The Awards, which returned after a hiatus of two years owing to the Covid pandemic, saw the who’s who of the industry in attendance. More than 350 industry leaders attended the Award evening while more than 120 people attended the special Show & Tell event where invited print professionals shared the stories behind their award-winning print jobs. The three-hour knowledge session was conceptualised by Noel D’Cunha, managing editor of PrintWeek and Raahil Chopra, managing editor of Campaign India.

During the gala evening, which was hosted by film personality Luke Kenny, 44 print firms were given the Awards in 30 categories. 

This year, the Awards were given in 14 quality categories, five special Covid awards and 10 performance categories. The PrintWeek Awards received 362 entries and more than a thousand samples from 112 companies for this year’s awards. Manipal Technologies took home the top award of the night – PrintWeek Printing Company of the Year – for the fifth time. 

Hormazd Sorabjee, director of Haymarketsac India and the editor of Autocar in India, welcomed the packed hall of the industry bigwigs to the industry’s biggest Award show. Sorabjee also unveiled the all-new WhatPackaging? magazine website during the opening of the Awards.

The chief guest of the PrintWeek Awards 2022 was Sudhanshu Vats, deputy managing director at Pidilite Industries. In his address, Vats highlighted the importance of sustainability for the industry. 

“I believe sustainability is a big opportunity as I personally feel that I don’t think we have to worry about how it will affect the format. It will need to be a centralised process as it will need to ensure that less goes to landfills and oceans. This will have to be done through circularity – but how does one ensure that? It is here that the three Rs (reduce, reuse and recycle) become important as it helps in meeting the sustainability goals. This will allow room for innovation,” Vats said. 

Looking ahead, he said digital and technology must work together to build a packaging future which is connected and intelligent. In this light, he spoke about how digital technology can benefit the industry in numerous ways like automation and IoT.

The biggest winners of the evening who managed to clinch the trophy in two separate categories were Manipal Technologies; Manjushree Technopack; The Mathrubhumi Printing & Publishing; Nutech Print Services; Prayag Advertisers; Any Graphics; and ITC Packaging & Printing Business. 

This year, the Innovative Printer of the Year category saw a record-breaking submission of 69 entries and a record-making four companies won the category – Kumar Printers; Sai Paks; Trigon Digipak; and Viraj Prints.

Aligning with the change in a post-Covid world, the PrintWeek Awards this year introduced 24 fresh categories. Some of these categories have been evolved from a legacy category to address a wide audience.

Under the Performance category, there were eight new categories this year. While Book Education Company of the Year was a brand-new category, the legacy Packaging Company of the Year and Green Printing Company of the Year categories were divided into four and two subcategories respectively.

The winners of Packaging Company of the Year were ITC Packaging and Printing Business (folding cartons (volume) category); Parksons Packaging (folding carton (specialisation) category); SB Packagings (flexible packaging category) and Manjushree Technopack (rigid packaging category).

The winners of the Green Printing Company of the Year were The Mathrubhumi Printing & Publishing (large category) and Khetan Corru Case (SME category).

Meanwhile, the Pre-Press Company of the Year was now the Pre-Press and Design Service Provider of the Year, and the winner was Creative Graphics Solutions. 

Under the Quality category, the Awards this year introduced Pre-Media Company of the Year. Mumbai-based Bhatia Graphica took home the Prism. 

Under the latest Special Covid-19 Awards, there were five different categories to identify and celebrate the achievements during the pandemic period. The company that took home trophies in different category in the Special Covid-19 Awards were Art-O-Print; Velvin Paper Products; Majushree Technopack; The Mathrubhumi Printing & Publishing; Ardour Pack; S Kumar Multi Products; and NRC Mani of Nutech Print Services.