Noel D’Cunha (ND): Tell me more about ‘world of discovery’.
Pankaj Bhardwaj (PB): The four areas make it easy for converters to find what they are looking for. The converters will be able to explore our worlds of science, connected products, sustainability, and imagination, and see how we are “Making a Material Difference” by taking on some of our industry’s biggest challenges.

ND: What are your views on sustainability?
PB: Given the focus that Indian Government has on sustainability, when Prime Minister Modi said that India wants to fulfil the 2030 UN obligations by 2023, it means organisations have to do a lot in terms of catching up.

Avery Dennison’s rPET and rBG liners cost the same as conventional liners and delivers the same ease of conversion and smooth dispensing, but are made of recycled material, 30% and 15% post-consumer waste, respectively. What we have launched is primarily the products made or the post-consumer waste, which is going to help create a circular economy, and that's where I think our focus is.

The core of Avery Dennison’s activity has been sustainability, and it extends to India as well. India is quite in line with our global movements. We said that 70% of the paper that we are going to use would be FSU certified. By 2025 we hope to achieve 100%. I am happy to share with you that more than 50% of what we produce in India today is FCC certified, and we are offering it to our customers on a price neutrality basis, so that the adoption of the FSC paper improves. So, globally we wanted to achieve 70% FSC and, I'm confident, we will also hit 70% FSC in India, possibly quicker.

ND: Tell me something about ORUS.
PB: The one-roll unique service (ORUS) programme offers the customers to order a single 1,000-meter-long, first roll or any 1m product combined with any Avery Dennison adhesive technology. The idea is to reduce costs for innovative labelling applications and make inventory more manageable. Though the product is not yet launched in India, it is very relevant for India. In a growing world wherein there is a high degree of sampling happening, we need to enable our printers in producing brilliant product for demonstration and sampling for the brand owners.

ND: How would Indian converters benefit from the pharma packaging product?
PB: The Indian pharmaceutical industry has been always known for generic tracks. I think there is a conscious effort to move towards branded speciality products. We are seeing the change in the label expectation as well. There are more enquiries for functional labels from the pharmaceutical industry.

Some of the innovations that we are showing here are very upfront, for example the luminescent labels. We have already done successful trials and have started selling units and labels in the Indian market as well.

The other product is a tamper-evident portfolio. We are fulfilling the new legislation in Europe called European Falsified Medicines Directive (FMD). The Indian market exports to Europe in a big way. And I think we have made some significant progress in that direction. We are selling good quantity of these tamper-evident products in India.

And as I said, there are unique problems or unique requirements that the pharma industry has. They are being articulate about their investments on unique solutions. I think it's a great time to be in, in the space of label stock manufacturing.