PET and BOPP packaging see an upward trend

The recently held national consumer packaging conference organised by Indian Institute of Packaging discussed the challenges and opportunities for Indian packaging sector. Attending the conference, one thing is clear: future for packaging industry is bright and shining.

28 Jan 2014 | By Rushikesh Aravkar

The total turnover of India's packaging industry, which currently is USD 24.6 billion is growing at about 15 per cent and is expected to touch USD 32 billion by 2020 on increasing demand.

Sudhir Mathur, chief executive officer, Max Speciality Films, spoke about the BOPP film sector. He said, “In terms of capacity, India has only 5% of global BOPP production and 6% of global demand. 
The sector has immense potential in store.

For fiscal year 2012, India contributed 359 kta and is expected to reach 553 kta by 2016.”

The growth drivers, according to Mathur, are rapid urbanisation, rising middle class and opening up of retail.

Mathur highlighted three technological developments, which Max has brought about in its range of BOPP films. This includes improved oxygen transmission rate (OTR) for metallised and transparent BOPP films, reduced seal initiation temperature and high heat seal integrity and better productivity with improved coefficient of friction and hot tack strength.

“We are able to achieve ultra high oxygen barrier of up to 1cc per sq/m per day and research is in progress to attain the customer demand of 0.5 cc per sq/m per day for transparent BOPP grade,” added Mathur.   

In another session on PET packaging Anup Bagchi, senior vice president, Reliance Industries discussed emerging trends in PET packaging. Bagchi said, “PET packaging is finding new avenues such as packaging of flavoured milk, butter milk, beer, wine, ketch-up among others. The PET bottle industry in India is USD 1.5 billion as of 2012 and is expected to reach USD 2.15 billion by 2016.”

Speaking about the new applications of PET, Bagchi highlighted ketch-up, beer and dairy industry. Bagchi said, “Today, ketch-up is packed in pouches, glass bottles or multi-layer PP bottles. This application has seen inclination towards PET.”

 Dr Bector’s Cremica is available in barrier PET bottles for more than a year now, Weikfield launched plain barrier PET bottle for ketch-up in Q3 of 2012, while Heinz globally uses PET bottles.

“Since the use of PET bottles started in 1970s, more than 300 metric tonnes of PET resin has been sold and consumed globally. This sums up to more than 15 trillion bottles of PET consumed already,” added Bagchi.

He also informed that RIL is installing the largest PET facility of 650 kilo tonnes at Dahej. With this plant, Reliance’s capacity of PET in India would become 1 million metric tonnes.