April 13, 2026

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BW Packaging Team Member Newsletter

Your monthly source for updates, spotlights, and progress across BW Packaging.

For internal use only – do not forward.
 

It is with profound sadness that Barry-Wehmiller announced the passing of its Chairman of the board, Robert H. Chapman. As soon as the news of Chairman Bob Chapman’s passing was released, condolences and remembrances began pouring in from around the globe. 

The overwhelming response reveals just how many lives Bob touched and is a testament to his profound influence. In addition to posting comments on Bob’s or Barry-Wehmiller’s LinkedIn pages, team members and others connected to Bob and BW are invited to share their thoughts on the Bob Chapman Tribute site.

This Month at BW Packaging 

In this edition, you’ll find: 

• Product Line Focus: Horizontal Flow Wrapping
• North America ERP Merger: Coming together as One Packaging
• Market News: Competitor & Industry Trends
• People Spotlight: Celebrating our team members

Product Line Focus: Horizontal Flow Wrappers

Introduction to Flow Wrapping and BW’s products

A flow wrapper is a horizontal packaging machine that creates a sealed, flexible package by wrapping film around a product as it moves through the system. These solutions perform three key steps in one continuous motion: infeeding and spacing products, wrapping them in film, sealing and cutting them into a finished package. 

BW Packaging’s Flow Wrappers, sold under the Hayssen brand, offer customizable solutions that balance accuracy and product integrity. With a broad portfolio, our flow wrappers serve industries from food to non-food products, with our greatest right to win in the cheese and bakery markets. Today, BW Packaging’s Hayssen flow wrapping product line comprises these four machines:

Hayssen X850

• Launched 2025 
• Built in USA 
• Key Markets: Cheese & Wet Wipes
• Patented servo-ring technology, high speed, high seal integrity

Hayssen R300

• Launched 2024 
• Built in Italy 
• Key Market: Hand-fed Bakery 
• Anti-jam technology, ease of use, cleanability

Hayssen Integra

• Launched 2014 
• Built in Italy 
• Key Markets: Cheese & IQF
• Highly configurable

Hayssen Minerva 

• Launched 2014 
• Built in Italy 
• Key Markets: Auto-fed Bakery
• Highly configurable

Recent Flow Wrapping Innovation – The Hayssen X850

We’re excited to share that BW Packaging recently launched the Hayssen X850, our newest multijaw flow wrapper built for high speed, high seal integrity cheese packaging. Rooted in customer feedback and decades of expertise, the X850 advances the trusted Hayssen RT into a modern, operator focused solution.

The Hayssen X850 sets a new standard for block and sliced cheese packaging, combining faster output with easier, more intuitive operation. With advanced features, streamlined maintenance, and a hygienic, sustainability compatible design, it helps customers boost efficiency and meet today’s evolving production demands, all backed by Hayssen’s trusted reliability and lifetime support. This launch marks another proud milestone for the Hayssen product portfolio. Thank you to the cross-functional team members who worked together to bring this innovation in flow wrapping to life!

Customer Focus: Supporting the goals of our customers

The opportunity with Michelle’s Bakery began with a trusted relationship. General Manager Chuck Pruitte had worked with BW Packaging while at Dewey’s Bakery and reconnected at IBIE 2025 in Las Vegas. Chuck visited the BW booth to explore solutions for a persistent challenge: packaging freshly glazed donuts that were extremely soft and sticky.

Michelle’s existing flow wrapper had only 40–50% success, with donuts frequently damaged during infeed. The bakery hoped a new solution could reach 85% efficiency. Through close collaboration across sales, applications engineering, supply chain, and manufacturing, the team developed a delicate handling approach using a modified infeed concept on the R300 flow wrapper. Testing proved successful, delivering the targeted performance improvement. 

With the support of Bryce Maddray, Josh Singley, and others on the BW team, the Factory Acceptance Test was a standout experience, and introduced BW to HT Hackney, Michelle’s parent company, a multi-state supplier of snacks to convenience stores, opening the door to broader strategic opportunities. 

This success reflects the power of One Team – bringing together expertise across functions to solve complex challenges and deliver meaningful results for our customers.

North America ERP Merger: Coming together as One Packaging

On April 1, we migrated the ERP environment for the (1) Clearwater, Florida (2) Cuyahoga Falls, Ohio (3) Stow, Ohio (4) Ontario, California sites (Infor WW) into the legacy BWIS US ERP environment (Infor FF) as part of our effort to ensure better visibility and coordination across our business. This changed some of the processes that team members have historically used, and it means that customers and vendors doing business with those sites must make POs out to BW Packaging instead of the legacy divisions or brands. This merger will enable our team members to work together more seamlessly, and our customers to have a more consistent experience as they interact with our full product portfolio. Thank you to many people across BW and BW Packaging who made the transition a success!

This change only affects legacy PSA and legacy BWIS sites in the United States. Legacy BWFS sites in the United States will be added to the BW Packaging ERP environment later this summer, and sites outside of the US will be changed to BW Packaging after that.

For more information, please see the BW Packaging ERP Migration SharePoint Site

Market News: Competitor & Industry Trends

Huel bought by Danone in €1 billion deal

The British meal supplement maker Huel is being bought by Danone for €1 billion. Founded in England in 2014, Huel is best known for its shake powder, which it says is a nutritionally complete replacement for a regular meal. It has since expanded its range to include ready meals, nutrition bars, and health drinks, all of which are plant based. Click here to read more.

Unilever and McCormick merging to create $65 billion food company

Unilever announced plans to merge its food business with spice maker McCormick, which would create a company worth around $65 billion and be one of the largest food transactions in history. This continues a pattern of recent inorganic actions, including divesting their snack brand Graze and plant-based meat brand The Vegetarian Butcher. Click here to read more.

Why customer M&A activity impacts BW Packaging 

When our customers engage in mergers and acquisitions, it can directly impact BW Packaging, both positively and negatively. Acquisitions can open new doors by expanding our footprint within a customer’s broader organization. For example, BW Packaging’s relationship with Danone may create opportunities to sell into Huel. At the same time, large or complex mergers, such as those involving Unilever or McCormick, can temporarily slow decision‑making. During these periods, leadership attention often shifts to integration priorities, which can delay projects and slow the movement of opportunities through our pipeline.

People Spotlight

Recognition: Melinda Garza and Darren Scott, Field Service

To support Pilgrims’ tight production timeline, four machines were shipped before the usual debugging and testing were complete. To ensure production could start without an issue, Field Serve team members Melinda Garza and Darren Scott put together a team to begin installing immediately. 

After arriving at the customer site, all of the debugging and testing was completed within just one week, an impressive achievement that resulted in the equipment working flawlessly by the customer’s start-up date. This is another example of our Field Service team showing a customer-first mindset and delivering for our customers!

Promotion: Alessandro Stiffan, Managing Director, Italy

Alessandro Stiffan has been promoted to Managing Director, Italy, a new position created through our Unleashed project to bring BW Packaging together as one powerful global organization. In this role, Alessandro will lead our Mestrino and Parma operations, with a focus on improving our ability to serve customers while improving our value contribution. He will oversee operational leaders, planning, supply chain, continuous improvement, and project management, continuing to report to Pete Carlson, Chief Operating Officer.

Alessandro brings deep multisite leadership experience and a strong track record of driving change and performance. Most recently, he served as General Director, Mestrino Operations, where he excelled at aligning cross-functional teams to improve results for our customers and business.

New Hire: Emily Fletcher, Vice President, Marketing

We are pleased to welcome Emily Fletcher as Vice President, Marketing, effective March 11, 2026. In this pivotal role, Emily will guide BW Packaging’s global marketing strategy, strengthening customer engagement and elevating brand visibility across our worldwide footprint.

Emily brings more than 14 years of marketing and communications leadership across food retail, manufacturing, and professional sports. She is known for developing integrated strategies that drive measurable commercial impact and enhance brand performance in competitive markets. Most recently, she served as Senior Director of Marketing and Communications at Hussmann, where she led marketing for a $2 billion business and partnered closely with commercial teams to accelerate growth.

Internal Career Opportunities

Are you interested in exploring a new challenge or growth opportunity within BW Packaging? Remember that all internal roles are posted directly in Workday. We encourage team members to check regularly and stay informed about opportunities across our unified organization.

To learn more about any of these roles or to apply, visit Browse Jobs – Workday and reach out to your People Team partner with any questions.

QUESTIONS?

Do you have questions, feedback or ideas you'd like to share? Please send us an email at unleashed.questions@bwpackaging.com