Two packaging conclaves at PackPlus South boast of opportunities in packaging

The PackAge conclave primarily focused on the packaging from customer’s perspective and role of anti-counterfeiting track and trace technologies in global market. The Corrupack conclave on day two brought together the box users, manufacturers, suppliers and allied service providers on one platform and interactively discussed the new avenues for corrugated packaging.

The PackAge saw 110 speakers and delegates participate, while Corrupack had 145 participants.

Initiating the PackAge conclave, Hitesh Shenoy, head of technical packaging for India, China and APMEA, consumer healthcare supply chain at GlaxoSmithKline, citing IIP information, said, “The Indian packaging industry is a Rs 1,46,000-crore industry. It is the sixth largest in the world and to make it even better, it is growing at 12%."



Hitesh Shenoy, head of technical packaging for India, China and APMEA, consumer healthcare supply chain at GlaxoSmithKline

He added, “The Indian per capita consumption is around Rs 900 as against the global figure of Rs 6,000. These are facts which are very relevant and interesting because it throws up enormous opportunities for the packaging industry in India.”

Though this is a perfect setting for the Indian packaging industry, these opportunities lead to challenges. Shenoy enumerated some of the challenges like, packaging-led innovation, value engineering or cost, sustainability, environment regulations, counterfeiting, decoding the consumer needs, and trade visibility.  “I am not citing these challenges as issues but opportunities to perform and deliver,” he said while elaborating on each of the challenges.

The two conclaves highlighted six panel discussions with more than 30 speaker presentations. Hosting the two events was packaging expert, Deepak Manchanda, director, Firstouch Solutions. He said, “We are very glad that the event has grown from last year with an enthusiastic turn out for this conclave. There has been 25-30% increase in number of delegates attending the conclaves.”

He added, “We wish to redesign the event in such a way that more time is allotted for interactive discussions rather than the presentations. In those terms we have had a limited success. We plan to have a more object oriented discussions by tweaking the format in future conclaves.”

Prof Surendra Kumar Sood has been participating in PackAge conclave for the last three years. This was his fourth conclave. “Packaging is a recession-proof industry; it is connected with the day-to-day needs of every individual, not only the elite but the common man as well,” he said.

He however, felt that the conference should have included more technological aspect of packaging. “Such conferences should lead entrepreneurs to drive technology into producing application-based packaging," he concluded.