Top innovations in drinks packaging

Top innovations in drinks packaging

Great article on the technological advances for packagers of beverages.

Mother’s Best

Ready Made baby bottle technology is designed to meet baby needs in times of challenging circumstances.  This video depicts one that many may not even consider. The Ready Made disposable baby bottle is user friendly to short term and permanently disabled caregivers.

Trouble with Polluted Water

An excellent video made by GOOD: Magazine for World Water Day, which explains the trouble with polluted drinking water in many parts of the world.

Economic Indicator; Patent Applications on the Rise.

Good news for the economy; Patent filings are on th rise according to a recent study by the World Intellectual Property Office. The WIPO report titled “World Intellectual Property Indicators,” published December 2012, shows patent filings are up 7% worldwide as of 2010 in comparison to 2009 nubers. International patent applications (PCT), protecting patents globally, rose 5.6% as of 2010. The US and China are leading the way with 80% of the total filings. The trend is shown by a graph released by WIPO shown below. Since the process from filing to finished product can take a few years, the data from 2010 is a good indication that new products will be flooding the market for the next couple years. This is great news for those looking for an economic recovery as these patents turn into products and new jobs.

Haiti, one year later.

It has been just over a year since the earthquake in Haiti killed more than 200,000 people and the situation is still grim. According to recent figures released January 21 by the World Health Organization, the outbreak of Cholera has reached an astounding 194,095 with 3651 deaths due to the outbreak.
The cause of the outbreak is still unknown, though some point fingers at the UN peacekeepers for bringing this disease back to Haiti after over 50 years of no reported cases. Regardless of the cause, it is apparent that Haiti’s struggle to rebuild after the earthquake has hit a roadblock that need immediate attention.
“Simply put, other actors need to get more involved because the needs are far too great to be covered solely by the organizations currently working to prevent and treat cholera,” Stefano Zannini, the Doctors Without Borders Haiti Head of Mission, said in a statement. “Both the short-term and long-term forecasts indicate that this situation will get worse, possibly far worse, before it gets better.”
With everything that has happened to the people in Haiti in 2010, we must continue to keep them in our thoughts and prayers. We hope that soon we will be able to provide more aid in the form of Readymade bottles to the children in need in of safe food in this Haiti as well as other disaster areas. In the mean time, review the video below for some of the footage of the aftermath of this tragedy as well as the inspiration from those on the ground helping Haiti recover from this disaster.

Bisphenol A Policy on the horizon

There has been some disagreement on the how dangerous Bisphenol A contained in food packaging is. This may be the result of Industry groups who have actively been denying the health risks of the chemical. The debate over how BPA is regulated has made US and European food safety regulators look to update advisories on the chemical.
University of Canterbury Toxicologist Ian Shaw had this to say about BPA:
“I don’t think we should ban BPA, but I think we should control its use much more carefully. BPA is the chemical used to manufacture polycarbonate plastics, is a component of lacquers used to line food cans, and is used in some dental fillings – the problem is that it mimics the female hormone. Small doses over a long time can initiate female hormone responses.

“In males this might result in undescended testes or other sex organ deformities, but in females it is possible that some breast cancers might be stimulated. A specific type of breast cancer (estrogen receptor positive breast cancer) grows when the female hormone, estrogen, binds to a specific receptor in the cell; when the receptor is occupied the cancer cell divides and the cancer grows. An estrogen mimic such as BPA can bind to the receptor and stimulate the breast cancer cell to divide. Controlling its use while allowing it to be used for the benefit of society (e.g. in some medical devices) will reduce exposure and so reduce the risk.”

While University of Missouri-Columbia professor Fredrick Vom Saal put it a little more firm, stating, ““Among people who have actually read the literature, there is no debate, just an illusion of controversy. This is a phenomenally potent chemical.”

This may be just the beginning of chemicals in food manufacturing coming under fire. Patricia Hunt, a biologist at Washington State University said about the BPA issue, “It’s just the one that’s captured the attention, because researchers like me have gotten into the field and gone, ‘Holy cats! We’re all exposed to this.’ There’s been a heavy industry response, and we’ve gathered our forces together a little more strongly to shine a light on it. This is the poster child for this group of chemicals. Academic scientists are saying we need to do something, and we need to do it fast.”

With all of this being said, BPA is still an accepted food manufacturing chemical in many countries. We will stay tuned later this month as the European Food Authority makes there decision on the future of BPA in European manufacturing. This decision will surely hold weight on the rest of the world’s manufacturing.

Is US Disaster preparation better on the 5th anniversary of Katrina?

It has been 5 years since Katrina swept through the Gulf Coast, but is the US better prepared for future disasters? According to one recent pole by the Pew Research Center, 57% of Americans say the country has not made improvements in disaster preparations.

The storm killed more than 1,800 people along the Gulf coast and rebuilding is far from finished. The aftermath of the storm was seen world wide as a mismanaged effort that failed to deliver relief aid in a timely fashion.

Since then relief has poured in from churches and humanitarian organizations helping to ease the suffering of victims. Despite this work there are still people living in temproary housing 5 years later.

Perhaps the only way to know if we are better equiped to handle another disaster is to wait and see how we react to the next one. With the continuing improvment in delivery of aid, texting of donation funds and general awareness that Katrina and other recent disasters have raised, there is hope that the future will be brighter.

UNICEF Celebrates World Breastfeeding Month With 10 Steps

As you may already know, Ready Made is a proponent of breastfeeding as the best and healthiest method of feeding newborns and infants.  Our mission is to help support the infants that are unable to breast feed due to loss of a parent or other reasons medical, environmental or social that can cause an infant to be left without the option of breast feeding.  With this in mind we celebrate world breast feeding month.  This year will mark the 20th anniversary of the Innocenti Declaration on the Protection, Promotion, and Support of Breastfeeding. 

UNICEF has set up these 10 steps to bring awareness to health care facilities worldwide of the importance of breast feeding:

1. Have a written breastfeeding policy that is routinely communicated to all health care staff. The 10 steps call for health facilities to have written policies that are displayed for all to read, indicating that staff is committed to implementing them.

2. Train all health care staff in skills necessary to implement this policy. Training at all levels should address the 10 steps, breastfeeding, counselling, and the International Code.

3. Inform all pregnant women about the benefits and management of breastfeeding. By the time a baby is born, the new mother must be comfortable about breastfeeding, understand its benefits, and what she has to do.

4. Help mothers initiate breastfeeding within one half-hour of birth. This step now means, for all healthy newborns, skin-to-skin contact from immediately after delivery for at least one hour or until the baby has attached and fed at the breast if this takes longer.

5. Show mothers how to breastfeed and maintain lactation, even if they should be separated from their infants. Helping mothers to breastfeed effectively with a good technique is a vital step. If infants are separated from their mothers, or are unable to suckle, their mothers need to express their milk. Health workers need skills to help mothers do these things.

6. Give newborn infants no food or drink other than breast milk, unless medically indicated. Families and health workers may believe that infants need pre-lacteal feeds of formula or glucose water or other drinks before their mother’s milk “comes in.” This may lead to failure to breastfeed. Infant formula and advertisements in maternities can mislead people on this important point. Breast milk is pure and complete, while giving babies water or other liquids can pose risks due to contaminated water.

7. Practice rooming-in—that is, allow mothers and infants to remain together 24 hours a day. In many hospitals, newborns are kept in nurseries after delivery. Rooming-in allows mothers and their babies to stay together day and night to bond and to establish breastfeeding.

8. Encourage breastfeeding on demand. Babies should feed according to their needs, not a schedule decided by the hospital or mother. Understanding her infant’s feeding cues improved breastfeeding and the mother-child relationship.

9. Give no artificial teats or pacifiers (also called dummies or soothers) to breastfeeding infants. During the early weeks, the baby’s need to suckle should be satisfied at the breast. Using teats or pacifiers may interfere with suckling and the adjustment of the breast milk supply to the baby’s requirements.

10. Foster the establishment of breastfeeding support groups and refer mothers to them on discharge from the hospital or clinic. Breastfeeding support groups are often part of a community nutrition strategy. Peer counsellors are women from the community who receive training in breastfeeding support. They often contact mothers in their homes. They are very effective in increasing exclusive breastfeeding.

With these 10 steps becoming increasingly popular in health care clinics around the world, UNICEF is winning the breast feeding cause. We congratulate those new mothers that start and continue to breast feed and the facilities that have been named ‘baby friendly’ by instituting the 10 steps.

The US House want to help companies ‘Make it in America’

House Democrats have started working on measures they hope will help America to continue as the world leader in manufacturing. They passed several bills Wednesday as part of a ‘Make it in America’ agenda. One of the bills would require the President Obama to create a four-year national manufacturing strategy. This would help to advance the country’s interests in the global economy. Another would address the trade deficit. A third bill attempts to boost the clean-technology industry in domestic and international markets. There are also measures in place to close tax loopholes that make it cheaper to move jobs abroad. Though the outcome of this new legislation is still to be seen, this may provide a much needed boost to American manufacturing.

“After 110 years as the world’s top manufacturing country, the United States is about to lose that perch to China,” said Rep. Daniel Lipinski (D., Ill.), sponsor of the National Manufacturing Strategy Act. “But American manufacturing job loss is not inevitable and I do not accept the notion that there’s nothing we can do.”

The ‘Make it in America’ plan also brings in private sector panels of manufacturing executives and stakeholders to help work on the long term growth strategy. With millions of manufacturing jobs being lost, the cooperation of public and private entities along with an analysis of current laws should help. Representative Dan Lapinski who sponsored one of the bills said, “Even though they may have lost some jobs, there’s still great potential for some growth as the economy comes back.”

Project Cure Raises $3 Million for Aid to Panama

Project CURE (Commission on Urgent Relief & Equipment) has a simple goal; to provide medical equipment and supplies to medical personnel in order for communities to receive care. They have helped raise millions of dollars and provided relief in over 120 countries.

Last Wednesday Project CURE’s latest fund raiser was targeting Panama. The goal: To bring in enough support to deliver $3 million in medical supplies to the impoverished nation. Previous Project CURE fundraiser’s have raised more than $7 million combined for Mexico, El Salvador , Belize and Ghana.

The function was held in Denver with hundreds of business and community leaders gathered together in support of the cause and was a great success. Panama’s First Lady,Marta Martinelli, said she wants to decrease the infant mortality rate in her country by creating help centers in the remote areas where the hard-to-reach and impoverished indigenous population live according to the AP. The lack of adequate medical attention for the indigenous women of the country has led to high infant mortality rate. This is a huge concern for the First Lady and Project CURE, but Wednesday’s success is one step in the right direction.