The event was attended by more than 100 people from the industry.

Nilesh Agarwal, one of the founders of Agarwal Matpack Industries, said, “Established in 1983, we have been in the corrugation industry for the last three decades. Gradually, we realised that there is huge potential for packaging. Thus, we have diversified into additional forms of packaging. This will help us produce mono cartons, rigid boxes, and labels.

Agarwal said the company also realised there is no scope to expand in bits and pieces. So, it decided to establish a fully dedicated packaging plant in Prahladpura Industrial Area in Jaipur. The existing corrugation plant is located in the nearby Sitapura Industrial Area.

The total area of the new plant is 10,000-sqmt, of which 100,000-sqft is constructed. The plant is equipped with all modern facilities, including an architectural design that utilises sunlight instead of artificial lighting during the day. There is a plan to install solar power as well. 

Agarwal Matpack Industries is a sister concern of Agarwal Corrugation Industries and part of Agarwal Group. The Agarwal Group is managed by Nilesh Agarwal and his son Manan Agarwal, and Deepak Agarwal (elder brother) and his son Nimit Agarwal.

Nilesh is responsible for purchasing and marketing; Manan is responsible for production; Deepak is responsible for production and maintenance and Nimit is responsible for back office, import and export. Manan is a management graduate from the UK and Nimit has completed his studies at ISB Hyderabad.

The newly established plant is equipped with a brand-new Komori seven-colour with coater 28x40-inch printing press, which can run at the speed of 16,500-sph.

Agarwal said, “Previously, we outsourced our printing jobs. Most of the work was done on Komori printing presses and we were happy with the quality.”

He said another reason to opt for the Komori was its approach, offering and after-sales services. “The Komori press is the most expensive equipment in our new factory and we are happy with the Komori team. We have installed the seven-colour with coater press to offer more, and to establish ourselves ahead of the competition. Its extended colour gamut enables us to offer more than CMYK. The three extra printing units produce CMYK with three more colours, which can be metallic and others. We realised that consumers need multicolour printing and attractive packs, and these packs can only be done on an extended colour gamut press,” he added.

(l-r) Sachin Kala from Ample Graphics, Nilesh Agarwal from Agarwal Matpack and Rajeev Jagga from Ample Graphics

Among the other equipment at the new plant, most have been supplied by Ample Graphics. The list includes a Tiancen KFM-106 MC lamination machine; a HW1450 flute laminator with flip flop stacker; a Furman 920 L window patching machine with V notch; a stripping machine; a hole drilling machine, a semi-automatic setup for rigid boxes manufacturing, and a two-ply corrugation line to produce E and narrow-flute corrugation. 

On the selection of multiple machines from Ample Graphics, Agarwal said, “We have a long relationship with Sachin Kala. He has sold more than 1,100 machines in the last nine years and the number is growing. We have received positive feedback from the market that the machines are reliable and the cost of ownership is friendly. Being a technical person, Kala appropriately guided us and offered us good machines. We are hopeful that our rigid boxes and label lines will be running round-the-clock from day one.”

(l-r) Nilesh Agarwal from Agarwal Matpack and Puneet Agarwal from DGM India with multiple DGM equipment

The company’s post-press equipment are supplied by DGM Automation India. These include a DGM Technocut 1050S automatic die-cutter with waste removal; a DGM Technofoil 1050FC automatic hot-foil stamping with die-cutting; a DGM Technofold 1100PC automatic folder-gluer with straight line and lock bottom features, and a DGM Smartfold 1100SL automatic folder-gluer with all options.

Agarwal said, “We are already running two DGM folder-gluers in our corrugation plant. Thus, we have hands-on experience with DGM machines. Our experience with team DGM India and equipment have been fantastic.”

The company has also added an India-made eight-colour narrow-web flexo press, Nova A5, manufactured and installed by Alliance Printech from Faridabad. It is manufactured on a full servo platform and is capable of printing on multiple substrates with online embellishments like cold foil, lamination, etc.

It has also installed an ACER inspection slitter rewinder with E+L Smartscan camera for high-speed digital inspection.

The newly established 10,000-sqmt plant in Prahladpura Industrial Area 

Agarwal said the plant is now fully equipped to offer complete solutions for packaging requirements from different industries. “Our target is to achieve 100% growth with this new plant,” he said.

Agarwal, a mechanical engineering diploma holder, wanted to establish a company from his school days and started manufacturing when he was in class 11.

He said, “We are hopeful that our rigid box and label segment will be operational from day one. We are new to the rigid box segment. This is why we went for a semi-automatic setup. We would like to taste the water first. Gradually, we will go for an automatic line.”

In its corrugation plant, the company converts around 1,500 tonnes of kraft and paper with an automatic plant.

Now, the company has a team of around 400 people (300 in the corrugation plant and 100 in the new plant). It caters to FMCG, pharma, gifting, sweet boxes and other segments.

He said, “We have been in the corrugation business for the last 31 years. Now, the new plant will open doors for us in India and globally. We have invested around Rs 50-crore in this plant, including construction and equipment. In the last five years between demonetisation and the pandemic, we realised the speed at which the market went down, it bounced back 10 times faster.  The buying capacity of more than 1.4 billion Indians is increasing and we don’t want to be late to grab the opportunity.”