Posts Tagged ‘Conference’

Michigan Grape and Wine Conference A Big Hit

Thursday, February 21st, 2013
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My daughter-in-law Jessi Rivera at the Big Ten Baquet

 

This years Michigan Grape and Wine Conference was held at the Kellogg Hotel and Conference Center on the Campus of Michigan State University in East Lansing, MI. Those of you who know me know how much I love the other big state university (Hint: colors are Maize and Blue) that my daughter attends and that I attended. But, I have to admit that the conference exceeded my expectations in every respect.

First I need to complement the organizers, starting with Linda Jones, Karel Bush and Sherri Goodreau, the members of the Michigan Grape and Wine Industry Council Industry Council and the members of the Michigan Grape and Wine Conference Planning Committee.

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Our sister company, miwinebarrel was the Keynote and Big Ten Banquet Sponsor. That meant that Maxi’s Creative Director and miwinebarrels’ COO, Joshua Rubin had to give a speech about our company. He gave a short introduction on our family history (think prohibition, bootleggers and Sicilian Spaghetti) and our numerous summer vacations that included visiting wineries in the Old Mission and Leelanau Peninsulas.

I also have to comment on how good the food was at the Hotel and Conference Center. The lunch buffet was better than any conference I have been to.

“The Kellogg Center is home to an extraordinarily diverse, talented team of culinary professionals as well as a large support staff comprised of many students from MSU’s The School of Hospitality Business. With over 400,000 visitors coming through our doors annually, it is not unusual for our dedicated kitchen and banquet staffs to serve an average of 1500 meals per day, requiring a great deal of organization, planning, and most importantly, team work. The Kellogg Center also hosts a multitude of special events including the popular Visiting Chef Series, now in its 14th year, which brings award winning chefs from across the country to the hotel for interactive cooking”

The first night of the conference again had a Tour de Vin at the Welcome reception. I must give a shout out to all the of wineries that had exceptional wines in the tasting, although there were too many to mention them all:

Chateau Fontaine had a wonderful Woodland White, made from Auxerrois, a little known grape variety in this country, originally from France.

Here are some more photos from the event:

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Interesting Star Trek Label from Gravity Winery

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Our Keynote Bill Oliver from Oliver Winery explains how a small sleepy winery can be turned into a thriving establishment with distribution in 22 states!

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RIPA 69th Annual Conference – October 20-23, 2010 Orlando, FL – The Word of the Day is “Sustainability”

Thursday, November 11th, 2010

Maxi Container was again well represented at this year’s RIPA Annual Conference in Orlando, Fl.  Attending from Maxi were Richard Rubin, President of Maxi Container with his wife Gail Bennett.  Also attending was our Sales Manager, Bob Vannatter and our Creative Director, Joshua Rubin.  The Conference was a huge success with over 200 attendees.  There was also several Joint Sessions with the IPANA (the Industrial Packaging Alliance of North America.)
Joshua and Richard made a presentation to RIPA’s Fiber Drum Product Group regarding UN Testing in the reuse through remanufacture of Fiber Drums.  Several companies asked to join in next years tests.  Only companies that participate in the testing can use the Test results to mark remanufactured fiber drums. Please click here to view our video presentation.

One of the “Hot Topics” of discussion by several speakers is something very familiar to Maxi and our customers.  The new trend in international industrial packaging is “Sustainability”, something Maxi and the reconditioning industry has practiced for over 100 years.
Maxi has been collecting used packaging for reuse (through reconditioning) since Charles Rubin opened his first wooden barrel company with his brother Morris in Pittsburgh in the early 1900’s.  Over one hundred years later, we are still trying to explain to our customers and vendors that reuse (i.e. reconditioning) saves more money and energy and produces less green house gases than recycling (i.e. scrapping) a container.
The often used slogan is:  “Reduce, Reuse, Recycle”.  As they stated at the Conference, some new drum manufacturers think that by reducing the thickness of the steel or plastic in their drums that they are promoting sustainability.  Their argument is that with a thinner drum,  there is less waste at the end of the drum’s useful life.  This is at best misguided fuzzy logic and at worst self serving cost savings masquerading as sustainability.
Thinner steel or plastic drums mean that the drum can be reused less times and is scrapped sooner.  More energy is used to prepare that drum to be scrapped and to make a new drum, than to recondition a drum for reuse. (See the copy of the Franklin Study on the life cycle of a steel drum by clicking here.) Clearly, the more sustainable option is to make steel and plastic drums that can be cleaned and reconditioned more times.
Maxi also makes sustainability a part of our everyday core values.  Our trucks run on Bio-diesel.  We recycle our office paper and most of our office personnel use (and reuse) our Maxi Logo Coffee Cups, instead of paper cups or Styrofoam.  While I welcome all of our friends and competitors to thinking about sustainability, I can’t help but say, “What took you so long!”

Please check out some photos from the event here.

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