Blast From the Past Packaging Archive

Dazmii Celebrates the Launch of MSU’s Collective for NewProductWorks: A Milestone in Packaging Engineering and Data-Driven Innovation

At Dazmii, we’re passionate about the transformative power of data—and nowhere is that more evident than in the intersection of packaging engineering, product development, and innovation. That’s why we’re proud to support and spotlight Michigan State University’s recent launch of the MSU Collective for NewProductWorks through the School of Packaging. This groundbreaking initiative offers unmatched access to packaging intelligence and a unique opportunity for both students and industry professionals to explore decades of product and packaging evolution.

The NewProductWorks Collection, now housed in a supermarket-style setting at the Smithers facility in Lansing, Michigan, is an extraordinary archive of over 140,000 packaged goods, spanning 350+ categories from the 1980s to the present. From a data management perspective, the value of this meticulously curated collection cannot be overstated. It represents a living database of consumer trends, packaging strategies, material evolution, and sustainability practices—making it an invaluable asset for packaging engineers, researchers, marketers, and supply chain professionals.

At Dazmii, we specialize in providing scalable data management solutions to support companies at every stage of product development and innovation. As our clients explore new packaging concepts or iterate on existing designs, structured, historical data becomes a powerful source of competitive advantage. The MSU Collective for NewProductWorks exemplifies how robust data can fuel ideation, identify gaps, inspire sustainable alternatives, and ultimately, streamline the innovation pipeline.

With the integration of this collection into the academic and corporate ecosystems, MSU is creating a data-rich environment where packaging engineering meets real-world application. By offering both physical access and digital subscriptions to this collection, the university is democratizing access to an otherwise niche and siloed dataset—empowering everyone from students and faculty to corporations and consultants.

For organizations leveraging our services at Dazmii, this presents an exciting opportunity. By combining our structured data management platforms with insights drawn from the MSU Collective, we can help clients unlock new levels of intelligence in product design, competitive benchmarking, and packaging innovation. Whether it’s understanding historical packaging formats or mapping material shifts across categories, we’re helping translate legacy data into forward-looking strategies.

This program also highlights the critical need for ongoing data stewardship in packaging engineering. As MSU continues to collaborate with partners like Ipsos, Smithers, and McKinsey, it’s clear that managing, organizing, and interpreting data at scale is essential to meaningful progress in packaging. At Dazmii, we see our role as an enabler of that progress—bridging the gap between static information and actionable insights.

We applaud Michigan State University’s School of Packaging for launching such an ambitious and visionary program. The MSU Collective for NewProductWorks not only preserves the history of packaging but actively supports the future of data-driven product innovation.

As proud collaborators and champions of smarter data management, Dazmii is excited to see the packaging industry gain a tool this powerful—and to help our clients harness it to fuel their next great idea.