Coca Cola’s 1,000 bottles per minute packing lines use Domino Printers for coding and marking - The Noel D'Cunha Sunday Column

PrintWeek India (PWI): How is digital print transforming the food packaging industry? How can a Domino Printech better the marketing bang of a Nestle or a Coca Cola?
Bipin Pandit (BP): The modern world of brands is changing from "mass marketing" to "my marketing" approach, where the only cost-effective way to reach a consumer and maintain brand loyalty is to communicate directly about things that interest them. The approach is logical - do you read spam emails in your inbox? No, but most importantly, you are also likely to delete any email that looks like a spam. The same happens to brand marketing. So developing methods of communication with the consumer who feels personal and unique is a goal every brand is trying to achieve.

Nestle or Coca Cola, the giants from the world of Food and Beverage can use the Domino digital printing technology as a medium of that personalised communication. It can establish a bridge between the brand and the consumer either through alphanumeric or QR code on a packet of food that can take you to a website telling you where the food is from, how is it grown, by whom and what is its carbon footprint etc. In addition, being able to uniquely identify each package in the supply chain can lead to logistic benefits of knowing a precise location ofeach unit, allowing to minimise waste and spoilage, as well as manage food recalls without those embarrassing public recall announcements - you know where each unit is and even who is it sold to!

PWI: Everyone who talks about digital print talks about personalisation and variable data. Do you see a shift in the printing of mailers and bills and leaflets?
BP: Printing of mailers, bills or leaflets demand high use of personalisation and variable data. Domino made early in-roads in these industry segments using their state-of-art digital printing technology many years back.

PWI: What is the main contribution of Domino marking and coding technologies to the Food and Beverage industries?
BP: The ability of Domino marking and coding technologies such as continuous ink jet (CIJ), Laser, Thermal Transfer Over (TTO), Thermal Ink Jet (TIJ) and Piezo Ink Jet (PIJ) to print unique messages that include texts, numbers and high resolution barcodes, 2D codes and graphics on a wide variety of products and substrates is a bigbenefit to food and beverage industries to meet legislative requirement as well provide critical information to the consumers without compromising on speed of production.

PWI: Are the trends similar in the secondary and tertiary packaging?
BP: Yes, the legislative requirements and consumer demands have similar impact on the coding and marking requirements for the secondary and tertiary packaging of Food and Beverage industries. There is increasing tendency towards including high resolution graphics apart from alphanumeric codes on these packaging. Domino provides solutions to diverse range of applications using multiple technologies such as Valve Ink Jet (VIJ), CIJ, TIJ and PIJ. Recently we also witnessed growing interest in high end technology such as Laser for marking in these applications.

PWI: How often do you hear your pharma customers talking about adding value, and then doing something about it?
BP: India is a significant producer of pharmaceutical ingredients and formulations. Our pharma companies include global players in generics and vaccines. Some of the top Indian pharma companies are now partly foreign-owned and are already generating more than half of their sales outside the country. The major market sectors under Life sciences are bio-technology, pharmaceuticals and medical technology. The printing demands on these products are mainly driven by the need to comply with DGFT guidelines and GS1 coding requirements. Domino is one of the leading marking and coding solution providers to this industry sector. We are mainly present in these market sectors through our TIJ & CIJ technologies.

PWI: Our industry (print and fulfillment) remains insular and inward looking. Very few firms place their customers at the heart of what they do. What are the new opportunities and the new market sectors?
BP: Putting the customer first has always been a key part of Domino’s culture. In fast growing market like India there is huge demand from all industry sectors for coding and marking or digital printing solutions. Domino has been historically very strong in industry sectors such as food, beverage and in recent past has witnessed significant growth of business from emerging sectors such as pharmaceuticals, automobiles, agriculture and construction. To commit best services to our customers, Domino has made significant investment in state-of-art manufacturing facility in India.

PWI: Can you share key elements of manufacturing set-up in India?
BP: Domino India has manufacturing facility at Manesar, approximately 30Km from heart of Gurgaon. We produce complete range of Domino printing machines as well as printing inks at this plant. Investment in state-of-art infrastructure, highly capable core team for operations management and also the highly skilled work force ensure that our customers get high quality products with very less lead time.

The facility is fully compliant with legislative requirements and also towards environmental obligations. Certification as Green Building from prestigious authority such as Indian Green Building Council (IGBC) is testimony of our commitment towards environmental protection.

Domino has taken several initiatives worldwide under ‘The Domino Way’ program whereby common processes are implemented across all plants including that in India to ensure compliance to Best Manufacturing Practices.