Visitors' Speak: Hindustan Tin Works, Heinz India, Coca-Cola, Xpro India and Shetron Group

PrintWeek India caught up with the visitors at Indiapack to understand whether IIP's flagship event had fulfilled their expectations.

10 Oct 2015 | By PrintWeek India

The ‘Make in India’ concept is a mission to place India as an attractive place for manufacturing industry. The Government has identified 25 sectors and packaging is closely involved in some of these sectors. So, with the thrust in these sectors, packaging industry will get a big boost through these segments. The general trend is that the packaging industry grows at double the rate of GDP. So, in India, the packaging industry will grow at around 15%. Consider the growth in beverage can. When it started in 2007, the demand was only 70 million cans per annum. Today, the demand is more than 1.5 bilion cans. So there is a potential for each and every packaging material to grow.

Sanjay Bhatia, managing director, Hindustan Tin Works

In terms of consumption pattern of packaging material, paper has the largest market share and on the green scale, we are doing much better. India, unlike other countries like China, has skipped one step when it evolved from agriculture to the service sector, whereas in China, there is more emphasis on manufacturing. The Make in India mission will take time to evolve, but I feel this is a right direction if we want the manufacturing sector to lead the growth. With the kind of democratic profile we have, I believe this will help the packaging industry grow further.

Sandeep Kamath, AVP, procurement and copack, Heinz India

As a consumer of a variety of packaging material, what sells more is first decided by the end consumer and then the manufacturer. The second important thing is every packaging material has its unique properties that we like to exploit. The market dynamics today is that 70% of all the transaction, that is, all packages purchased are below the Rs 20 price point. This is mainly because we are still an emerging market and we need affordability. For example, as soon as sachets of shampoo were launched, there was a growth in the sales of the product. This was the same in the case of Tetra Pak.

Asim Parekh, vice president, technical, Coca-Cola

When we talk about plastics and the related environmental hazard, one should understand that when it comes to plastic, the environmental issue is not with the plastic itself. The issue stems from recycling and collection of the products. Hence, the collection method employed by municipal and allied organisation of trash is important. I personally think that each one of us should be educated to handle our trash.

C Bhaskar, managing director and CEO, XPRO India

There is a tremendous change that has come into packaging. There’s awareness about becoming more and more eco- friendly. Consumers are now conscious about what packaging they are using. Previously, it was bulk packaging, today it’s become smaller and smaller. Even in metal packaging, there’s a lot of downsizing, in terms of usage of material, which in turn brings the cost down. As for weight of metal packaging, it has certainly come down, but the numbers have grown. For example, earlier we used thicker tinplates of 200- 400gm. Now, this has come down to 50gm. That’s because the technology of manufacturing tinplate has improved considerably. UV and multi- colour printing on metal are encouraging developments, plus the lacquering has improved because of different applications. The retail market with branding is driving the change, and that’s good for overall packaging.