Ashok Jaipuria |
Entering
the new millennium, Cosmo Films was steadily growing, so was the market for
BOPP and also the market share of Cosmo for BOPP films. With a positive
situation prevailing, they became bullish and registered unprecedented growth
in this decade. In 2001 they commissioned
their fourth line and a year later in 2002 they acquired Gujarat Propack
Limited, the Karjan Vadodara based BOPP manufacturer which became their fifth
BOPP line. In 2003 the sixth line was commissioned and in the very next year in
2004 they decided to go for specialties in BOPP by adding a metalizer, an
extrusion coating plant and yet another BOPP line taking their total count to
seven. Expanding on coated products, they commissioned their second extrusion
coating line in 2005. Encouraged by the success, Cosmo added five more
extrusion coating lines. Two were added in 2006, one in 2007 and two more in
2008. Extending their footprint globally, in 2009 they acquired USA
headquartered GBC’s Print Finishing Business from Acco Brands Corporation USA.
Also in 2009 they enhanced their BOPP production capacity with yet another line
at Vadodara, taking the total to 8 lines.
Cosmo Films Vadodara Unit |
Cosmo Films Hagerstown USA |
With
Pankaj Poddar at helm, the company became more aggressive especially in the
label segment. The label segment comprising of self-adhesive labels, wrap
around labels and IML is continuously growing in volumes. They supply these
films worldwide with some sales also in China. Today leading Indian Labelstock
and other label producers use Cosmo’s products for labels. Label films continue
to become a substantial part of the company’s product offerings these are now around
15% of their total production. Cosmo has invested in creating the right
products to facilitate top of the line decorative packaging. Their offerings
include films that are white opaque pearlised, transparent, solid white,
gloss/matt metalized, etc. Their films have a clean surface, have excellent gloss, high clarity and can be printed by different print technologies that
include printing by using Water based inks, UV inks, Gravure inks, Thermal transfer
ribbon printing and some Digital print processes. According to Pankaj, while
the domestic BOPP market is growing at around 10 % per annum, the growth is
slightly more in self adhesive labels and IML, yet Cosmo is registering a
growth rate above this due to their increasing exports. They are committed to
diversify more and more into the specialty segments due to depressed margins of
commodity products in a competitive scenario. They will soon be launching direct thermal printable film and paper. Being firmly committed to
maintain their leadership, for them delivery of quality and innovative products
is a priority. They have invested more than 1.50 Million US$ in their new Research and Development/Innovation
centre. The
centre has capability to analyse the entire film’s chemistry viz. surface, polymer and chemical analysis. The centre is
also capable of testing all properties of the film right from its concept stage
way upto its end applications. Centre can
also conduct in house printing tests
with diverse processes like Screen, UV flexo, Gravure printing, Direct Thermal
and Thermal Transfer Printing.
Pankaj
is emphatic that BOPP consumption will continue to grow at a fast pace, but he
wishes to see Cosmo diversify more into specialty segments. They will also be
adding a Cast Poly Propylene film (CPP) and metalized CPP film line in 2018; they
will also be installing a PET film line. Both product lines will be packaging
and label centric. PET will be majorly offered as label face or later for release
liner applications. PET liners can reduce the adverse impact of liner waste on
the environment by bringing down the tonnage of liners using thinner liners. While
most of the present paper siliconised liners go to landfills, PET liners can be
recycled. Capacity enhancement for synthetic paper is also on cards. Their
biggest competition at global level comes from Jindal Poly films subsequent to
their acquisition of Exxon Mobil’s BOPP films division and from Innovia films.
However still, Pankaj says, “We will be enhancing capacities. As for
specialties, we have no real competition”. Pensively and hesitantly he does
agree that digital printing direct on product that will eliminate the substrate
maybe a challenge but he is confident it will not affect Cosmo’s growth plans.
Pankaj Poddar |
Cosmo Films
is an environmentally conscious company and continues to make strides in
implementing eco friendly measures. All
coatings on their films are water based and they support water based ink
printing for conversion of their films. They are an ISO: 14001 certified
company. The waste water in all their plants, after effluent treatment, is used
for gardening. All plant sites have water harvesting. Natural lighting is used
wherever possible. They plan to initiate a solar power plant at their Vadodara
site as a first experiment and if found successful, they will replicate in
other sites as well. Every employee in their organization has to undergo training.
As a part of their corporate social responsibility, they work on supplementing
basic education provided to young children in government schools in and around
their plants through various sustainable programs like Computer Literacy, basic
English Learning, basic reading, writing, and arithmetic skills. They have trained
about 150 rural youth as qualified teachers to be able to execute this and till
date more than 25000 students have benefitted from these programs.
Pankaj feels
in 5 years Cosmo’s turnover will more than double up from the present 300
million US Dollars to 600-700 US Dollars. This he states will be just from the
ongoing organic growth. However if they install more projects and happen to
acquire some businesses, the turnover may reach USD 1 billion. The present
share of specialty films in the company portfolio is around 40%, he hopes and
wishes to increase this share to 60% so as to keep adding value to its bottom
line.
Written for Packaging South Asia magazine by Harveer Sahni Chairman, Weldon Celloplast Limited, New Delhi, December 2017.
Print Publications wanting to reproduce may do so by giving credit to the author Harveer Sahni and by mentioning that it is published in arrangement with "Packaging South Asia"
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