Sustainable Packaging with Cory Connors presented by Atlantic Packaging
Join industry leaders, innovators, and changemakers as we explore the future of packaging through the lens of sustainability. Hosted by Cory Connors, an industry expert with over 25 years of experience, and presented by Atlantic Packaging, the leader in innovative sustainable solutions, we dive into what’s working (and what’s not) from cutting-edge materials to circular design strategies that can reduce waste and protect our planet.
Each episode blends real data, expert insights, and a dose of fun to help you stay informed and inspired. Whether you're in the packaging industry or simply passionate about sustainability, this podcast is your weekly go-to resource for making smarter, greener choices.
I'm here to help you make your packaging more sustainable! Reach out today and I'll get back to you asap.
This podcast is an independent production and the podcast production is an original work of the author. All rights of ownership and reproduction are retained—copyright 2022.
Cory Connors:
Welcome to Sustainable Packaging with Cory Connors. Today's guest is my friend, Mr. Chris Bradley, the Chief Marketing and Sustainable Design Officer at Orora Packaging Solutions. How are you, sir? Great, Corey. Thanks for having me on the show. It's good to have you on again. I'm so excited about all the things that you've implemented in your tenure already at Orora and very excited for a bright future there. let's talk a little bit about your background and learn what you've done in the past a little bit.
Christopher Bradley:
Sure, so I spent most of my career as an inventor product developer, took a strange path started out in finance and business and worked at HP back in the early part of my career. And. They did a really good job of training general managers and business unit heads. So I started out in finance, became a controller and then headed up a supply chain and then marketing, manufacturing and became a GM and helped launch their first internet business, back in the early days and, ran a software company for a while. And, I then really fell in love with product development and ran a company called 2nd Edison for, over 20 years, which was an innovation consulting firm. And for that, I work for some of the biggest companies in the world, like Procter and Gamble and Clorox and Nestle and Nike and a number of others helping them invent new products and so, have, I think, over 45 or 47 patents, at this point of different products, help bring about 100 consumer products to market. Over my career
Cory Connors:
That's excellent. And what a great background to do what you're doing now because it's made it so you have a different view of what we're looking at. You're looking at things differently. I think that's what packaging needs. Can you tell us a little bit about your role at Orora packaging?
Christopher Bradley:
sure, so, when I, when I joined Orora , they were really looking for somebody to lead, the design function, and also the marketing function. so when I came in and joined, I'm the head of those 3 functions, design, marketing, and then soon to became sustainability. And, when I first got to Orora we were really establishing our, sense of purpose as a company around sustainability. So it really helped to establish that. And, I've been focused on sustainability throughout most of my career and didn't get to do a lot of the things that I wanted to do early on. So, Orora gave me that opportunity. And I have a team of about 55, packaging engineers, that report up through my team as well as all of the marketing and sustainability people in North America.
Cory Connors:
That's incredible and it's a big task. I know you're a very busy person, but we appreciate all the things that you do and you've taken those to. Things, your background and packaging and turn them into a new system of packaging called jarbot and, I was hoping that you could explain jarbo and how it works and, what it is.
Christopher Bradley:
Sure. So I've been interested in playing in and around reusable packaging, for almost 20 years. And so, but it's really started to gain steam, over the, say the last five or six years. And Jarbot really came out of me trying to solve some problems. I was engaged a bit with the team looking at some of the pilots going on in reusable packaging. And in fact, the sustainable packaging coalition keeps a database. Of reusable pilots or programs that are in existence. And there's 568 of these programs that have been in existence, that they're tracking. And, what I was noticing was for consumer packaged goods, which I've done a lot of work developing and making those products in my career. it's going to be really difficult, if not impossible to scale those systems, because. All of the early reuse systems. Really started, and, the, they took the existing packaging they had, and they just made a more premium version of it. But it was bespoke custom package. And when you look inside of a supermarket, in the United States, there's each store would have about 30, 000 unique skews. So, if you were going to move most of that, the reasonable packaging, it's an impossible task. You'd have 30, 000. Unique jars, bottles and cans and everything else that you would have to collect. so I spent a lot of time in, in doing logistics and supply chain. And I know that's just an impossibility. So I worked on an invented jarboe, which was really trying to reduce the number Of packaging formats that you would need to be able to fulfill, most of those 30, 000 skews. So we started with a series of jars. If you go down a supermarket aisle, you'll see jars of peanut butter and jelly and nuts and all kinds of things. And they kind of happen to be in typical sizes. So you may have a 12 ounce, a 16 ounce, a 24 ounce, but each one of those jars or containers is different shaped and the brands have all done this because they're trying to be unique. So I looked and said, hey, if we could come up with a set of common packaging. Okay. that could work. And if you really look at reuse systems that have scaled in the past, there are some similarities between them. Usually, you've had a number of brands pulled their packaging or so the beer industry in Germany or in certain other countries where they all share the same bottles and they'll just put different labels on those systems work. But if you just have a system where it's an individual, beer bottle for every brand, you just can't clean and scale those systems. So I started looking at all the jars that we could make, and then looked, is there a way that we could actually convert a jar into a bottle? And that became the genesis of Jarbo. And so what we created was, you a series of four different size jars that all had a bottle top that would go on it that would convert into bottles. So with as few as six components, you could actually create as many as 20 plus thousand different products that you would put in a supermarket. And so there's a lot more than it goes to it. You can, check it out on our website to learn more about Jarbot but it's a pretty exciting concept for how to get CPG products to scale.
Cory Connors:
I think it's incredible. And like you, I've been in the industry many years and I've never seen anything like it. I'm fascinated by how it can be different materials. Can you talk to us about those different materials that would work with this system?
Christopher Bradley:
sure. So we have developed it so that it can work in glass, stainless or even plastics. And the models that we developed so far, we have 1 that has a glass jar bottom, that you can actually fit a stainless say, top onto. So you'd still be able to see the contents inside. but the reason that you could take these parts, apart is that everything is designed to be nested. So, so you'd have nestable jars, nestable bottle tops, and that way you could get so many more, say, on a pallet when you're returning these and makes it easier to clean. So you can make it in glass, stainless, or plastic. Different types of retailers and different types of systems may have this. thermoplastics have their own issues, and they can wind up in the ocean or somewhere else. so, for now, we're leaving it wide open. and we're looking for pilot partners that we can work with in an any number of different formats.
Cory Connors:
Well, I think, congratulations are due. You've recently been awarded a very, prestigious award at the SPC, the Sustainable Packaging Coalition. Congratulations.
Christopher Bradley:
Thank you. Thank you. No, it's a big honor to be recognized by the S. P. C. they give out their innovator awards every year. And for 2024, we won for the overall packaging system category, for Jarbot. And so, it was, it's wonderful to be recognized like that. And I hope that X also helps to get the word out. So we can really. Move this into implementation and a number of different places around the world.
Cory Connors:
I agree. I think this thing has, as they say, in the advertising world, it's got legs. It's got so many possibilities and such an opportunity for people to look at the way that they use packaging and to be more sustainable. I know you've been in talks with some very large companies. It's exciting. So I'm excited to even just be a part of it by being a part of your same company.
Christopher Bradley:
Thanks, Cory.
Cory Connors:
Yeah. So let's talk about your sustainable design lab that you've recently opened at Orora Packaging.
Christopher Bradley:
Yeah, so this is really exciting. When I joined Orora about two and a half years ago, we established our purpose really to be the leading sustainable packaging company. And 1 of the 1st things we launched was a multimillion dollar investment into our new SDL or sustainable design lab, which we built in the heart of Silicon Valley up in, near San Jose in Newark, California, and it's really a state of the art facility. 20, 000 square foot lab. I have a whole team of sustainable. packaging engineers, in the building, we, amazing equipment. We have a whole fleet of 3D printers and laser cutters. We can do, rapid on site paper pulp molding and, just a host of different things that allow you to come there, learn about different materials, learn about sustainability, but then prototype right on site. and we also have a full I. S. T. A. International Safe Transit Association testing facility. So you can come there. Dream up a new idea. Use samples from our materials library to create a new prototype. and then we can test it right there in the building
Cory Connors:
really incredible. And I've been honored to get to go through it several times and, even be at the grand opening with you. I think my favorite part is the idea that, a brand or a company can come in and get inspired and. Start from zero and go all the way to fruition to a sample in their hands at the end of the meeting or the end of the time there. it's a really inspirational place. you want to talk a little bit about how you decided what kinds of materials to put in there.
Christopher Bradley:
I'm sure so, in a previous job, I ran an innovation consulting firm and we had done over. I had facilitated more than 100 innovation workshops with some of the biggest companies in the world. And so when I was thinking about the. I really wanted to develop a place where we could bring in companies and do full innovation workshops and have all the tools at our disposal so that we can have designers. They're sketching up ideas. We can come up with, send people from the workshop to actually go do quick and dirty prototypes. We have cutting tables and all kinds of materials, so you can easily see what the solution might be. And so that type of space I know, is very powerful from a collaboration perspective. And, so it's a lot of fun. It's a cool place to, to hold an event and, and really try to come up with. New innovative packaging.
Cory Connors:
Absolutely. One of, one of the most inspiring places I've been in the packaging industry, really great. well done, but put it together.
Christopher Bradley:
Thank you.
Cory Connors:
So, I did want to talk to you a little bit about, Because I've been with Orora for over 21 years now, what was that transition? It seems like, just as you came on, we really just hyper focused on sustainability. Can you walk us through that process?
Christopher Bradley:
sure. So, sustainability was the reason that I joined Orora . I'm just to give you a little background there. I told you I was an inventor and made all these products. A lot of the products were infomercial products and others. So I filled the infills with the products that I had have invented in my life. And so I really wanted to come to a place where we could really make a difference in this next chapter. And so when I joined, the first task, that I was given, from a strategy perspective was to really, determine and identify our sense of purpose. And so, we defined our sense of purpose or the purpose of the company is leading the transition to a more sustainably packaged future. and really that purpose statement has been transformative in the way that the company has begun to operate. So the investments that we've been making, the. the way that we go to market, the way that we've been training our sales teams, the way that we've been doing procurement and trying to identify new materials and new types of solutions. And so you need a really strong sense of purpose, either personally or for your company, but that will drive such transformation inside of a company. And I feel like it's really done that here at Orora. Cory Connors: Yeah, I think, you and I hit it off immediately because we had the same ideas and the same vision, I think. and you've put it into practice. So it's exciting to be a part of that. Thank you. No, and I, I couldn't believe my lucky stars when I got here and met you and the work that you had already begun with the podcast. And, that was about 2. 5 years ago. And now you just celebrated 75, 000 downloads.
Cory Connors:
Yeah. Thank you. Which
Christopher Bradley:
I know is pretty incredible. and really Have made a name for yourself and sustainable packaging. So I tell people all the time I'm riding on your coattails on this whole program. It's been a lot of fun.
Cory Connors:
I appreciate that, but I think we're a great team and, I really enjoy getting to speak with you on stages across the world and, be a part of your team is it's a lot of fun. So thank you.
Christopher Bradley:
Thanks, Corey.
Cory Connors:
So, what's the best way for people to get in touch with you and with the team at Orora packaging?
Christopher Bradley:
Sure. So at Orora packaging solutions, you can find us on the web at ororapackaging. com. you can also find me on LinkedIn. Chris M. Bradley, is that where you can find me on LinkedIn? but yeah, reach out to me. I would love to chat with you.
