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Packaging Hub

Reimagining
Packaging

From materials to marketplace

Fully integrated

One partner. Six colleges. Comprehensive expertise — from materials science to market strategy — united to solve your packaging challenges.

The Virginia Tech Packaging Innovation Hub connects business and academia in one innovation ecosystem, where industry speed meets university depth.

We’re with you 

From discovery to deployment, the Virginia Tech Packaging Innovation Hub helps turn sustainable packaging into a competitive advantage by improving performance and strengthening brand trust.

Whether it’s redesigning packaging, optimizing materials, or improving shipping efficiency and reducing waste, Virginia Tech improves packaging from end to end alongside our corporate partners.

Our goal is to solve today’s challenges and shape tomorrow’s standards, together with you, by finding ways to work faster, cleaner, and smarter.

Industry benefits

Collaborative innovation ecosystem

Partners access over a dozen faculty experts, and numerous motivated students, across six colleges that collaborate in packaging innovation that is driven by industry opportunities and needs. The Virginia Tech Packaging Innovation Hub also draws from multiple research centers equipped with state-of-the-art technology.

Materials innovation

Supported by leading polymer and biomaterials programs.

Sustainability expertise

Drives data-informed decisions to reduce environmental impact and meet evolving regulatory standards.

Packaging and distribution

Knowledge from decades of industry collaboration.

Pilot-scale testing

Available at our food processing pilot plant, distribution packaging center, and smart road.

Consumer design

Design expertise to create packaging that stands out.

Business insight

Ensure packaging performs in the market.

Direct engagement

Enlist interdisciplinary student teams in real-world challenges.

Sponsored research

Apply our proven methodologies and rigor to your problems.

Co-develop IP

Flexible agreements let partners gain exclusive rights or co-hold hub-developed innovations.

Automation and robotics

Improve speed, accuracy, and efficiency on the line.

Our faculty

Sustainable Materials Packaging

Packaging Design

Food Packaging

Medical and Cold Chain

Distribution Packaging

Environmental Regulatory Compliance

Innovation focus areas

Focus area 1

Packaging distribution

For over 40 years, the Center for Packaging and Unit Load Design has pioneered research that improves the performance and efficiency of packaging, palletization, and material handling. We help companies design, test, and commercialize packaging solutions with confidence—combining packaging science, transportation testing, and materials characterization, and real-world supply chain validation. Prototyping and testing labs include Distribution Packaging, pallet testing, Corrugated Materials, and Cold Chain.

Focus area 2

Food packaging

Since 1968, the Virginia Tech Food Science and Technology Department has been a leader in advancing food safety, processing, product development, and food engineering. Its programs provide packaging companies with access to world-class expertise, pilot-scale facilities, and consumer insights to evaluate packaging in realistic food-system environments. Through shelf-life studies, food safety research, sensory evaluation, and pilot-scale processing and packaging, companies can identify and address issues early, accelerating commercialization while reducing technical and market uncertainty.

Focus area 3

Medical packaging

The MedPharmaPack Lab enables healthcare and pharmaceutical companies to develop, test, and validate next-generation packaging solutions, all backed by a workforce trained in product safety, regulatory compliance, sustainability, and supply chain performance.

FOCUS AREA 4

Sustainable Materials Packaging

The Sustainable Packaging Materials Lab has deep expertise in materials science, polymers, and sustainable biomaterials, giving companies access to research, testing, and product development to improve packaging performance, sustainability, manufacturability, and cost.

FOCUS AREA 5

Packaging Design

Packaging plays a critical role in shaping consumer perceptions and purchasing decisions. Through human-centered design, rapid prototyping, consumer research, and product innovation, companies can develop packaging solutions that stand out in the marketplace and deliver a superior user experience. This approach supports stronger brand differentiation, improved accessibility, easier package opening, and higher levels of customer satisfaction.

FOCUS AREA 6

Regulatory compliance

The packaging industry is navigating an increasingly complex sustainability landscape while advancing more circular and resilient packaging solutions. We can help in sustainability strategy development and reporting to compliance support for Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) programs. We can also help evaluate environmental impacts through life cycle assessments and circularity metrics, while identifying opportunities to reduce emissions, divert waste, and improve overall operational sustainability.

FOCUS AREA 7

Packaging automation support

Innovations in automation to improve packaging safety, speed, and sustainability can be a focus of collaboration with Virginia Tech Made – the university’s new Center for Advanced Manufacturing. Areas of expertise include robotics and automation, AI and smart manufacturing, prototyping and testing, digital twins, materials and equipment innovation, and workforce development.

Talent development

Three proven and highly regarded Virginia Tech programs prepare undergraduate and graduate students to shape packaging’s future. Working with them is a powerful way to bring your challenges into the classroom, identify promising interns, establish yourself as an employer of choice, and ultimately hire with confidence that you are bringing value to your team.

  • Sustainable systems science students are trained to solve complex packaging challenges across the full product lifecycle. To do so, they integrate engineering, business, environmental science, and data analytics.
  • Packaging systems and design students take advantage of one of the nation’s few degrees in the topic, and access to advanced labs, to get industry-ready in packaging engineering, materials, sustainability, and supply chain systems.
  • Food science and technology students bring what they learn in one of the nations’ most respected such programs evaluate packaging performance in the context of the real, perishable and consumable products they protect.

Laszlo Horvath

Packaging Hub Lead
Department Head, Sustainable Biomaterials
packhub@vt.edu

Karin Clark

Associate Director of
Business Development, LINK
packhub@vt.edu

You’re changing the world. So are we. Let’s do it together.

By engaging with the Virginia Tech Packaging Innovation Hub, companies gain a partner for innovation, a pipeline of workforce-ready graduates, and access to the expertise and facilities needed to shape the future of packaging.