After her last trip to PACK EXPO International, Peggy Shannon, the founder of artisan cookie manufacturer Queen City Cookies, L.L.C. (Cincinnati, OH), purchased a shrink-packaging machine that helps ensure the freshness and quality of her cookies, sold to customers across the United States.

Shannon will be back at PACK EXPO International Oct. 28–31 at Chicago’s McCormick Place this year to discover more solutions for enhancing productivity, improving efficiency and supporting her growing business.

Queen City Cookies, the brainchild of Shannon, who is a life-long baker and artist, offers delicious baked goods made from scratch with preservative-free ingredients like European butter, eggs, cane sugar and unbleached flour. What makes them unique is that Shannon and her artisan bakers use vintage 14th century German-style molds to finish the cookies by hand with decorative piping.

While production has been successfully scaled up to satisfy customer demand, packaging has been a greater challenge.Expanding to the wholesale market has added new levels of complexity, including extending the shelf life of the products and protecting them during distribution. So Shannon turned to the PACK EXPO show for some help with the challenge.

“We take great pride in ensuring the superior quality and taste of our cookies, and we need to uphold that commitment consistently to warrant the higher prices we charge for our product,” she explains. “Packaging plays a critical role in achieving that goal, both from a shelf-life perspective and where protection is concerned, especially now that we’re servicing customers around the country. Shipping stale or broken cookies just isn’t an option. We thought PACK EXPO would provide the information we needed to present our products in the best possible way.”

Shannon stopped at the PACK-ALL booth, and it was there that she was educated about the benefits of shrink wrapping and learned how it would protect her cookies while allowing customers to fully view the beauty of her creations.

Shannon brought a selection of cookies with her to PACK EXPO International 2010, so PACK-ALL introduced her to a film manufacturer that could counsel her about the film that would best fit her needs. They took a roll of the recommended film to the PACK-ALL booth and made sample packages for Shannon on the spot using the PACK-ALL Model U1319D unitized shrink package system. The system wraps a variety of different sized products and operates at speeds around 8-12 packages per minute.

Shannon knew immediately that she had found her solution and the suppliers she needed. She decided to buy the system immediately, right off the show floor.

To register for PACK EXPO International 2012, visit www.packexpo.com or contact the Packaging Machinery Manufacturers Institute’s (PMMI) show department at 703-243-8555; fax: 703-243-8556; or e-mail expo@pmmi.org.