When it comes to winning over new business with breakthrough technology, the two converters detailed in our cover stories this month really know how to give their customers The Star Treatment.

Packstar Flexible Packaging in Buffalo, NY, has been on the leading edge of converting PLA shrink labels since it first began testing the film on its existing equipment back in 2005. “Using PLA doesn't require wholesale changes,” says Andy Sharp, Packstar's chief executive officer. “You just need an understanding of the film and learn to adjust the settings.” In 2006, Packstar ran 1 million PLA shrink-labels for a Coca-Cola campaign in Mexico, and last year, it produced 20 million PLA labels for Maybelline's Garnier Fructis haircare-product line. The second example saved a reported equivalent of 17,500 gallons of gasoline compared to using PVC or PETG labels. The company is devoted to converting its converting operations from polyester to PLA and changing the impact of PLA on the packaging market. Plans are afoot to expand its sustainable labels and packaging business up to 50 percent of total operations by 2010.

On the other side of the continent, Flexstar Packaging in Richmond, BC, Canada, came back from the brink of being closed (as a Sonoco operation in 2000) to being reborn as an independent business with significant new Asian customers. Since mid-2005, president Marc Bray and his team have been busy installing new machinery to go after these new markets. The converter's conversion from basic PE products to highly graphic, printed roll stock required top-notch presses from the likes of Uteco Converting and Windmoeller & Hoelscher. “The market was going solventless, and we go where our customers go,” says Dale Ince, Flexstar's director of business development, explaining the purchase of its Nordmeccanica Super Combi 2000 solventless lamina-ator. Flexstar is doing its part sustainability-wise by investigating how to guarantee customers sustainable raw materials sourced with reliability in volume. The converter also started a plant-wide recycling program to handle 85 percent of the total weight of the plastics that previously went to landfills.

According to Bray, Flexstar aims to be the number one flex-pack converter in Western North America. If their Star Treatment of customers is any hint, both Flexstar's and Packstar's plans are on the fast track to succeed.

And while we're talking sustainability…Wal-Mart's long-awaited Packaging Scorecard went live on Feb. 1. Buyers for the World's Largest Retailer will now use the database to rate vendors on their progress toward sustainable packaging. It remains to be seen, though, what the real impact of the scorecard will be. Stay tuned.