“We reimagined the spray can from the within out,” Thomas Bernad, Aerosolution

What impressed you to pursue a profession within the packaging trade?

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 via commerce reveals, which gave me a really concrete understanding of the trade. 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 consultants in formulation and packaging. That’s once I realised how intently chemistry, mechanics and consumer expertise are linked. However my biggest inspiration comes from my father. I’ve all the time admired his capability to innovate by stepping off the overwhelmed path. Questioning established requirements grew to become second nature to me, and that mindset is what pushed me to rethink the spray can from the within out.

What has been your greatest problem as a younger chief?

Thomas Bernad – The principle problem has been technical. Working with compressed air as a substitute of liquefied fuel means coping with much less fixed stress and much more advanced atomisation. With paint, dispersion must 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 could possibly be copied from conventional aerosols. I studied greater than 800 formulations to grasp how the fabric behaves and methods to management fluidisation on the nozzle.

On high of that, there are enterprise and human challenges. Navigating between small, agile constructions and enormous industrial gamers demanding excessive volumes is advanced, particularly once you’re nonetheless refining the know-how. And in a sector the place decision-makers are sometimes extra skilled, my younger age can typically be perceived as a hurdle — which implies I’ve to show the idea via efficiency.

In the event you may change one false impression about packaging, what wouldn’t it be?

Thomas Bernad – That packaging is passive. Within the aerosol world, it’s precisely the other. Packaging is the core of product efficiency.

The valve, inside stress, propellant, compatibility with the formulation and the spray sample all immediately form the consumer expertise, from the standard of the end to the smoothness of utility and total security. If you change fossil propellants with compressed air, you may’t adapt an current mannequin. You need to reinvent your entire system.

This yr marks 25 years of Paris Packaging Week. What legacy would you want Future Leaders to depart?

Thomas Bernad – I consider our technology is able to addressing right now’s challenges (sustainability, creativity and the transformation of business fashions) however provided that we work alongside the senior consultants who constructed this trade.

AI accelerates growth cycles, however people stay central to which means, duty and long-term imaginative and prescient. The legacy I hope we depart is one among collaboration, asking the proper 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. You need to strategy it with humility and curiosity. Understanding a sprig system means mastering formulation, laws, mechanics, market dynamics and industrial constraints. The extra world 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 advanced since World Battle II: a can, a liquefied fuel and a formulation.

What evokes me is the thought of atomising paint with out fossil vitality. My purpose is to create a really 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.