It's in the bag, mate - pour it on

By CHRIS DANIELS

Two Australians standing around the barbie have come up with a money-spinning idea for one of our biggest companies, Carter Holt Harvey.

It all began on a long weekend in Brisbane last year, when neighbours and brothers-in-law Philip Spork and Eddie Howard were firing up their barbecue.

The mess and hassle of pouring charcoal from its paper bag on to the barbie set off a train of thought that has resulted in a new product, which this week became ready for production.

"I was putting the charcoal on, and poured it down my front and half of it on the ground," says Spork.

"While it was heating up, we started talking about dog food bags, pool salts - all these people are using bags, but there was no thought of the consumer."

And from this brainwave came ProPak - a resealable paper bag with a handle and a closeable spout like a milk carton.

Now a Melbourne division of Carter Holt Harvey, Global Licensing and Innovation is pitching the bag all around the world, hoping it will soon make up a chunk of the global bag business, which produces up to 25 billon paper bags a year.

GLI was set up more than two years ago as a separate business unit of Carter Holt, initially holding many of the patents of its parent company.

It now also acts as a licensing agent, accepting packaging patents from outside Carter Holt and allowing other manufacturers to start making them.



Chief executive Ross Files said the ProPak design would be launched in Australia this week and had already attracted interest from Asia, North America and South Africa.

The US and New Zealand interest was in using the bag for dogfood.

Carter Holt Harvey is not the only New Zealand company that has helped Spork and Howard.

Spork, 32, credits his years with Fisher & Paykel as giving him the engineering experience to develop ProPak.