From tasting freshly squeezed Florida orange juice as a young boy to driving past rows of almond trees in blossom en route to his Bakersfield, Calif.-based plant, Califia Farms’ Founder and Chief Executive Officer Greg Steltenpohl derives inspiration from smelling and tasting new innovations, while listening to and leading a team of passionate employees.

In Styx’s 1983 hit “Mr. Roboto,” the band sings, “Thank you very much, Mr. Roboto; For doing the jobs that nobody wants to.” Little did the band know, robots eventually would take on an immense amount of jobs that warehouse workers find repetitive and boring.

Pre-Socratic Greek philosopher Heraclitus said “The only thing that is constant is change.” Applicable to nearly all walks of life, the consumer packaged goods market has come to embody this quote as the market welcomes a number of new products, brands and even categories.

Minneapolis-based HighJump Software named Jonathan Kwok director of Asia-Pacific sales. Material Process Equipment Inc., Highland, Mich., hired Terry Woolford as business development manager. He will be responsible for driving sales of the company’s electrical inspection systems including its Cassel metal detectors, X-ray equipment and checkweighers.

Drinktec 2013, which took place Sept. 16-20 in Munich, attracted 66,886 visitors from 183 countries, representing a 14 percent increase in attendance compared with drinktec 2009. Of these visitors, 62 percent traveled from countries outside of Germany, with 16 percent of the total visitors traveling from the United States.

The Packaging Machinery Manufacturers Institute’s (PMMI) Pack Expo International 2013 is on schedule to be another record-setting event, with its Processing Zone, which hosts processing technologies for manufacturers in the beverage, dairy, baking and snack, and confectionery industries, as well as other vertical sectors, selling out as early as May.