What impressed you to pursue a profession within the packaging business?
Thomas Bernad – I grew up in a small, family-run industrial enterprise that manufactured spray paints. From a really younger age, I used to be immersed on this world, particularly by way of commerce exhibits, which gave me a really concrete understanding of the business. Packaging is rarely impartial — it immediately shapes how a product is used.
Throughout my research and internships, I had entry to a laboratory and to specialists in formulation and packaging. That’s once I realised how intently chemistry, mechanics and person expertise are linked. However my biggest inspiration comes from my father. I’ve all the time admired his skill to innovate by stepping off the crushed path. Questioning established requirements turned second nature to me, and that mindset is what pushed me to rethink the spray can from the within out.
What has been your largest problem as a younger chief?
Thomas Bernad – The principle problem has been technical. Working with compressed air as an alternative of liquefied gasoline means coping with much less fixed stress and way more advanced atomisation. With paint, dispersion needs to be completely homogeneous to ship a clear, high-quality end.
We needed to rebuild your entire system: the geometry of the diffuser, the rheology of the paint, and the stress dynamics. Nothing may very well be copied from conventional aerosols. I studied greater than 800 formulations to know how the fabric behaves and the best way to management fluidisation on the nozzle.
On high of that, there are enterprise and human challenges. Navigating between small, agile buildings and huge industrial gamers demanding excessive volumes is advanced, particularly if you’re nonetheless refining the know-how. And in a sector the place decision-makers are sometimes extra skilled, my younger age can generally be perceived as a hurdle — which suggests I’ve to show the idea by way of efficiency.
If you happen to might change one false impression about packaging, what would it not be?
Thomas Bernad – That packaging is passive. Within the aerosol world, it’s precisely the alternative. Packaging is the core of product efficiency.
The valve, inside stress, propellant, compatibility with the formulation and the spray sample all immediately form the person expertise, from the standard of the end to the smoothness of software and total security. While you substitute fossil propellants with compressed air, you possibly can’t adapt an present mannequin. It’s a must to reinvent your entire system.
This yr marks 25 years of Paris Packaging Week. What legacy would you want Future Leaders to go away?
Thomas Bernad – I consider our technology is able to addressing at this time’s challenges (sustainability, creativity and the transformation of commercial fashions) however provided that we work alongside the senior specialists who constructed this business.
AI accelerates improvement cycles, however people stay central to which means, duty and long-term imaginative and prescient. The legacy I hope we depart is one in all collaboration, asking the correct questions and constructing a future that continues to be viable.
What recommendation would you give to younger professionals getting into packaging?
Thomas Bernad – Packaging is an extremely broad discipline. It’s a must to method it with humility and curiosity. Understanding a twig system means mastering formulation, rules, mechanics, market dynamics and industrial constraints. The extra international your understanding, the extra related and credible your options shall be.
An iconic packaging design, in your view?
Thomas Bernad – For me, the spray can itself is iconic as a result of it has barely developed since World Warfare II: a can, a liquefied gasoline and a formulation.
What conjures up me is the thought of atomising paint with out fossil power. My aim is to create a very sustainable different, not simply much less dangerous, however structurally higher, with a reusable and refillable system that breaks away from the disposable logic of conventional aerosols.
