Sanjay Malik Sabharwal, executive vice-president and chief operating officer, PAM Marketing Engineering Business of UFlex, said, “With the changing times, there has been a shift in the requirements in the printing segment as well. Now, people have been thinking about the same family of polymers, even in the multilayered packaging formats. This need has opened doors for our products.” 

Sabharwal said in the recent past, there has been an influx of new flexible film producers across the world. Since there are limited film line machinery manufacturers in the world, participating in Plastasia2022 was a big opportunity for the company. 

“UFlex being the pioneer in packaging and converting machines, slitters etc, developed the secondary slitter with upto 3,350-mm width, which serves hassle-free slitting experience of jumbo packaging rolls, without which bringing flexible packaging film to a usable size at the converter is not practical. Thus, Plastasia2022 gave us a good opportunity to share these products with the target audience,” he added. 

At the show, the company received around 25 inquiries, of which, Sabharwal said, some inquiries have moved to the next level of discussions.  

According to Sabharwal, the Engineering business of UFlex is unique because of its widespread reach in various segments in the flexible packaging industry. “We produce machines for converters that help them convert films into laminates for the development of packaging. We also make packaging machines that help brands bring products distinctively on the retail shelves,” he said.

Regarding the current state of the Indian packaging industry, Sabharwal said, “We do have customers using state-of-the-art technologies, though some companies are still working with primitive methods. However, the silver lining is that packaging is one of the few industries which is registering a double-digit growth rate over the last few decades.”