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Pride Pack: Corrugating the way ahead

By Rushikesh Aravkar 17 May 2016

There are 430-450 corrugators in Telangana with 20 to 25 sizeable units and five or six automatic plants. The liquor, pharma and food industries are the sources of revenue to the corrugators in Hyderabad., Packaging

Reddy: "The investment in the new plant is in the tune of Rs 10-crores"

Pride Pack is hoping to play a big part in this phase of growth in Hyderabad with its 70,000 sq/ft existing factory and another 70,000 sq/ft built on a 3.5-acre land it recently acquired. At this plant, which went operational in April 2016, Pride Pack has invested in a five-ply fully automatic flexo folder-gluer, which can do two-colour flexo printing, slotting, pasting and bundling in one go.

Established in 1998 by S Janarshan Reddy, an advocate by profession, Pride Pack was a small-time corrugators until 2007, when it entered into offset printing. Pride Pack’s is an unique set up. Reddy says, “The smallest machine size that we have is 28x40-inch six-colour plus coater machine.”

Today, the company houses five printing machines, most of them very large-format presses. A 28x40-inch six–colour plus coater press, a 34x44-inch four-colour press, a 42x56-inch six-colour plus coater press, a 44x64 four-colour plus coater press, and a 28x40-inch two-colour plus coater press. Besides this, the company has Iijima 1270 large-format die-cutter and a Kodak Trendsetter 1600 52x64-inch platesetter.

“The decision to enter the VLF offset printing segment was to offer litho laminated shippers to our customers. But we went on adding machines as other corrugators started approaching us with their VLF offset printing requirements. Today, we cater to almost every corrugator in Hyderabad producing the offset-printed top plies of the corrugated box.”

Pride Pack is a major supplier of covers for ITC’s classmate brand of notebook. Besides this, the company also caters to the corrugated box needs of United Spirits, United Breweries, Parle Agra, Diageo, Pernod Ricard etc.

Reddy says, “With the new plant we will get a major boost to our production – from 400 tonnes to 1,700 tonnes monthly conversion. The investment in the new plant is in the tune of Rs 10-crores and we plan to achieve the ROI in six years.”

Currently, the company prints 2.5-lakh sheets per day in two shifts and requires 1500 plates per month. Pride Pack also has a rotary die-making machine.

Reddy comments, “The major problem that the businesses in Hyderabad face is the lack of industrial estates and availability of large chunks of land in order to consolidate operations in one building. We have our printing unit in one building, then few blocks ahead we have another building that houses a corrugation unit and another building has the die-making machine.”

Hyderabad's very own die maker

Hyderabad’s Halftone, a pre-press service bureau turned digital printer, has now further diversified to set up the city’s first and perhaps the only laser die-making facility anticipating the gap in the industry. When this scribe visited the laser die specialist he was impressed by the nuanced work. This work is backed by a young team which has a remarkably clear-eyed vision of the future of print.

Halftone Die Makers started in 1999 as a pre-press service bureau. The company has two Basysprint CTCPs and a TechNova Viostar platesetter. Plus a Xerox 1000 machine. Though the company still caters to its primary business, the CTP services, in 2014 it expanded its offerings to the printing and packaging industry with laser die-making services. Its die offerings consist of flatbed dies to braille to hot-foiling dies and many more.

The company produces 50 dies per day and caters to printing and packaging converters in South India. The directors, Murali and Shreekanth Nandyala, are well aware of the potential in die-making considering the fact that there are less than ten quality die makers in the country. “German laser cutting machine, Korean blade bending machines, European steel and Russian plywood – the golden recipe of the high quality dies,” says Murali.

Along with top-end equipment, the diemaker also has a dedicated customer service team that sets it class apart. Having covered the South Indian market, the company now aims to spread its wings across India with one-day delivery.