box, it's
awesome. Crazy, right?
I mean, I shouldn't say it's crazy.
It's just where we've, you know,it's the way the evolution came,
right? Well, it's just expected now.
It's expected. So we've come in and we've said,
(26:41):
hey, listen, we've done the analysis of what you ship out.
We found that you can get one Creek 1 EVO with the smaller
footprint, 2 with the medium footprint and one with the
larger footprint. Right now we've reduced those 10
box sizes to three footprinted boxes.
That one, each one goes through specific machine and all of the
rest of the sizing can happen just on the vertical plane by
(27:03):
the machines natural box sizing.You know what the machine does
It's it's what it was designed to do to to size the vertical
plane of the box. So you go into some place where
they've got 12/10/12 different box sizes and they come out with
three standardized footprints that they run through these
three machines and they end up with an infinite number of
(27:23):
actual box sizes coming out because the machine it doesn't
sound like a full cut medium cutsmoke.
You can get a lower time. It's not the machines the.
Ones that you can. Buy right, No, it's not
perforated or anything. The machine vision looks at each
box determines how deep it needsto be.
So it'll end up with an infinitenumber of box sizes
theoretically that are all perfectly suited to their needs.
(27:45):
Again, more boxes than on the pallet, less air shipping, less
tonnage inside, fewer trucks on the road, fewer vans for the
last mile. All of these real life economic
and kind of what I'm we're goingto call sustainability making a
better world ramifications. It's a pretty amazing piece of
equipment in line that we have. How long has that line been out?
(28:06):
Oh, it's been out for, I want tosay a couple of years.
I mean, we're on our version two, Yeah, it's pretty new, but
I mean it's within the last five, four to five years.
I think our initial ones were about 5-6 years ago, but the
ones that we have now that have evolved and gotten much, much
better. I mean, we have an automation
facility that we built in Shelton, CT where they're all
(28:27):
assembled there for the US market.
And we have a trick showroom that has, you can look online
and see the cut it and see what the machines look like.
They're really amazing pieces ofequipment and it's wild to sit
there and watch them run when the boxes come in and you get
these boxes of all different sizes, you know?
That's awesome. And it can, I'm assuming it can
(28:49):
do this, but if you put like a collection of like if you're
thinking Amazon right where you're gonna grab off the shelf
3 randomly shaped items, put it in a pile and then send it
through and it just goes. Box it yes, 100% the way the
again, I'm not a technical guy, I'm gonna get this wrong
probably and it's very specific,but basically the camera, the
(29:12):
machine vision, both can take a picture of the inside of the
box, which is super helpful for quality management, for quality
control, for everything else. Right.
Make sure you're shipping what you're supposed to.
Right. Make sure you're shipping what
you're supposed to do. But that's like the easiest,
simplest thing. And then there are other cameras
or other eyes, I guess, that create these pixelated dot maps
(29:34):
of what's in the box, which thenfeeds to the machine to tell it
exactly how much tonnage to put in.
So it doesn't matter if it's onething or five things, it just
reads what's in the box. Here's.
The space, right? Here's the space and this is
what's in it and speaks to, you know, communicates with the
cutter head in the dispenser so that everything comes out
(29:56):
perfect. And I would imagine this also
reduces your, I don't know what the correct term, maybe tertiary
packaging, but like all the paper you would stuff in in
order to fill the void, you're you're.
Reducing. You're not having to pad it.
Put stuff in, pad the sides. Absolutely, 100 percent, 100%
Obviously depends on what you'reshipping.
Some things need more packaging if they're.
(30:17):
Well, yeah, don't do that. It depends, don't skip it, but
but 100%, I mean, it absolutely does do that.
The other cool thing about and this is kind of more of an
engineering problem and it kind of leads to kind of the bigger
question, right? I mean, we talked about the
substrate, we talked about the widgets, what I'm calling the
widgets, the machines. And the bigger the question is
kind of this ecosystem and how we put together this whole
(30:37):
ecosystem of fulfillment. These machines, in looking at
what's in the empty, what's in the box, the packed box before
it's closed up, they collect an incredible amount of data,
incredible amounts of data. As we know, data is super
important super. Important right when you're
shipping millions of boxes a day.
(30:59):
Have you seen the value of Facebook?
That will tell you. That's exactly when you're
shipping. Well, I don't mean it's not
valuable like Facebook's data. We're not taking back the data
and selling. I'm just saying data, all data
is valuable. If those companies exist, we
can. So what those machines then tell
is our customers, right, who have the machines, who own the
machines, they're able to collect all this data about
(31:22):
their own fulfillment, analyze it, make it or figure out ways
to make it more efficient. There's in Europe, there's
actually, I don't know how they are with the kind of European
sustainability regulation. But right now in Europe, there's
packaging directive that isn't quite fully in place yet, but it
mandates void. It says to everybody you cannot
(31:43):
ship a box with more than 50% void.
I mean 50%. No, no, it's great.
It it makes great sense. I was.
Expecting like 20% or you know, like really just be like no air
guys. I want to say they started at 30
or 40, but then it all went intothe whole rig and roll and it
ended up picking it up, right? It ended up there.
(32:04):
But the point is that these systems, what we call the
decision tower, which is the tower, it's basically a like a
door frame that the conveyor belt runs inside.
And it has all of these, this equipment up there that can
sense all the sensors that sensethe the inside of the box
collecting that data to allow people to calculate with
(32:25):
certainty what the void is of everything they're doing.
You're not guessing. It tells you exactly what the
void. Is right, right.
They can ensure that they're compliant in case somebody's
like new you're shipping 51%. Of that, yeah.
No, no, no, no, no, no. Here it is.
But when you think about the future and the ability to
collect all this data, and that's just a regulatory
response, that's responding to kind of an externality that
(32:47):
government is saying you got to do in Europe.
But the crazy thing about data, right?
And as you say, that is so valuable because we can't even
imagine what we could be using it for, right?
We collect the data and then we let smart people not like me,
smart people who knows how data works and how to.
Let the data engineers do all that.
Right. Let the data engineers do it and
(33:07):
then who knows what they're going to figure out about making
it more efficient and these fulfillment centers being more
efficient. And that to me is the most
exciting thing is when I think about the future, is the ability
to really see in a different kind of holistic sense and to
collect this holistic information in a way that will
allow people who are much smarter than me figure out how
(33:29):
to make it ever yet more efficient.
Which then goes right back to what we're talking about at the
beginning. Efficiency at the end of the day
brings you right back into sustainability because you're
doing more with less. And that's super exciting to me.
And that ran pack we're at the leader of, I mean, we're at the
forefront of that. Our decision tower is amazing.
Fight y'all to look online, check it out.
And it's really simple piece of equipment in the sense that it's
(33:52):
just a frame that reads the boxes as they're going through.
And when you're shipping millions of boxes a day, you end
up with a lot of information to figure out how you can make it
more efficient. Well, and for me the taking a
little bit step farther, it's exciting when you have bigger
companies like that doing that because you have right, because
100 data samples is OK. But if you're doing a million a
(34:14):
day for two years, you have realdata.
And then what it means is that companies like yours can go, OK,
show us your average, you know, anonymize it, whatever, do all
the security stuff, but give us that data.
And then that allows you to build better machines and then
it's able to trickle down. So like, you know, you work with
small mom and pop size store, right?
(34:36):
You work with a small ones, you're not going to get enough
data from two people working outof a garage to be able to
improve it. So you're able to that data,
yeah, it's super value for them.But it also ends up when you're
doing it right, be able to develop better and better
equipment. And then it becomes accessible
to smaller companies. And now the efficiency actually
(35:00):
goes the whole way up and down big enterprise Fortune 500 to
never heard of a person with a garage and that efficiency
because that if I were like UPS,it doesn't matter whether who's
shipping it, if the small mom and pop is shipping boxes of
air, it still impacts my it's. Still impacting my right?
(35:21):
Absolutely. It's still impacting my van
100%. Right.
Well, that's amazing that what you're able to do with that and
the improvements and meeting EU regulations is always, I think
it's always a good thing to be able to do that because then it
trickles, it helps. The more we can trickle that
into the US faster, the faster we'll catch up.
(35:42):
And then like if it's efficiencystuff where nobody loses.
No, absolutely. And I mean, I guess at the end
of the day, that's where it really all comes down to is that
they're properly done. And and I'm saying properly done
because I'm trying to take my hat off to a lot of what's
happening in the world right now.
But properly done, sustainability is really an
(36:03):
endeavor that nobody loses on. No, Everybody wins.
Everybody wins and this notion that there has to be a loser,
there's got to be a cost. I think certainly in some cases
it's true, right? I mean their costs to
everything. But there are myriad ways that
we everyday that we as individuals that companies from
(36:24):
the smallest to the largest choices that we can make that
really are no lose situations. It's just about again, changing
the mindset, believing that it can happen, believing that it's
possible, convincing yourself that it's possible, right?
Accepting that it's that it's possible.
And then once that happens, thenthe doors are wide open.
(36:47):
And there's so many ways that wecan affect, we can change what
we do at little to no cost. That's really just a win, win
for everybody for us today. And at the end of the day, like
I said, I think I said earlier today for our kids, I mean, who
doesn't love their kids? Who doesn't want their children
to have it a little bit easier than they had it, right?
I mean, like, that's like if there's a universal thing,
(37:08):
that's got to be it, right? Yeah, even if you don't have
kids, you should still want the next generation to not.
Maybe you have nieces and nephews, or maybe you've got you
know. That you know somebody with a
baby, you don't want that baby to have life come on.
All things being equal, wouldn'tyou prefer that that baby is a
little easier than a little harder?
Of course, we all want that, youknow.
(37:30):
Absolutely. Yeah.
I think it's a good point to youbrought up is that I feel like
we've culture wise we're used tolike oh, where's the cost?
Where's the expense, you know more of the pay the piper kind
of expression and we need to be more of the rising tide rises of
all boats greatly if you can switch over to that one more.
100% Well it's like all medicinedoesn't taste bad.
(37:52):
Yes, there's bad tasting medicine.
All medicine doesn't taste bad, right?
And there's medicine we could take today that isn't gonna
taste bad at all. It's not gonna increase anything
for us, and we're really just gonna do that little bit to make
the world better. Absolutely.
Well, this has been a pleasure talking to you.
My pleasure too. I appreciate it, Ian.
Absolutely. And just for, you know, wrapping
(38:14):
up here, for people that want tofind you guys online, reach out.
Where's the best places? These places just start at our
website, www.ranpakranpak.com. We've got all of our products
there. We have our sustainability
reports. We didn't even talk about that
kind of corporate sustainabilitystuff and lots of information
(38:36):
there. And if you're interested in
reaching out, there's a place onthere that you can reach out.
And we have somebody who looks at all those emails that people
send in and DVS them out to me or to whomever, depending on the
question. So somebody will be looking if
you should send something in. Perfect.
Well, amazing. And for everyone listening and
watching, we'll have links in the show notes, so take a look
(38:58):
there too. And David, I really appreciate
your time. Thanks for being on the show,
it's been fun. Yeah, it's been fun.
Thanks a lot. It's been my pleasure.
And that wraps up another episode of the Conscious Design
Podcast. If today's episode inspired you
to bring your product idea to life and turn it into a
sustainable 7 figure business, visit petermanfirm.com or click
(39:19):
the link below. Your ideas have the power to
change the world, and we're hereto help make that happen.
Thank you for joining us, and I'll see you on the next
episode.
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