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When it has to get there, Spartan Teamwork Delivers
Published: Friday, 03 May 2013
Packaging and Supply Chain Expertise brings Food to the World
Helping to feed people in crisis around the world is a high calling, and it is one that researchers at Michigan State University’s School of Packaging have answered. Led by a multi-disciplinary team, MSU is making it possible for food to safely reach the world’s table.
MSU’s School of Packaging is undoubtedly on the leading edge of food distribution around the world— especially for shipments of food being transported to crisis areas. As such, MSU has been a trusted collaborator with United States Agency for International Development (USAID) and the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) in making sure that packages used to transport food aid are strong enough to retain their integrity, thus ensuring that the food arrives safely to the people who really need it.
Diana Twede, Ph.D., a professor in the School of Packaging who also serves in an adjunct position with the Department of Supply Chain Management, researches the causes and prevention of in-transit damage and the performance of food shipping containers. “Packaging is a multi-disciplinary subject. Packages only exist to serve the supply and value chains that need them,” said Twede.
Setting Standards
For more than 25 years, Twede and her team provided technical assistance and developed tests and performance standards for the packaging in which the USDA/USAID distributes food around the world. MSU’s expertise in the economics and performance of package production, marketing, and logistics has been vital to food aid projects.
Packaging plays a big role in commercial international trade. “We have also worked on projects with MSU’s Institute for International Agriculture—for Ghana pineapples and India mango pulp—trying to come up with better ways to package these products so growers in these countries can improve their domestic markets as well as export more value-added products,” said Twede. “Similarly, Eva Almenar and I led a project to recommend packaging improvements to the U.S. poultry industry for its shipments to Russia.”
Twede’s international packaging work ranges from logistical to historical, as she is now working on a proposal to study the ancient Egypt-to-Rome shipment of grain, the first large-scale shipment of granular products that is widely believed to have used shipping sacks. “Archeologists believe that grain was shipped in sacks, yet Jon Frey in the MSU Department of Art History and I have found no evidence for this whatever,” she said, shaking her head. “So we propose to go to Egypt and Rome—and to solve the mystery!”
The study of food shipping containers throughout 2,000 years of history prompted Twede to uncover four Universal Principles:
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The geometry or shape of containers fits the transportvessels/vehicles and are ergonomically handled;
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The packages are widely reused;
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The materials are sustainable and inexpensive;
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Packagers organize to develop standards and education.
The logical shapes, the ability to be used again and again, and the successful systems employed in ancient times can teach today’s packaging professionals a thing or two. “The research justifies packaging education as a basic cultural need. Besides, it is very interesting to see how different cultures designed packages to ship products, from the ancient Roman wine amphorae (which were pointed on the bottom—you just don’t see that any more) to the ocean containers being used by Walmart to get merchandise from China to your local store,” she said.
Export and Import
“I’m interested in what makes a good shipping container. Not just corrugated boxes. I think, what comes next, what alternatives are there? What about a place like Ghana that doesn’t make paper themselves? They have to ship paper in from Europe to make their corrugated board. Surely there are more sustainable solutions. I think it is interesting to see how the ingenuity of local cultures can come up with packages that are appropriate based on available materials,” she said.
Her work has taken her to Japan, Spain, Sweden, and several countries in Africa. A highlight of her 30-year career occurred in 1992 while on a sweltering trip to India. She recalls standing in 110-degree heat with an MSU alum and USDA Packaging Specialist Steven P. Miteff counting the number of damaged grain sacks that had been delivered to the port of Calcutta, when she was asked a simple question by a Catholic Relief Services official. “He said, ‘Would you like to meet Mother Teresa?’ We said, ‘Of course, of course!’,“ said Twede, “and there could have been no better blessing for our work.” Miteff graduated from MSU in 1979 with a BS in Packaging, and later became head of commodity operations for the USDA’s Food Aid programs.
The MSU School of Packaging served from 1977to 2002 as technical advisor and laboratory for the USDA’s food aid packaging program. Dr. James W. Goff developed the relationship, and in 1990 Professor Twede became the principal investigator for this program. Drs. Bruce Harte and Susan Selke were also involved in the program, which employed many students over the years, including two who have now become MSU faculty members—Drs. Robb Clarke and Laura Bix. Today the School of Packaging continues to provide package testing services for the USDA and its suppliers.
It is evident why the world’s food aid distributors call on Twede and her team. MSU’s School of Packaging and its Supply Chain partners are helping to alleviate some of the world’s hunger by making food more marketable, and by improving international economies by stabilizing and adding value to the foods that are exported. “At MSU, we are a community of packagers working to develop packaging standards and educational programs that are used around the world,” said Twede. This team is delivering more than boxes and sacks—they are delivering hope.
Watch an interview with Diana at www.isp.edu/multimedia
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