History of packaging
Very early in time, food was consumed where it was found. Families and villages were self- sufficient, making and catching what they used. When containers were needed, nature provided gourds, shells, and leaves to use. Later, containers were fashioned from natural materials, such as hollowed logs, woven grasses and animal organs.
Fabrics descended from furs used as primitive clothing. Fibers were matted into felts by plaiting or weaving. These fabrics were made into garments, used to wrap products or formed into bags. With the weaving process, grasses, and later reeds, were made into baskets to store food surpluses. Some foods could then be saved for future meals and less time was needed for seeking and gathering food.
Paper may be the oldest form of what today is referred to as "flexible packaging." Sheets of treated mulberry bark were used by the Chinese to wrap foods as early as the First or Second century B.C. During the next fifteen hundred years, the paper-making technique was refined and transported to the Middle East, then Europe and finally into the United Kingdom in 1310. Eventually, the technique arrived in America in Germantown, Pennsylvania, in 1690.
But these first papers were somewhat different from those used today. Early paper was made from flax fibers and later old linen rags. It wasn't until 1867 that paper originating from wood pulp was developed.
Although commercial paper bags were first manufactured in Bristol, England, in 1844, Francis Wolle invented the bag- making machine in 1852 in the United States. Further advancements during the 1870s included glued paper sacks and the gusset design. After the turn of the century (1905), the machinery was invented to automatically produce in- line printed paper bags.
With the development of the glued paper sack, the more expensive cotton flour sacks could be replaced. But a sturdier multiwalled paper sack for larger quantities could not replace cloth until 1925 when a means of sewing
Fabrics descended from furs used as primitive clothing. Fibers were matted into felts by plaiting or weaving. These fabrics were made into garments, used to wrap products or formed into bags. With the weaving process, grasses, and later reeds, were made into baskets to store food surpluses. Some foods could then be saved for future meals and less time was needed for seeking and gathering food.
Paper may be the oldest form of what today is referred to as "flexible packaging." Sheets of treated mulberry bark were used by the Chinese to wrap foods as early as the First or Second century B.C. During the next fifteen hundred years, the paper-making technique was refined and transported to the Middle East, then Europe and finally into the United Kingdom in 1310. Eventually, the technique arrived in America in Germantown, Pennsylvania, in 1690.
But these first papers were somewhat different from those used today. Early paper was made from flax fibers and later old linen rags. It wasn't until 1867 that paper originating from wood pulp was developed.
Although commercial paper bags were first manufactured in Bristol, England, in 1844, Francis Wolle invented the bag- making machine in 1852 in the United States. Further advancements during the 1870s included glued paper sacks and the gusset design. After the turn of the century (1905), the machinery was invented to automatically produce in- line printed paper bags.
With the development of the glued paper sack, the more expensive cotton flour sacks could be replaced. But a sturdier multiwalled paper sack for larger quantities could not replace cloth until 1925 when a means of sewing