Personified Times
🌸May 2025🌸
May brought the energy—Star Wars puns, milestone anniversaries, and a few slow-motion sunflower seed tosses, just to name a few. We celebrated two 5-year anniversaries, shared insights from our employee exchange program, gave shout-outs for quality catches (thanks Brenda and Van!), and announced our sixth straight year of SQF “Excellent” scores in both facilities. From fun to fundamentals, it was a golden month at PPI.
May the Force Be With You
This May the Fourth, we had some galactic guests stop by the plant — and let’s just say, they were strong with the Force. From the production floor to the press room, our visitors reminded us that whether you’re packaging on Earth or in a galaxy far, far away… teamwork and precision are universal.
Here’s to keeping operations running at lightspeed — and to a little extra fun along the way. May the Fourth be with you! 🌟🛰️
Anniversaries
This month, we proudly celebrated two 5-year anniversaries — Fred in Quality and Jonathan in Printing. We’re so grateful to have their experience, dedication, and expertise on the team. Here’s to many more years of success together!
🎉 Celebrating 5 years with Jonathan! 🎉
This milestone speaks to your dedication and growth over the years. Your openness to learning and willingness to take direction have helped you build valuable experience and make a real impact on the team. Thank you for your continued commitment — we're lucky to have you.
Employee Exchange
Stronger together — across teams and across locations.
Joseph, Forrest, and Steve made the employee exchange from Sparta to Carol Stream as part of our ongoing effort for continuous improvement in the finishing departments at both facilities.
As Steve put it best:
“It’s not always about the X’s and O’s… More often than not, it’s about having the right Jimmy’s and Joe’s” (we have quite a few of Jimmy’s and Joe’s here at PPI, thankfully)!
The trip brought numerous opportunities to improve, and the insights and relationships built will make an impact for years to come. The Carol Stream team’s hospitality made it easy to collaborate, share knowledge, and strengthen both crews.
This is how we keep raising the bar — together.
SQF Excellence
Six years. Two facilities. One word: Excellent.
We just got our SQF audit scores back, and for the 6th year in a row, both of our locations earned an Excellent rating.
From day one of participating in the SQF program, our teams have set the bar high—and kept it there. It takes precision, consistency, and a whole lot of teamwork to maintain these standards year after year, and we’re proud to say that both our Sparta and Carol Stream facilities continue to deliver.
Safe, high-quality packaging doesn’t happen by accident. Our people make it happen every single day.
Quality Team, Quality Service!
In just the past month, two separate team members from Sparta reached out to share how much they appreciated her support — whether it was taking time to walk through a question or offering help with Unipoint, Brenda made a difference.
She’s a go-to resource, a patient problem-solver, and always ready to lend a hand. Thanks for all you do, Brenda — it doesn’t go unnoticed!
Shoutout to Van for catching a packaging detail that could’ve easily slipped by! 🧐⬇️
While it wouldn’t have impacted the high-quality product inside, we know the details matter to our customers — and to us.
Because at PPI, it's not just about running great film. It’s about delivering the full package, exactly how our customers expect it.
Thanks to Vance’s attention to detail and quick action, we corrected the issue before it ever left the floor.
It’s moments like these that show what better-than-our-best really looks like. 👏
⚾️All Star Appreciation⚾️
We’ve got major league talent around here — so we stepped up to the plate with a little appreciation pitch. ⚾️🌻
In honor of baseball season, we handed out sunflower seeds to our home run employees — and let’s just say their catching skills? Hall of Fame material. 🧤🥜
Slo-mo dives, dramatic snags, and a whole lot of laughs — because when the team’s this good, you celebrate like it’s the bottom of the ninth.
⏳ April Poll Results: Would you Rather…?
We’ve got some squirrel lovers here at PPI! Personally, I’d rather have pizza on command, but maybe the squirrels could bring me pizza…?