Technology Archives - Hoffer Plastics

Advancing a Circular Future Through Flexible Packaging

Hoffer Team — Thu, 20 Nov 2025 22:19:47 +0000

For decades, plastics followed a predictable path from production to landfill. Today, forward-thinking companies are charting a different course – one where circularity guides the process. By designing products for durability, repairability and recyclability, businesses are keeping materials in use longer and reducing waste.

In this feature article in Sustainable Packaging News, Hoffer Plastics senior product manager John Strubulis highlights four ways flexible packaging can strengthen a circular economy. This includes critical considerations for choosing the right cap and spout. These components may be small, but they have a big impact on a package’s recyclability. From material alignment to performance requirements, Strubulis shows how innovation in fitment design is helping brands close the loop and keep valuable resources in circulation.

Discover how Hoffer is developing solutions that support circularity while maintaining the performance, safety and convenience consumers expect.

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Micromolding is Reshaping the Future of MedTech

Hoffer Team — Thu, 16 Oct 2025 17:50:53 +0000

Medical Product Outsourcing sat down with Hoffer Plastics director of engineering Brian Beringer and other micromolding experts to explore how the company is helping redefine what’s possible in medical manufacturing through advanced micromolding innovation.

By combining decades of molding expertise with cutting-edge engineering, Hoffer Plastics delivers greater precision, reliability and functionality in smaller components. From optimized material selection and early design for manufacturability (DFM) collaboration to advanced tooling, Hoffer’s approach ensures that even the most complex micro parts perform seamlessly at scale.

Discover how Hoffer Plastics is shaping the future of MedTech to deliver precision that drives better patient outcomes and lasting manufacturing excellence.

Read the full article

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Three Pillars of a Successful Mold Transfer

Hoffer Team — Fri, 03 Oct 2025 20:00:53 +0000

A mold transfer is more than moving steel. It’s a strategic decision built on trust and risk management that protects product quality, supply chain stability and brand reputation. Beyond the tool itself, you’re relying on a supplier to deliver consistent quality, meet deadlines and safeguard your business from costly risks. Done right, a tooling program transfer not only lowers costs but also enhances performance, improves consistency and strengthens your competitive edge.

Companies rarely decide to move a mold on a whim. That decision typically follows hard lessons, when supplier quality slips, delivery windows close or rising costs cut into competitiveness. In other cases, it’s part of a bigger strategic shift, such as reshoring production to ensure consistent sources of domestic supply. Whatever the reason, the decision carries weight and it deserves a careful, deliberate approach.

That’s why every mold transfer should be grounded in three pillars: disciplined project management, thorough tooling audits and rigorous process validation.

1. Project Planning, Management & Communication

For many customers, the decision to transfer a mold is overshadowed by one overriding concern: risk. Downtime, missed deadlines or unforeseen costs can ripple through production schedules or strain customer relationships. It is a complex process that touches tooling, logistics, quality systems and supply chains. Navigating that complexity requires three essential considerations of project management: careful planning, clear communication and disciplined execution.

Planning ensures that every step, from tool audits to production readiness, is accounted for before the transfer begins. Communication provides visibility, keeping all stakeholders aligned and reducing surprises. Execution ties it all together, coordinating resources and timelines so that production can continue without disruption.

Hoffer brings these elements together through structured project management and transparent communication. Each transfer begins with an agreed-upon timeline, while dedicated project managers track milestones, flag risks early and adjust schedules before they cause delays. Drawing on in-house expertise and proven processes, Hoffer manages logistics, sampling and approvals with precision, minimizing downtime and keeping supply chains moving. We communicate often and with transparency, turning mold transfer from a potential risk into a strategic advantage and one that proactively overcomes challenges, reinforces trust and strengthens long-term partnerships.

2. Rigorous Tooling Audit and Repair

A mold is only as strong as its current condition. That’s why every successful transfer is centered around a thorough mold audit to ensure the tool can deliver the quality, consistency and efficiency customers expect. Customers don’t always realize how wear, prior maintenance practices or even basic compatibility with new presses can influence the outcome of a transfer. Without a clear picture upfront, risks multiply, delays stretch longer, costs climb and production quality suffers.

At Hoffer, the mold audit process goes beyond a mechanical check. Our in-house moldmaking experts evaluate not only the physical state of the tool – including critical components like inserts, cylinders and plugs – but also the quality of its documentation. Too often, critical assets like drawings, maintenance records or setup sheets are missing, incomplete or out-of-date. By reviewing both the tool and its history, we give customers the visibility they need to make informed decisions about production readiness, risk and investment. When issues are uncovered, we don’t just point them out, we recommend the refurbishments or adjustments necessary to maximize performance, extend the tool’s life and return molds to like-new condition.

This deliberate, detail-driven assessment ensures the transfer begins on solid footing. Customers gain confidence that the mold will deliver consistent, reliable yields from the very first shot. The audit turns uncertainty into preparedness, protecting the investment and setting the stage for long-term success.

3. Technical and Process Validation

The success of a tool transfer program depends on rigorous validation, ensuring the mold does more than function – it produces parts that meet your requirements and scale reliably. At Hoffer, this means establishing robust process windows, verifying quality against customer standards and ensuring performance holds steady under true production conditions. The result is confidence that production can be ramped up quickly, supply will remain dependable and product integrity is fully protected.

Once the mold is installed, our team conducts real-world sampling to confirm tool performance and identify any adjustments that may be needed. If fine-tuning is required, Hoffer’s in-house tooling and engineering experts act quickly, minimizing delays and safeguarding schedules. Throughout this process, open communication gives customers visibility into results at every stage of the process. The outcome is more than a successful transfer, it’s a seamless continuation of production that strengthens trust and builds the foundation for a long-term partnership.

Turning Disruption into Confidence

Moving a manufacturing program is often never simple. It’s a decisive moment that can either create new risk, or become a new competitive advantage. By approaching every project with disciplined management, thorough audits and rigorous validation, Hoffer turns potential disruption into continuity and confidence. Our focus goes beyond relocating steel; it’s on keeping production strong, quality consistent and supply chains resilient.

Most importantly, every transfer is an investment in trust. With careful planning, transparent communication and unmatched technical expertise, we help customers safeguard their most valuable assets and keep their production running without disruption, today and in the future.

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Secrets of a Sustainable Business: Five Lessons from a Third-Generation Family Company

Hoffer Team — Wed, 28 Jun 2023 12:35:31 +0000

Gretchen Hoffer Farb, Alex Hoffer, Charlotte Hoffer Canning

As we celebrate a big milestone – our 70th anniversary – this year at Hoffer Plastics, a lot of people are asking: How have we sustained our success for so long?

While many other companies have sold to private equity or closed up shop, we’ve stayed strong and family owned for seven decades and counting. We’ve learned a lot along the way (and we keep learning), especially from generations of Hoffer leadership who set the foundation for sustained growth.

We thought we’d take a moment to pay it forward by sharing these five lessons for sustainable success.

"At Hoffer Plastics, we know how fortunate we are to be going strong after 70 years. That’s why we’ll always stay true to the values that sustain business success. We’re proud to keep doing right by our customers, our employees and our community, every day.”

– Hoffer Plastics Co-CEOs Gretchen Hoffer Farb, Charlotte Hoffer Canning and Alex Hoffer.

1. Manufacturing is a People Business.

Many Hoffer Plastics team members have been with us for decades – including one who’s been contributing to our success for 52 of our 70 years! What’s the secret? We believe it comes down to people and relationships.

Employees across the organization prioritize getting to know peers, partners and customers – establishing relationships and building personal connections that foster trust, loyalty and confidence.

As a family-run business, our leadership is personally invested in the success of everyone in the organization. We know that every employee has the potential to lead the way to our future success. We strive to unlock that potential through a robust leadership development program that elevates employees’ opportunities to grow.

That commitment to providing new opportunities also shows in the investments we make every year in advanced manufacturing equipment and automation technology innovations. We look at it as investing in people, so that they can advance their skills and put their talents to use with higher-value tasks.

2. The Customer is the Hero.

The reason we have such long-tenured employees is also why we have customers who have counted on us since the 1970s. After all, customers are people, too. The future of our business is in every customer relationship. We believe in going above and beyond because it builds customer loyalty.

Sometimes, it’s about dropping everything to solve a problem. Like a tight turnaround that calls for an emergency transfer of tools and automation after the sudden closure of another supplier’s plant over a holiday weekend.

In product development, engineering and manufacturing, we over-invest in our customers to help them achieve amazing new things while delivering high-performing parts as cost-effectively as possible. Some of these innovations include:

Recyclable flexible packaging solutions.
Part redesigns that move from three separate components to one.
Water filtration applications to eliminate lead and PFAS.

If there’s a way to accelerate our customers’ success, every one of our employees is personally committed to driving it forward.

3. Financial Independence is Empowering.

Another way we’re at a huge advantage as a family owned and operated business is this: Instead of being obsessed with quarterly earnings, we’re free to think and act long term.

Over 70 years, we’ve proven ourselves to be resilient in times of crisis, positioning ourselves in a way that ensures that economic downturns aren’t disruptive to our business. This also means we’re ready to pursue new opportunities in better times. Keeping the focus on the future for ourselves and our employees, we’ve steered our company to a 100% debt-free position.

It’s not lost on us how rare this level of financial independence is. As a result, we’re keen on staying independent – making sure that we have the freedom to innovate by continually investing in technologies, our people and our community.

4. Investing in the Community is Investing in the Future.

Bob Hoffer, who founded Hoffer Plastics in 1953, taught us to “be a good neighbor.” It’s as relevant as ever, because we’re still in the same South Elgin, IL, neighborhood where we began. Our prospects are intertwined, so we’re always working to keep our community thriving.

Through the Hoffer Foundation, we make significant contributions to the South Elgin community and beyond – including $1M to a new Boys & Girls Club, as well as support for Judson University, Elgin Community College and many more important organizations and causes.

We also work hard to be a good neighbor in our physical impact on both our local and global community. Since long before sustainability became an industry buzzword, we’ve prioritized stewardship of Earth’s precious resources with efforts including:

Diverting material from landfills through recycling initiatives we started more than 15 years ago.
Mitigating customer risk and providing emergency power backup for the local grid through our on-site co-generation plant.
Minimizing hazardous materials in the water supply through water use reductions and advanced filtration and treatment at our plant.

5. Lead by Example.

On any given day at our plant, you’re likely to find one of our three third-generation leaders out on the production floor, talking with and supporting our employees in daily operations. We believe in servant leadership, focusing on helping the team and the organization above all else.

That means embodying our core values that were established by Bob Hoffer in everything we do, every day:

Family – We treat employees and customers like family. And we put family first.
Integrity – We hold ourselves and others to the highest ethical standards.
Service – The best reward in life is through service to others, whether it’s for our customers, our employees or our community.
Trust – Honesty, transparency and delivering on commitments is what we’re all about.

Simply put, it’s about doing the right thing for each other, for our customers and for our community. It starts at the top and lives throughout our culture.

We’re proud of what we’ve accomplished together these 70 years – leading the way in innovation, sustainability, technical expertise, community outreach and more. But we’re even more excited about how well positioned we are for the future. And we hope these lessons are as much an inspiration to your business as they are to ours.

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Hoffer Plastics’ Trust-T-Lok spout, part of EnteraLoc’s enternal feeding pouch, receives four gold awards in packaging excellence, sustainability, technical innovation, and expanding the use of flexible packaging, from Flexible Packaging Association.

Hoffer Team — Wed, 20 Apr 2022 19:00:12 +0000

The Highest Achievement Award is evaluated by the judges as possessing overall packaging excellence, significant attributes in all award categories, and contributing most to the advancement of the industry. The winner this year was the EnteraLoc enteral device.

Designed for tube-fed patients, the EnteraLoc is an innovative 510(k) FDA-approved enteral device—a flexible spouted pouch with leak-proof seal—for direct-connect delivery of nutrition in a safe and convenient manner.

Beyond winning FPA’s Highest Achievement Award, the system garnered an impressive four Gold Awards in Packaging Excellence, Sustainability, Technical Innovation, and Expanding the Use of Flexible Packaging.

Marketed by Medtrition, EnteraLoc was developed by Vonco, with contribution from nutritionDay (in the U.S.), Hoffer Plastics Corporation, Truitt Brothers/Baxter’s Foods (formulation and filling), GEDSA, and Oley Foundation.

The company reports that it is the first seamless, closed-loop system that combines nutritious meals with a flexible pouch, leak-proof seal, custom-designed spout, and direct-connect ENFit® device in one complete enteral feeding system.

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