Good product, good package: Consensus at the PBF

In attendance at the first edition of PrintWeek India Packaging Buyers' Forum (PBF) were representatives from design houses, media agencies, converters, machine manufacturers and of course, the packaging brand owners.

02 Nov 2015 | 3446 Views | By PrintWeek India

The idea, according to Ramu Ramanathan, editor at PrintWeek India, is to create a common platform for all the stakeholders involved and thus share knowledge. "The work being done in the packaging space is tremendous. However, this work is being done in silos and there is little communication and knowledge sharing among all those involved."

In her opening presentation, Alpana Parida, the president of the leading packaging design house, D Y Works, reinstated this. "When it comes to packaging, most companies focus on two priorities: how will this drive consumers to my product and how much does this cost. Most times, in India, the latter eclipses and thus design and concept takes a backseat."

And this, Parida reasoned, to an extent is the result of the void of communication between design houses and the print production specialist at the brand owners' end. "India, as a country is a slow adopter and with the exception of a few, in the packaging space, there is little adoption and movement towards consumer-convenient packaging."

Soma Roy, the packaging specialist at Marico, with her show-and-tell presentation, charted the various design innovations that the brand has adopted in the recent times. The highlight of the presentation was the coming together of the design house, the converter with his technology, and the brand itself.

Representing the converters was Manipal Technologies, the PrintWeek India Printing Company of the Year, who were the partners for the forum in addition to Bobst India and QuadTech India.

The Manipal team presented the design and technical possibilities in the FMCG and luxury packaging space. The point in case was the double-decker box created for Cadbury. According to Nitesh Prajapati of Manipal, "A design can be adopted for any product across food and beverages, cosmetics, home care products etc. But what is important is the involvement of the converter and the design house at a very earlier stage in product development."

Bobst and QuadTech played their strengths with solutions that can enable the execution of converting and colour. Venugopal Menon of Bobst highlighted the technology advancement while Hemant Desai of Quadtech focussed on the usage and importance of colour in packaging.

"The first point of contact of the brand with its consumer is visually. The second time, it is from this visual memory that the consumer seeks for the product. The colour or the identity a little amiss will cost the brand its customer. A different Pepsi blue or a different Coco-Cola red will create mistrust and thus cost the brand a lot more. This is why a robust colour system and inspection system is essential."

Desai emphasised the importance of an inline colour measurement system at the converters' end to ensure colour consistency and product conformance for the brand.

Venugopal Menon, vice president, sales for business unit - sheetfed at Bobst India, emphasised on the shift from manual to automatic finishing of packaging products, the efficiency it drives, and the savings it accrues. “Our dynamic stripping and blanking systems on our machines ensures delivery of perfectly flat, stripped and blanked carton, for folding and gluing taking out and manual intervention.”

Menon also spoke about the role of corrugated packaging, and how improved technologies and capabilities in flexo post-print is catering to the needs of robust shelf-ready packaging and the the role of inspection at the end of packaging stage, to rule out rejections. “Replenishing products on the store shelves with minimum disruption, while maintaining a strong brand message, has transformed the role of corrugation packaging,” he said.

Menon also informed that the South Asia’s first highly configured six-colour Bobst FFG 1228 NT flexo folder-gluer line, will soon be installed at Astron Packaging, the packaging specialist in Ahmedabad.

Good product, good package: Consensus at the PBF

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