 Good afternoon. I'm Paula Feldman, Director of Business Intelligence with PMMI, and I'd like to thank you for joining today's webinar on PMMI's latest report, Food Packaging Trends and Advances. Over the next hour, Jennifer Zeeman with Proactive Worldwide will provide perspectives of the Food Packaging Market Research Report. Jennifer's experience with Proactive Worldwide in the Consumer and Industrial Goods Practice began as a research analyst working on research projects for a wide array of businesses from QSR's Quick Service Restaurants to Fortune 100 CPG companies. She now serves as an associate director guiding the research process for proactive consumer and industrial goods team. Today's discussion will focus on market size and forecast, packaging innovation, key trends affecting the industry, equipment investments, challenges facing the market, and solutions equipment providers may provide. At the end of the presentation, which should last approximately 45 to 50 minutes, Jennifer will answer any questions you may have. So at this point, I'd like to hand the webinar over to Jennifer from Proactive. Thank you Paula. Good afternoon everyone. As Paula had indicated, today's discussion today will center on some research that was engaged by PMMI in the fourth quarter of 2015 that focused on the food industry, primarily in North America, although the scope of research also garnered insights on some of the trends that are occurring in other markets internationally as it may relate to trends that may affect the North American market. Today we will discuss a range of topics as Paula had indicated earlier in her discussion to discuss how those trends manifest themselves in the North American market. Our scope of research covered a wide range of areas in terms of multitude of segments within the food industry, covering everything from the convenience market to the meat market to snack foods to pet foods and everything in between. What was not included included dairy and beverages and things of that nature. So we were very targeted in terms of focused on food products and excluding liquid beverages. We also saw perspective from a wide range of respondents. Over 70 respondents provided perspective that ranged from food company personnel from packaging and processing engineers to marketing directors, equipment manufacturers, materials suppliers and food industry consultants. So we were able to gather a top-ranging perspective from everybody who touched into the food industry. We also spoke with 14% of those respondents outside of the United States and North American market to provide perspective, as I said before, on trends that were going into other areas that might affect the North American market. So again, it was a wide-ranging reach. That all played into our understanding of what the global market size and North American market size was. So as we look at the US market specifically, the US food market is growing at a very slow but steady pace. When we look at that and how that is affecting the food packaging market, that is growing at a compound annual growth rate of about 2.9%. And that's projected to be a steady rate all the way through 2022. So we're projecting that to be a $31.7 billion industry at that point in time. Now some of the factors that might affect that growth rate, while it largely follows the growth rate of the food industry itself, that 2.9% compound annual growth rate, there are other factors such as retailers and consumer preferences that could affect that growth rate for packaging. But other things such as manufacturer challenges in their own distribution and production can affect that as well. Technology and new regulations might also affect that compound annual growth rate. So there are a few factors that might go into that. And those are some of the things that we're going to talk about today as we go through this presentation. Some of the things that was of interest when we were talking with the respondents about what was going on in the marketplace was that there are two segments of the food industry, food packaging industry in particular, that are growing faster than the industry average. And those are the meat and related products categories and the snack food products categories. Meat and related products are growing at about a rate of 3.1% compound annual growth rate. And snack food is growing at a 3.9% annual compound growth rate. Meat and related products are growing regardless of what type of meat products you're talking about. It could be meat such as beef, pork to be poultry. It could be seafood. All of those packaging types are seeing strong growth rates. But where we actually saw a little bit higher than average growth rate in the meat and related product category was for egg cartons and specifically within the egg carton category with plastic egg cartons. And that was largely due to the cushioning and insulating characteristics of the cartons themselves, providing some distinct advantages that the companies preferred. When it came to some of the other attractiveness of what was driving packaging in meat and related products that food manufacturers were saying was creating some growth in that category in space was the fact that they're looking at new packaging options because they had not scaled down their packaging types as some of the other segments had before for one or two person households. And so that is starting to drive a need in that segment. They're trying to scale for aging demographics, for instance, and for the convenience trends that so many other segments had already accounted for. The meat and related products category had not yet accommodated for that growth and that's starting to be something that they're trying to accommodate for now. Snack food is one of the categories that has always seen a lot of change in growth over the years and it's continuing to do so. The portion control sizing trend continues as had been reported in previous PMMI reports. But other new introductions continues the drive snack food categories as non-traditional snacks such as cheese and nuts and that's going to continue to drive innovation in that category for new packaging types. When we spoke with respondents in the snack food segment we heard that nearly 75% of the products in the snack food segments are packaged in bags or pouches which also aligns with some of the trends that have been reported in previous PMMI reports such as the flexible packaging study recently completed last year. Pillow pouches and stand-up pouches seem to dominate the snack food packaging space. When we look at growth on a global perspective, although the U.S. market, the North American market tends to dominate the food industry as a whole in terms of scale and size, it is not the largest growing market by any means. Growth as a whole is being driven by some of the rabidly modernizing countries. We heard countries such as Argentina, Brazil, China and India as being some of the top markets for growth in terms of both packaging and the food industry as a whole. And what we heard in terms of growth for those segments were a wide-ranging number of categories. In particular, we heard growth in areas such as fruits and vegetables and baked goods and other categories of that nature, grains and those types of products were growing for those segments. In the North American market, however, we heard that snack food continues to be a growing product category. So does the candy and confection product categories, which is an interesting contrast to some of the other markets that we were studying abroad. The other thing that it was of interest that we found as we were discussing with respondents about what was going on globally versus the North American market was that there's some regional plays that happen in specific spot areas. For instance, with pet food. Pet food is a unique product that depends on the economic wealth of a particular area and how well supported it can be in a particular global area as to how much spend is being done on the packaging and product category. So spot areas such as particular parts of Western Europe and we were pointed to look at particular areas of France or in parts of Norway and parts of Germany as highlighted spots of excess of spend on pet food and over 30% of the people's economy was going towards spend on pet treats and things of that nature which was of interest to us because that was not seen across the broader scale of Europe comparatively where it was 3% or 8% depending on where you were looking in that market. Other parts of the world, pet food was not as broad of a nature at all. Globalized it was a 3% growth rate in total but for most parts it just depended up on where you were looking. If you were looking in parts of the United States you saw a regionalization of that play as well. There was some discussion about parts of the United States that had higher growth for pet food depending on the niche you were looking at. Again, treats seemed to be an area of pet food that seemed to have a higher spend and growth rate in the United States than certain segments of the pet food industry overall. When it came to packaging innovation, this was an area where we heard that many innovations were concepts that had been in use for other segments. So it was a case of people adopting or borrowing trends that they had seen applied for use in other product categories. A point in the example would be that they had seen say a case-ready meat use a rigid tray container with a film over it to display a meat product and the vegetable producer saw that product and thought that would be an excellent way to display a new cut fruit that they wanted to bring to market and they hadn't yet had that product out. They didn't want to put it in the bag or they didn't want to put it in a plastic tub container. So they were moving to a tray with a film over it or something of that nature. Those were the types of discussions we were getting into with a lot of respondents saying that they were just adopting products formats that may have been used for other segments but had not been used traditionally in their own segments. Some of the other things that we had heard was that when they looked to make changes on their own packaging, they're looking to really just enhance what they already have. So when they're out in the market and they're looking to find new things, they're looking for improvements to what is already existing on their own technologies. So they're looking for companies and partners that can enhance their own graphics or their own labeling systems. They're looking for new sealing options on existing products that they may already have. They may already have a pouch in place and they just need a new sealing system. One case in point that we have to highlight for that would be when we were speaking with some of the baked goods companies, they were highlighting the fact that they would love to have a self-closing or resealable package that they could use with their products but the problem that they had been running into with using the existing technology that had been out there was with the fine powder that they have in their baking process with using flour that that often interfered with the self-sealing tabs and that they weren't able to maintain a good seal because the powder interfered. So that is an example of some of the solutions that they're trying to find when they're looking and speaking about innovation. When they talk about innovations from other countries entering the marketplace, they're looking at things that have been tried and true in other markets. So case in point that they had provided was another example from the meat market. Meat manufacturers were talking about products that had been used in the UK market where there was a product that had been introduced in the UK a number of years ago that allowed a film to open during the cooking process where it allowed the film to open during cooking to allow the meat to brown and they thought that that was a fantastic product and were excited about that coming to the United States. Other examples that people noted in the world market that they thought were going to be coming to the United States in the near future were sizing and packaging differences based off of locale. And what I mean by that is urban versus rural packaging changes. And that's something that's been really predominant in China and in Brazil where the market demands are so different between the urban areas of a major city versus the rural areas and what basically the economy can afford in those marketplaces that the package packaging is scaled differently for those types of markets. And they say that the US manufacturers were saying that there's a need in the United States for a similar type of adoption depending on what segments and area of the US that people are looking at. And they could see that that could be adopted depending on that. They could see that being adopted depending on what ethnicity people are targeting as well. Some of the other things that they were also talking about adopting from other markets might have been things of the nature of a product that can go directly from the freezer to the oven to the table in a single package without transferring to a separate dish. And that was something that was brought up as a common product option that was seen in Europe. And that was something that was talked about a lot during the frozen food discussions that we had with some of the segment leaders there. When we talked about some of the most innovative segments and we asked our peers to spotlight who you think or who do you see in the food industry as being some of the most innovative segments, some of the ones that were highlighted tended to be snack food, meat and related products, fruit and vegetables and pet food. And one of the reasons why fruit and vegetables was highlighted is it tends to be because of the clear and tactile films that they're using to make customers actually stop and actually touch the fruit without expecting the fruit itself, without actually causing any damage to the product itself. It's still getting the sensation of touching the fruit. The films that came up and were talked about, that was a big discussion point and frequently mentioned in a lot of segments was this tactile film. And they were talking about using that as overcoats on a lot of products. And they said that that allowed for a lot of higher end eye popping graphics. And that was something that was seen as a very attractive feature for many of these food companies. Some of the other things that were innovative that people thought would be trending into other segments eventually, but not necessarily right now, but these companies saw that these segments were innovative right now because of it, was like the active labels that the meat and related products are starting to adopt such as that indicated when products were past their prime. And then again moving towards more recycled materials in their products. As we go on in our conversation today, we'll hear a little bit more about both the active labels and the recycled materials and some of those benefits and challenges to both. When we asked about general trends that were affecting their business and their packaging in particular, sustainability, convenience, flexibility, technology and safety all came up as major themes with all of the companies. These are major things that have come up time and again when we've talked with these food companies, not just for this report, but in previous reports. But what was new in this report is as we were talking about things such as sustainability, the emphasis has shifted slightly. No longer is it just about light weighting product and going towards thinner gauge material, but it's also more about the emphasis is on how to incorporate those recycled and biodegradable materials and how much emphasis is being put on incorporating those materials, but how much they know that that is actually going to be a feasible option for them in the future. As a firm we've been working with PMMI for a number of years and have had an opportunity to look at the food industry for PMMI on this particular topic a few times. Over the last four or five years this topic in particular with recycled and biodegradable packaging has come up. In this study it is literally the highest percentage I have heard of respondents actually saying that they are interested in using biodegradable packaging. When we first began looking at this topic it was probably around 40% of people saying yes they were interested in biodegradable packaging. Now it's up at 80% of people saying that they are interested in biodegradable packaging. That is a strong growth trend in just that short period of time. There are still some concerns about getting that implemented into their businesses costs obviously is a prime concern, but the concerns over safety are the bigger hurdle. The sanitary barriers in the packaging format still need to be proven to be sustainable and the shelf life longevity has to be shown to be effective for their purposes, but I think over the next year or two you are going to see a greater degree of adoption and I think that that will be proving those points to their peers that those objections are going to go away faster and faster and greater adoption is going to be transpiring. You are also seeing and I don't have it mentioned here on the slide but you are seeing a greater adoption of the plant based polymers largely in the liquid based products but also in some of the food based products as well. So that is also gaining traction in this space. Largely this is all being driven by demand from the retailers and the consumers especially the millennial consumers to incorporate more of this material and biodegradable packaging. There is still a little bit of hesitancy on the material being right next to the food product for the recycled portion of the packaging material but the biodegradable portion is growing in great traction. When it comes to more flexible and convenient packaging this was a hot topic for all of the respondents we were speaking about and it was born forth in PMMI's own flexible packaging study just a short six months ago. Flexible packaging has grown nearly 8% since 2012 and bagged in pouches itself has grown 3.5%. It is such a strong attractive packaging type for all of the segments. We heard baked goods, frozen specialties, fruit and vegetables, meat and related products, pet food, snack foods all say that they are incorporating even more flexible packaging into their products. Reasons were because of the way they could showcase the products, the freshness, the size options, there was just so many benefits that they saw to flexible packaging and I can't highlight strongly enough the ability to showcase products. One of the major trends that came up time and again as we were speaking with food companies and industry experts was that there is such an emphasis right now on transparency in showcasing their products. People want to be able to see the food products that they are purchasing and so food companies are trying to find a way that they can show their products even if their products are something that aren't easily shown. So even companies that would have a package in a can normally are moving to clear plastic jars so that they could show that that product is a healthy product or show what the product looks like. We even had one major global food company tell us that they are transitioning 25% of their products to transparent packaging over the next year. That tells you right there how strongly that transparent packaging theme resonates with companies and the way that they see that movement moving and being driven throughout the industry. Transparency also came up with the discussion on labeling and the need for clear, clean, easy to read labels and some of that is being driven by regulations but some of that is also just being driven by the fact that they don't want anything that can detract from being able to see that product. So if they are going to have a clear transparent product or a container that showcases the product they don't want that label to be cluttering up and prohibiting the consumer from being able to see the product through the label. Now a lot of benefits were shown and showcased about the transparent, or not about the transparent but about the flexible packaging. They did highlight a few issues that flexible packaging still has to be worked out but for the most part most everyone was very positive about flexible packaging. When it came to technology this was a very interesting area of discussion with sources that we were speaking with. There is a greater use of technology in food packaging today than has ever been incorporated before. Not just in packaging, it's also being used and incorporated in the food processing area as well. The use of robotics is growing as well. Earlier I had spoken about the greater incorporation of recycled and biodegradable packaging being a greater percentage in this study than in past studies. The same is true with robotics. When we were speaking with respondents about robotics and the adoption of that into their food processing and packaging system, we are hearing about more and more people adopting that into their processing lines due to the shortage of labor. They are starting to see the ROI actually make sense to their lines. For years we had heard that the ROI did not make sense. They couldn't justify the costs, that the food industry, the margins were too thin to allow for robotics, things of that nature. Now we're starting to hear that the costs of the robotics will start to pay for themselves because the costs of labor have increased. They can't find the skilled workers that they need, or people are not wanting to do some of the manual labor that is required for their processing lines or their packaging lines. So that is making robotics a much more attractive alternative for them to incorporate into their businesses. One area in particular we were speaking with frozen foods. The frozen food specialties were saying that they now incorporated robotics into their operations and have for the last several years and have seen the ROI completely justified. That was one of the segments that had been crying saying that the costs weren't justified just a few short years ago the last time the study was completed. The other industry that we spoke to about robotics that was saying that they would love to incorporate more robotics into their industry right now is baked goods. The problem that they see with robotics though is due to the delicate nature of their products. They're not completely sold on the idea that the robotics systems would be able to handle the baked goods in an efficient manner and keep the products without being damaged and moving the lines fast enough. So there's some issues that they still need to be convinced on to see that the robotics systems might work in their setting. When it comes to other technologies being incorporated into businesses nowadays we're hearing more about active and smart packaging. This ties back to the comments earlier about the meat and related products using things like the smart label to indicate when a product might be past its expiration date, using sensors to indicate or sense the gas levels building up inside the package to note that the product has rotted or gone past its point of safety. So that is something that is being incorporated in some limited extent and is of particular interest in a lot of segments that have very highly perishable products. So we were hearing more and more companies looking towards that. They don't think it's quite at its peak just yet, but it's something that companies are trying to find a way to incorporate greater use of. One other thing that they did note on this particular topic was how to also use this technology for non-perishable or alternative product categories. They don't see how that can be quite broadened to other segments just yet. So they think that that has a ways to go yet before it could be applicable to every food category. Interactive packaging or technology being used to further marketing events is something that is definitely of interest to all food companies and is something that is broadly used in the labeling area and the print technology that is being used with many of the packages that are being produced. QSR codes have been used for a while, snap tags. But some of the newer things that we were hearing about was using clickable paper in part of the packaging materials. Clickable paper was a technology that was invented by a particular company that actually allows the material to actually connect with the smart phones itself. So that is something that companies are starting to explore and seeing how more they can incorporate just the material itself to be all over used and not just confining the space of the media to one little tag on the package but making the entire package itself an area that the consumer can click on and get some sort of interaction with the company. So those are all sorts of technology uses that people are looking at and trying to incorporate. There are out there ideas that people also came up with. I don't think that they are necessarily feasible in the near term. Things like 3D printers to handle obsolete parts or drones to handle supply chain issues for delivery. Those are things that respondents mentioned, but those are not necessarily things that are in the works just yet. But those are things that people are talking about and thinking about. So those are things that everyone should be aware of. The thing to note about the 3D printers in particular is if equipment manufacturers are going to be concerned about any point, I think that one would be one to be taking note of because you don't want to be cut out of your parts replacement cycle. And that would be one that I would at least pay attention to as that industry continues to grow and make sure that that is something that you are able to address as you move forward. Other trends regarding safety that came up, regarding food safety in particular, were the topics of regulations governing the move to new materials, largely around things of topics like moving away from VPA in plastics and things of that nature, moving to clean materials in packaging. VPA free was a topic that came up quite often when we were talking with people about not just consumer related demands, but also government related demands. And they highlighted not just what's going on in the United States, but also what's going on internationally regarding this topic. We were told that VPA free markets existed in Canada and in Europe and that the U.S. market was behind on this topic. And interestingly enough, as I was preparing for this webinar today and talking about it, I had heard on the radio this morning on my way in that Campbell's was just announcing today that it was going to be removing VPA from its linings on its canned products, from all of its canned products moving forward. So it is a hot topic for a lot of the food manufacturers and we had heard that in our study that companies are considering it, but they have not yet decided how they were going to address it completely. Some are immediately forward. Some are still contemplating how they're going to address it. But I think you're going to see this as a topic that's going to continue moving forward. Other issues that have come up with one that we talked about with regarding the labeling and making sure that consumers know the information about what's going on in their products. The transparency of fee-to-fork that the FMSA regulations are driving forth is something that is going to continue and there's going to be increasingly degrees of focus on. One area of particular contention regarding some labeling is that made in the USA stamp that some companies choose to put on their labeling. It could be just as easily what's called natural or what is called organic. You hear that debate go on quite a bit that the FDA is trying to settle right now. But in this case, made in the USA, there's different regulations depending on where you live in the United States as to what is defined as made in the USA. California, we were told, has the strictest definition of what it made in the USA is. So it is very frustrating for food companies and how they're trying to adhere to labeling depending on where they are. So they have to adjust their labeling depending on where they're selling their product or they have to go to the strictest level if they want to sell and just worry about one label across the United States. So it is something that they are very much aware of and trying to manage and deal with at the moment. And then there's, again, the topic of active packaging came up again here when we were talking about safety and how the solutions might be active packaging to solve some of the safety concerns that they've come up against relative to issues that have gone on in their businesses remark related to food safety and how to prevent some of the challenges that they've encountered in the past. When it comes to equipment investment, most of the companies we spoke with generally prefer to do upgrades over purchases for new equipment. That being said, new equipment is added slowly into their portfolios or into their lines, the production lines or their packaging lines. Respondents did say that on average their life cycle of their equipment is 10 to 20 years and they are pressured by their management to extend the life cycles of their product and to do more with the equipment and machines that they have or to maximize the ROI of those machines that they've just purchased faster. So that puts a lot of pressure on equipment manufacturers to show the ROI and demonstrate that ROI that the new equipment is going to provide to food companies. If you can't demonstrate an ROI within two years, chances are the food company is going to start looking elsewhere at a machine. If it's definitely, if it's not within three years, you're probably out of the ballgame. A lot of the food companies that we were speaking with are increasingly looking at lower cost equipment providers from Asia as another bid when they're looking at machine purchases. They were telling us that they have to find ways to lower the cost of their equipment purchases. However, what keeps them coming back to the U.S. equipment manufacturers is the fact that they know with some of these lower cost Asian equipment machine providers is that there's a lot of post-sales service and support issues. So what we heard is the benefit that they're seeing with the U.S. companies are the service level that they receive with purchasing a new piece of equipment. That said, some of the things that they want to see when they invest in that is greater automation. They want to see more flexibility. They'd like to have some greater solutions to specific pain points. So I guess greater customization might be a better way of saying that. When we asked what specific pieces of equipment are mostly demand in your business, they gave us a list of things, a lot of which relate back to the flexible packaging that they're looking for. Vertical form steel machines were stated time and again by multiple businesses that that's the type of piece of equipment that they're looking for. Mostly followed by the horizontal form steel machines. Flow wrappers, again all the flexible packaging, pre-made pouch machines, thermal forming equipment. Then when we asked what else do you want from your equipment providers, what else can they do to help you provide better service or other things for your equipment? Some of the things that were highlighted were things that we've heard time and again, flexibility, speed, sustainability, automation. So I think what I take away from that is that if you continue to focus on the things that you do right in terms of service and continue to provide the products that meet those needs and focus on the automation piece as you heard earlier with the trend towards the robotics, I think that will resonate with the customers if you can get it in the ROI time period that customers are looking for. What comes to some of the challenges that the U.S. food packaging market is experiencing, the age of their equipment is one of the top challenges that people highlighted for us, that they're having difficulty sourcing parts for their products. We told you the average life cycle is 10 to 20 years of a piece of equipment. They were saying that there's often times that they go to their equipment providers and can't find a part for a product any longer because the machine itself has either been discontinued or the equipment provider goes to their own providers and can't source a part any longer because that part's no longer available. So the equipment providers themselves have challenges maintaining an inventory of stock on products that are so old and have challenges keeping up on products when their providers discontinue parts. The most common parts that we were told that is discontinued tends to be servo motors. Finding skills labor isn't just a challenge for the food companies. We've heard that it's been a challenge for equipment providers. When we were talking with several of the equipment providers that are providing products into the food companies, they actually laughed and said that that was a challenge for them as well and that finding skills labor to actually train and provide as much support that the food companies want can be just as much of a challenge because they're running thin on their own staff. Flexibility of equipment. You heard earlier that they want to be able to do more with the existing equipment that they have and finding equipment that can be easily modified to accommodate different material types or sizes. You know equipment providers stated that they could easily provide products that could do that but it's always a cost based scenario what our food companies willing to trade for that in terms of cost and it's always a struggle to understand what the cost benefit ratio is going to be. Sourcing is a challenge regardless of what industry you're in. Food companies are no different. They have disruptions and variability in their materials. Namely we heard challenges in getting things like paperboard in when they want it to be in or the quality of a particular material. Sometimes the plastic films that they've received may be too thin or may be not of the quality that they need and then we heard that that can cause problems for the equipment providers because of the quality of the materials that they're using on their packaging lines aren't up to standards and they're putting it through their packaging lines. It can cause problems with the machines and of course who do the food companies call? They call the equipment providers say something's wrong with your machine not blaming necessarily the material supplier where the problem actually resulted from. Distribution, they have rising freight costs and things of those natures. In particular one thing to highlight in that area that came up during the study was a problem that the meat and related product segment is having with distribution. They're having problems with their box integrity being compromised during product transport. There's temperature fluctuations that are occurring during transport and what really needs to happen is they really need to have products that are boxes that are of thicker gauge materials but they know that the retailers aren't going to pay for that added strength and neither will the consumers so they can't pass those costs on so they stick with the thinner materials and then they end up with either damaged boxes and then products that are not keeping to the correct temperature during transport. Other things that are happening during transport is just higher costs so there's no necessarily good translation for that but they can see it at this particular point in time. Equipment providers also have challenges with distribution and developing solutions with running the lightweight materials that are being used nowadays during the distribution run and having to use these lighter weight materials without using the excess waste or causing excess waste and that sort of thing with the products as they change and shift gauges or gauges of material type. And then food companies are having challenges with regulations and that is something that is not just with FMSA they also cited challenges with OSHA and Employee Safety Regulations. They challenged sustainability regulations with having to keep up with reduced emissions and waste and recycling challenges depending on what market they're working in or even what town it could be and they all have different regulations depending on where their plants are located so their machines might have to have different electrical or different water usage or different regulations depending on the utilities that they have for power and consumption of that nature. So those are all the different types of challenges that they're trying to manage when it came to regulations. So what does it all mean when it comes to the end of the day for equipment providers and the potential solutions that you could offer as you're looking at the industry and what you might be able to provide as potential action? When it comes to the age of the equipment there's a grandfathering process that you might be able to employ to let and notify people of when equipment is going to be becoming obsolete. You may be doing this now where you're notifying a customer six months, twelve months down the road that a piece of equipment might be scheduled for transition out of the line but you might need to extend that timeline in terms of letting them know. Letting them know two years or so before this continuation gives them time to plan, gives them time to look at their inventory and either build up a stock of replacement parts or implement the costing process that they need to begin to transition to a new product or new machine. The other thing that you might consider is offering service contracts for those particular machines over a specific period of time where you say you'll support them for X number of years after this continuation at a certain rate. It builds in a revenue stream for your business and it gives them an extended period after a discontinuation that they can feel some comfort knowing that they don't have to transition immediately thereafter. Another option for a continued revenue stream that has been done in other industries is to sell the machine design to a third party partner who can continue to produce only spare parts, not produce the machine itself, but only produce spare parts for that machine. And then the third thing is invest yourself in a third F3D printer so you can continue to produce obsolete spare parts on demand without having to have it run through your entire production line and worry about having to keep it in stock inventory. See if that might work for your business rather than letting your customers actually invest in the 3D printer if that technology actually ever makes its way into greater use for those particular parts. Then in terms of finding retained and skilled labor, we've talked a lot about automating their own lines with robotics but incorporating it into your own lines with robotics. That also would be a great use of your own technology to keep your own businesses running smoothly but also helping your clients understand where robotics makes sense and finding out which processes of theirs are the most manual and incorporating the use of robotics where it makes sense. Take that case study of the baked goods that we related earlier in terms of the delicate products and figure out solutions to those types of challenges when your customers present those to you and figure out solutions around those types of problems areas and that might be the number one solution to that shortage of labor. Then the sales team issue about not enough time to focus on training your clients in the field. Well, train the sales team to be actual trainers and support people rather than have steel technicians out there training and taking up their valuable time. How the actual sales reps do some of that training service and hold refresher trainings while they're on sales calls. It might just free up some of your field technicians so that they don't have to be as tight up on training when they're trying to make field service calls and allow your sales reps to lift a little bit more and build a little bit closer connections with the companies that they're calling upon to build that client relationship a bit. When it comes to the flexibility of equipment, with the problem of wanting to have machines do more and handle more types of different material types or different sizes, the thing that might be most beneficial is allowing customers to really see what that means to them and have them price it out themselves. Create an app on your website that allows them to create their dream machine. First off, it allows you to see ahead of time what customers want in their machine. It gives you a little bit of a heads up in terms of what is the most in demand features or most in demand product specs. And then secondly, it helps customers come to a realization ahead of time as to what things realistically cost. And then you can from there have negotiations and discussions about, well, let's talk about what you really need and let's scale it to what's most appropriate to what will work for your situation. A lot of times that might be a great launching point for discussions. And if you have customers who are, what I'll call lucky lose, who kind of come on the site and play with that tool, it might be a great way to initiate discussions with clients that you hadn't even thought about approaching before. Some other thoughts about sourcing, there's not much that I don't. I think that you'll be able to offer customers related to sourcing and helping solve their challenges. The only thing that might be beneficial is coming around to offering solutions on key relationships and building solutions in that aspect. Same with the division, there's not much in that aspect. But with regulations, I think you guys are going to be just as much key experts in that space. So you're going to be able to help them with some of the power and product solutions and finding solutions in that area. So I think that there's opportunity, very much in that area, to find solutions and work alongside them to help reduce the wasted material during runs, as well as finding increased ways to reduce power solutions and power emissions in that area. And that brings me through my discussion today. Thank you so much, Jennifer. You already had some great information on that. It's a lot more detail in the actual report, but all of this information can be found in the report, which is on PMMI.org-flash-research. Right now, I'd like to open up the session for any questions you may have. So there's a chat box in the left-hand bottom corner of your screen. Please enter your questions there. Also, at the end of this webinar, you'll be receiving an email, which is an evaluation of how today's webinar went. Just a very quick one to two-minute evaluation, letting us know how we're doing, giving us some information on what topics you might like to see in the future, and any other information that you can share about webinars that might be of importance to you. And right now, I'm not showing any questions. Once again, I just want to mention that this is available for download. The webinar will also be posted on PMMI.org. I would say by Monday or Tuesday of next week, so that you can share with anyone within your organization. And I would say probably by Tuesday is when the webinar will be posted up. I want to thank everyone for their time and effort. And on behalf of PMMI, thank you also, Jennifer, for doing the webinar today and conducting the research for this report. And thank you again. Have a great day.