Sharad Mittal, founder and director, Archa Packaging, said, “As a fourth-generation of a family-owned printing business, I wanted to start an entity on my own, and thus established Archa Packaging in 2016. In our family business, we had installed a four-colour Komori press and I had hands-on experience on the press. Thus, Komori became our first choice.”

He added that the 29.5x41.5-inches machine has helped the company produce more jobs in one go. “Komori is economical compared to other available options in the market, especially with the kinds of features it has. We are running it at its full speed of 16,500 impressions an hour in a 12-hour shift,” Mittal said. “With this machine, the makeready is easy, registration is perfect, and each and everything is automatic.”

Archa Packaging is equipped with all the facilities in-house, from printing plates exposing to producing the final mono cartons. The company converts 300-350 tonnes of duplex per month.

Sharad Mittal and his fiancé Himani Agrawal run the show. Himani Agrawal is responsible for management, finance and development and Mittal is responsible for sales, marketing and overall development.

Along with mono carton production, Archa has a high-density polyethylene (HDPE) bottles manufacturing plant in the same premises and manufactures 30,000 bottles per day. The size of bottles can be from 50- to 1,000-ml.

“Our existing customers are asking for labels and corrugated boxes as well. So, we will expand in both the segments soon. Right now, we are serving customers from the FMCG and pharma segments. Liquor manufacturers are also on the radar,” Mittal says.

In the future, Mittal wants to establish Archa as a one-stop packaging solution provider. “It will be beneficial for customers as well as engagement of our customers will be less, follow-up will be less, and inventory will be less. We are even ready to provide an inventory space for our customers. We have 40,000-sqft space to store finished goods,” he says.

Archa went for a greenfield expansion in a 25,000-sqyd land where 150,000-sqft has been constructed.

“The plant is constructed in I-shape (a single line production floor) and it is future-ready to start three production lines. Packaging is a crowded and competitive space. If we do not offer anything different then why will people come to us? Service is our priority,” Mittal said.

The finishing segment is equipped with a Tiancen lamination machine supplied by Ample Graphics and DGM folder-gluers and die-cutting machines. A team of 100 people works for Archa.