LMAI Conference Kochi- knowledge, bonding and celebrations par excellence!

LMAI Board of directors

The 3-day LMAI label conference from 25th-27^th July 2019 was an event that was efficiently organized and delivered the promise of comradeship, entertainment and knowledge sharing. From the time of landing at Kochi to the time of departures on 28^th, it was all done with clockwork precision. It was a gigantic task of hosting over 550-600 delegates from all over India and various parts of the world attending this biennial event. They were put up in 317 rooms spread across 3 hotels The Bolgatty Grand Hyatt, The Marriot and The Taj. The event was held at Grand Hyatt, perched on 26 acres of plush green land on the serene Bolgatty Island, Grand Hyatt Kochi Bolgatty is a waterfront urban resort overlooking the backwaters of Vembanad Lake.

Registration

After a smooth check-in and registrations, the delegates reassembled for start of conference. 

Lighting of lamp

It all started with traditional lighting of the lamp.

Welcome address by Kuldeep Goel President LMAI followed next.

Pankaj Bhardwaj Senior Director and General Manager Avery Dennison delivered the thought-provoking keynote address, setting the tone of the conference. Pankaj, while referring to the growing Indian market mentioned, “Diminishing divide between urban-rural population in India and an aspiring middle class means a growing demand of consumer products and also label”.

Due to a delayed flight, special guest Lisa Milburn Managing Director Labelexpo Group UK could not reach in time to deliver her address and in her absence, Pradeep Saroha country manager Labelexpo spoke to update the audience about the forthcoming Labelexpo Europe in Brussels, it being the 40^th anniversary of Labelexpo additional features included will be on sustainability, flexible packaging, digital printing and a host of other technologies.

Manish Desai Conference chairman spoke on the flow of events at the conference.

Shahidi Ainain

Shahidi Ainain Director SIES School of packaging who was moderator for the event gave the guidelines to be followed while making presentations and advised speakers on the need for time management.

The audience dispersed to re-assemble again later for welcome dinner with Thallaavia theme.

L to R: Ajay Mehta, Amit Sheth, Dinesh Mahajan, Raveendran, Harveer Sahni
Pankaj Bhardway-Avery, Kuldip Goel, Rajesh Nema, Sandeep Zaveri,
Vivek Kapoor, Ramesh Deshpande and Amar Chhajed

The conference being held in Kerala, it was an imperative to give it a local theme on the very first evening. All the Board of Directors of LMAI and Committee members dressed up in the local Malayali traditional dress, giving the evening a local celebratory touch. After felicitation of sponsors by committee members and their walk on the ramp there was Carnatic band playing, networking and dinner.

A surprise announcement was made for bestowing upon Amit Sheth of Label Planet and Intergraphic a lifetime award for contribution to the Indian Label Industry! After an emotional thank you speech, Amit walked the ramp with wife Rupa and their two daughters.

Next day after breakfast the audience reassembled for a busy day full of presentations by eminent sponsors and of very high standards. Past President Vivek Kapoor’s welcome address was followed by presentation by Manoj KM and Parag Bagade of Avery Dennison. While Manoj spoke on futuristic labelstock offerings, Parag spoke on the sustainability endeavours by Avery including collection and recycling of liner and self-adhesive waste.

Presentations made were as follows;

Avery Dennison India, Manoj KM and Parag Bagade, "Emerging Technology & Sustainability"

Pulisi Technology, Olive Liu, "Relationship between Technology and Life"

SMI Coated Products: Ajay Mehta and Rohit Mehta, "Technical Aspects of Applications of Label Stock Solutions"

Domino Printech India: David Ellen, "Advantages of HYBRID systems for labels and Packaging converters"

Vinsak India: Ranesh Bajaj, "Future Based Solutions"

Retail Solution and Technologies: T. R. Ravishankar, "Trends in Barcoding and Enterprise Mobility"

WEIGANG: Spring Xu, "Features enhancing to choose a good flexo machine"

Luster LightTech Group: Carrie Duan, "Mining your potential"

Nilpeter India: Manish Kapoor, Indian Label Indusrty - "The question of Scale and Scalability"

Insight Print Communications: Ajay Aggarwal, "Transition to Digital – Now and for Future"

Loparex: Manish Jain, "Future Sustainability"

Heidelberg and Gallus: Samir Patkar, "The Power of 2 – when conventional meets digital (hybrid technology)"

DuPont Advanced Printing: Shyamal Desai, "End user benefits"

Flint Group India: Shailesh Kumar Sharma, "New Gen Color Management"

HP India Sales: Appadurai, "Future is Now"

BOBST Firenze SRL: Ludovico Frati, "Connectivity"

Dragon Foils - Inter Films India: Raymond Lu, "Innovation and frontier of cold foil technology"

Two interactive and knowledge imparting Panel Discussions moderated by LMAI Board member Harveer Sahni of Weldon Celloplast were held after lunch. The first one was with printers where the topic was, “Creating the future vs embracing the future”. Panelists included Priyata Raghavan Sai Security Printers, Tejas Tanna of Printmann, Aaditya Kashyap of Marksfine, Mahendra Shah of Renault Paper, Shakti Jain of Great Eastern IDTech, Yudhviram Solanki of Sicon Packs and Anurag Mohan of Interact.

The second Panel discussion was with industry suppliers as panelists and titled, “Evolving trends in Labels manufacturing!” Eminent suppliers who were in the panel and gave thought provoking inputs included; Bhupinder Singh of Avery Dennison, Samir Patkar of Heidelberg Gallus, Appa Durai of HP, Ranesh Bajaj of Vinsak, Pawandeep Sahni of Omet, Manish Kapoor of Nilpeter, Prasenjit Das of Dupont and Sreenivas Goud of Flint. Time being a constraint the audience wished there was more time for these engaging discussions but since the schedule for the conference was so packed that there was no room for extension

Gaur Gopal Das

After the day’s presentations ended, there was an excellent talk sponsored by SMI and Pulisi on “Secrets of Impactful Success” by motivational Guru, Gaur Gopal Das which left a full packed hall of almost 600 people spellbound and in awe of what he delivered. 

The evening ended with yet another program sponsored by SMI and Pulisi, a musical performance by the visually impaired performers from the National Organisation of Disabled Artists. They sang old Bollywood songs so well that it left the audience full of awe and at that moment, compassion turned into joy, watching their special abilities to deliver so well to a large audience.

The label printing fraternity was up on its feet and on to the dance floor enjoying the renderings of this awesome group. Towards the end, the President LMAI on behalf of his team announced an additional sum of Rupees one lakh over and above what they had contracted for. This was followed by many in the audience committing large sums to support the social cause of encouraging disabled artists.

On the final day after a welcome address more presentations as mentioned below followed;

Apex Asia Pacific: Carl Brock, "Nothing short of revolution in flexographic printing"

Flexo Image Graphics: Ian Pollock, "Future of Printing Technology"

ROGLER International Sàrl: Hannes Rogler, "Future based solution"

Multitec Aids: Amit Ahuja, "Life beyond labels"

RotoMetrics: Cain Harper, "It's about more than the die"

Brotech Digital Graphics: Ramon Lee, "The future of hybrid printing and finishing"

GEW: Marcus Greenbrook, "Upcoming Technology"

Numex Blocks: Supachai Theravithayangkura, "Innovative Flexo Plate Solutions for Narrow Web Printing"

JN Arora presentation

A panel discussion jointly hosted and moderated by Ajay Mehta of SMI Coated papers and Amit Sheth of Pulisi Technology was conducted with young panelists that included Hemanth Paruchuri of Pragati Pack, Vidur Agarwal of Veekay Industries, Krishh Chhatwal of Kwality Offset, Denver Annunvciation of Janus International and Naveen Goel of Any Graphics titled “Young printer’s perception on future of label industry”

After the presentations concluded that afternoon it was time for a “Sadhya” typical of that area. Sadhya in local language Malyalam is a feast of Hindu origin and of importance to Hindu Malayalis, consisting of a variety of traditional vegetarian dishes usually served on a banana leaf in Kerala, India. Sadhya means banquet in Malayalam. It is a vegetarian feast prepared by both men and women, especially when needed in large quantities, for weddings and other special events. Sadhya is typically served as a traditional dish for Onam, the state festival of Kerala. It was a feast for the eyes to see, a diverse gathering Indians and foreigners relishing the local cuisine and eating with bare hands.

Past president Sandeep Zaveri updated the audience about the next program of Round tables, the interaction between sponsors and Printers.

“Round tables” program with all sponsors attending to a rotating groups of label printers was a much-appreciated part of this conference. 

It gave the sponsors opportunity to interact with existing and prospective customers. This program was highly appreciated by the sponsors.

The final evening sponsored by Avery Dennison was themed “The Great Gatsby!”. 

American author F. Scott Fitzgerald that follows a cast of characters living in the fictional towns of West Egg and East Egg on prosperous Long Island in the summer of 1922. Fitzgerald—inspired by the parties he had attended while visiting Long Island's North Shore—began planning the novel in 1923, desiring to produce, in his words, "something new—something extraordinary and beautiful and simple and intricately patterned.” In the novel the character Gatsby throws very extravagant, excessive parties with hundreds of guests, all for the purpose to attract a lady’s attention. The evening had the settings of the 1920s.

The evening began with a vote of thanks by LMAI treasurer Dinesh Mahajan of Prakash Labels.

It was then time for SMI Managing Director Ajay Mehta’s talented daughter Nikita Mehta who trained in the USA and is all set to go professional in the Indian singing arena, to go on stage and give a melodious heartwarming singing performance.

Ferdi Reusch of Gallus and wife

Vivek and Wife Shveta

Finally, while people enjoyed photo ops and networking over drinks.

Aakriti and Pradeep of Tarsus

Hemanth-Pragati Pack, Harveer Sahni-Weldon, K D Sahni-Weldon,
Andrea Calcagni-Omet,PaoloGrasso-Omet, Pawandeep Sahni-Omet

Bollywood singer Nakash Aziz took the stage while the LMAI conference delegates hit the dance floor and enjoyed the fun until late in the night.

Credit goes to Hemal Bhagwat who heads the event management company Mercury Integrated along with her husband and a dedicated team. “Thank you Hemal for making this a memorable event, memories will linger on till it is time to plan yet another better and bigger LMAI CONFERENCE”

Written by Harveer Sahni Chairman Weldon Celloplast Limited New Delhi July 2019

Magazines are free to reproduce by giving credit to author.

History of Indian Label Industry Part-2A

 At the last, Indian label industry event, “LMAI  Conference” in 2017 at Jaipur I promised to write the 2nd part of my first article titled  “History of the Indian Label Industry” which I wrote in 2006. It is available in this blog at https://harveersahni.blogspot.com/2010/08/history-of-indian-label-industry.html
I have now written the 2nd part. This is brief reporting so I plan to complete a book on the subject with a lot more expanded information in the near future. In a large country with industry spread over such a vast area and a huge population, it is difficult to chronicle all in few words. Being a long article, the part 2 of History of the Indian Label Industry will be posted on my blog in a series of four articles. The first part of series numbered  2A is as below;

Magnetic Cylinder and flexible Die

The first decade of new millennium was very eventful for the Indian label industry. After 2006 a global economic recession surfaced and kept growing, affecting businesses across the world. It even impacted many industries in India where we saw companies reducing manpower, which in turn affected spending in all segments of retail. Surprisingly while printers in India as well, were complaining of recessionary trends and difficulty in operations, yet the Indian label industry overall, continued to grow steadily. Capacity enhancement kept on being made, though it was a little reduced. The Indians became indulgent not only as label printers but also as diverse product and equipment suppliers to label printing companies. For the first time an Indian company Precise Graphics, later renamed PGI Technologies in 2005 produced a magnetic cylinder that worked on a label press. Dhiresh Ghosalia led Jesons, manufacturers of emulsion pressure sensitive adhesives for the label industry at their large factory in Daman, expanded and moved northwards in India and setup an additional manufacturing capacity at a 100,000 square feet facility in Roorkee. Kaygee Papers was promoted by Pranay Godha in 1997 to produce silicone coated release papers. In 2001 they made a Joint Venture, Kaygee Loparex Pvt. Ltd. with Loparex, a member of UPM group and world’s largest commercial Siliconiser. They continued to grow and became an important part of the Indian label industry in the first decade. In 2015 Loparex assumed 100% of the company and rechristened it as Loparex India Pvt. Ltd. In August 2007 Diehard Dies, based in Guntur Andhra Pradesh, started operations to become an indigenous manufacturer of flexible dies for the printing, packaging and label industry. By middle of 2019 Acme Rolltech a company led by 3 young entrepreneurs Parag Patel, Sandeep Sharma and Parag Koradiya started the first Indian facility manufacturing Ceramic Anilox Rolls. Sandeep, came to the partnership with 15 years of experience having worked with Avery Dennison, Kurz India and Domino Printech, Parag Patel and Parag Koradiya came from entrepreneurial background of manufacturing Gravure Cylinders. 

In 2007 the largest indigenous labelstock producer Ajay Mehta’s SMI Coated Products initiated an expansion program that would eventually place SMI as an undisputed leader in labelstock production by a wholly Indian owned company, not only in India but also in many international markets. They procured a 6540 square meter plot in MIDC, Ambernath near Mumbai, constructed 2200 square meter shed, shifted all plant and machinery from Daman to Ambernath, added two silicon coating machines and one Acrylic Coating machine. In 2014 they increased the production area by another 3000 square meters and installed a Hot Melt coating line, following it up by installing yet another hotmelt adhesive coater later.  

In 2017 they purchased the adjoining plot admeasuring 9820 Square meters, constructed 1000 square meters to install Schaeffer moving racks for better handling of an increasing volume of goods in their expanding stores. In 2019 they completed construction of another 3000 square meters shed and moved all coating machines to new premises along with a new emulsion adhesive coating tandem machine to do inline siliconizing and adhesive coating in a single pass, 1350 mm wide to run at a speed of 150 meters per minute, reaching an installed capacity of 19 million square meters per month. They celebrated their 25 years in grand style by hosting over 200 guests to visit their works besides take part in the celebrations. Other indigenous labelstock manufacturers also grew in their own respective regions. Stayon Papers and Sticon in Hyderabad, Million papers and NG papers in Chennai, Capri Coating Solutions in Mumbai, Shree Arihant, STP Paper, Gj Industries and many more in Delhi were some of the active and visible manufacturers. Some of the earlier leaders in the Labelstock manufacturing segment pulled back or shifted focus in view of depleting margins, intense competition and unviable credit terms.

Indian label press manufacturers transformed in this period to produce label presses that were comparable to international products and made their mark not only in India but internationally as well. Amit Ahuja led Multitec is the front runner who had exhibited their first modular rotary flexo label press in partnership with Abhay Datta of Datta Press Delhi at the first India Label show in 2002 at Nehru Centre Mumbai. The association of Multitec with Datta came to an end around 2008. Multitec redesigned their label press as a competitive product with all basic features. After renaming the press, “Ecoflex” they relaunched it. Two year hence they launched yet another version of their label press and continued to upgrade their offerings and grow phenomenally. By the end of 2018 they had achieved outstanding success producing label presses from a quality accredited design and a fully integrated manufacturing facility spread over 26,000 square meters. At the time of writing this article their website reports having sold over 300 Label presses to over 25 countries through a team of agents spread across the world. Other Indian press manufacturers who also made their mark are mostly from Faridabad, south of Delhi, the same city as Multitec. They are Alliance Printech, Webtech Engineering, NBG Printographic Machinery Co. Pvt. Ltd., M Tech Industries, etc. Other than these, Ahmedabad based RK label machines claimed to have sold 150 rotary plus 600 flatbed label presses and Noida based Jandu Engineers had sold about 135 rotary flexo presses. Jandu is also a leading manufacturer of coating and laminating machines and has a large presence amongst local labelstock manufacturers and according to Baldev Singh Jandu, they have till date sold over 150 coaters.

The Indian label market was growing at a steady double-digit growth rate and interest of international label fraternity in India also kept on growing with it. Avery Dennison who had found success in the country had in 2007 invested in land admeasuring 22 acres at Ranjangaon near Pune for expansion. In 2008 the facility was with a one-meter wide hotmelt coater having capability to run at 500 meters per minute with inline silicon coating, this compared to the first one-meter coater at Gurgaon that could run at 250 meters per minute. The then global CEO and President of Avery Dennison Corporation Dean Scarborough specially flew in to inaugurate the facility. In 2010 Raj Srinivasan who had established Avery’s foothold in India returned to USA handing over reigns of the Indian operations to Anil Sharma. New wave of professionalism descended in the working of Avery; more expansion followed with installation of a 1.5 meters hot melt coater in 2011 at Pune. In the same year a slitting facility was commissioned in Bangalore in 2011 to serve the southern customers effectively. To help the cause of a limited number of trained press operators in India in face of a growing label press population,  Avery Dennison Knowledge Centre was also set up in Bangalore to train people for becoming press operators, but later in 2018 the centre was moved to Pune, next to their research and development centre. In 2014 an emulsion coater of 1.5meter width was added at the Pune facility. In 2015 Anil Sharma was elevated for bigger responsibilities and handed over charge to his teammate Pankaj Bhardwaj. Amongst international Labelstocks companies UPM Raflatac had established a substantial foothold with their slitting facilities in India while Lintec, Ritrama, flexcon and a few others sold through agents or directly.

Increase in number of visitors to labelexpo Europe in Brussels was a positive indicator of a growing label market in India and the interests of printers to invest in globally acknowledged label presses. In 2005 Weldon Celloplast Ltd. was the lone Indian exhibitor and by 2011 edition of the show, the number of Indian exhibitors had swelled to fourteen, up from four in the previous show in 2009. At Labelexpo Europe 2009 there were 338 Indian visitors and this figure had swelled to 429 in 2011. The number just went on increasing, there were more Indians then before at successive labelexpos.

In 2007 at Labelexpo Europe in Brussels Tarsus announced their acquisition of India Label show, a show that was set up by Anil Arora and his wife Neetu Arora. The next edition of India Label show 2008 in New Delhi’s Pragati Maidan was held in the aftermath of terrorist attack in Mumbai and in the middle of a huge recession, yet the show stood its ground proving the strength of growing Indian label market. In 2010 the show was rechristened as Labelexpo India. The show owners Tarsus UK made a strategic alliance with Indian Label association LMAI for the event and to have an awards night and a gala dinner organised by Tarsus at every Labelexpo India. LMAI was to conduct the LMAI label awards which became a regular feature thereafter. In 2009 under the leadership of Vivek Kapoor, the longest serving president of LMAI who completed 3 terms of 2 years each, it was also planned to hold biennial LMAI conference in alternate years, the trend has carried on till date. The first LMAI conference was held in Hotel park Hyatt Goa in 2011 and the event grew to be held again in 2013 at Grand Hyatt Goa and at Hotel Jaypee Palace in Agra in 2017. 

In 2010 leading global associations came together under the aegis of FINAT and formed the federation of global associations called L8. Later with one more association joining it was renamed L9, the confederation of nine leading international label associations. The alliance consisted of LMAI (India), JFLP (Japan), FINAT (Europe), TLMI (North America, LATMA (Australia), PEIAC (China), AMETIQ (Mexico), ABIEA (Brazil) and SALMA (New Zealand). Sandeep Zaveri of Total Prints took over the presidentship of LMAI in 2015 and handed over the charge to Kuldip Goel of Any Graphics in 2017.  At the 2017 conference in Agra 550 delegates attended making it the largest gathering of label printers at a single conference. A proud moment for me at the Agra conference in 2017 came when I was announced as the first and only recipient till then of a lifetime award for support to the Indian Label industry.  

In 2016 Labelexpo was moved to the Expo Mart in Greater Noida outside Delhi, a part of Delhi NCR (National Capital Region) due to non-availability of dates at New Delhi’s Pragati Maidan. In 2018 also it was held at the Expo Mart as the venue, Pragati Maidan in Delhi, was under redevelopment. In 2018 for the first time LMAI hosted a very successful L9 meet in India on the sidelines of Labelexpo India.

The evolution of label industry in India has been a continuous process, from the earliest days of screen-printed labels in sheeted format in the 1970s to roll form labels to be converted on very narrow width flatbed Japanese presses and then over to rotary flexographic printing label presses in the early 1990s. Until the end of 1990s the flexo printing process used water-based inks with hot air drying. The polymer plate making technology was also evolving. The process was evolving but it had shortcomings. It was faster than the flat bed machines but lacked consistency due to drying and viscosity changing issues. Better prepress and improvements in platemaking technologies brought flexo printing to almost at par in quality to offset printing. This led the rapid growth in flexographic label printing. As demand escalated, investments in equipment also witnessed increase with printers demanding wider presses for increased productivity and reduced wastages. By end of the last century UV curable inks became available and changed the way flexo printing grew. Originally, UV technology was introduced to the world in the 1960s. The drying effect for water-based inks is brought about by evaporation of volatile components. The required energy is supplied via IR-radiation and/or hot air. A loss in the dried coating thickness will appear depending on the amount of the evaporated components. The volatile components must be removed by an extraction. However, in case of the UV inks, the drying effect is due to polymerization, i.e. on cross-linking of long molecular chains. The energy required for cross-linking is supplied via UV radiation. For 100 % solid body systems the thickness of the dry coating corresponds to the thickness of the wet coating. There are no losses due to evaporation. By 2010 new UV inks came with enhanced ink transfer properties as well as faster reactivity to UV curing, meaning speeds over 200 meters/min. were achievable. Towards end of 2009 the conventional UV started to evolve to low power consuming LED UV with longer life lamps that had surfaced internationally, though the system had yet to be widely accepted in India due to non-availability of parts and inks, but it was being investigated and expected to grow substantially in demand or replaced on existing presses.  Some of the international equipment manufacturers had already introduced alternatives such as LED UV and even Electron Beam curing technology as an alternative. From the middle of first decade of 21^st century onwards there grew a demand for high end hybrid presses with increased features like automatic registration, multiple printing processes for combination printing and decoration capabilities. As sustainability and environmental concerns became an imperative; waste reduction, and waste management became a necessity when an investment in equipment was being made.

End of Part 2A, To be continued…

The remaining parts will be posted in gaps of 7-10 days 

Note: No one is authorised to reproduce, copy or reprint this article until permitted by the author in writing. 

Written by Harveer Sahni Managing Director Weldon Celloplast Limited New Delhi July 2019

Future-Next: Brand owners’ perception of Labels

In effort to provide a platform for interaction between Brand Owners and label printers; leading to evolution, creativity in labels, understand the needs of buyers, discuss statutory requirements and evaluate sustainability in labels, the Label Manufacturers Association of India (LMAI) has been organising events. Senior packaging development professionals from leading brands in different segments like Pharma, Cosmetics, Liquor, Food, FMCG, etc. are invited to address India’s top label companies and to interact with them in panel discussions and network in a relaxed atmosphere. Printers from all categories and get to meet the people who drive the evolution and set trends for the future of labels. The 3^rd such event titled, “Future-Next: Brand owners’ perception of Labels” was held on 29th June 2019 at Hotel “The Park, New Delhi”. The event was also intended to be a precursor for the LMAI conference slated to be held at Kochi in a little over three weeks. Though the LMAI Brand Owners event is restricted to only label printers yet this time all the sponsors of the forthcoming conference at Kochi, Kerala were given the option to attend and many leading suppliers to the label industry were seen together with printers and brand owners. Over 100 delegates and media persons attended a very successful event.

Vivek Kapoor

The evening was moderated by past LMAI President and Managing Director of Mumbai based Creative Labels, Vivek Kapoor. Other LMAI board members who flew in from Mumbai specially for the event include Ajay Mehta Managing Director SMI Coated Papers, Amit Sheth of Label Planet and LMAI Kochi Conference Chairman and past President LMAI, Manish Desai.  

Pavankumar Chougule

After a brief welcome speech by President LMAI, Kuldip Goel, Pavankumar Chougule Associate Director, packaging development, Dr. Reddy’s Laboratories made the first presentation. He informed the audience about the expectations of the pharmaceuticals industry with emphasis on Regulatory compliance and Patient Safety, Smart Packaging, Secure Supply Chain, Data Security, Personalization, New Developments and Sustainability.

Santanu Chowdhury, Senior general manager, global packaging development, Sun Pharmaceutical spoke on interactive labels which he asserted is the future next for labels. Explaining the nuances of creation of embedded code on the labels and how the technology works, he dwelled on possibility of data management with integration on the servers of an organisation. He also stressed that interactive solutions create brand loyalty. Technology offers great opportunities to digitally connect your physical products with your consumers, tailored to business goals. The consumer experience is converted into data business intelligence.

Soumyanath Mishra

Soumyanath Mishra, head packaging development at Mankind Research Centre a part of Mankind Pharmaceuticals spoke on the requirements for pharmaceutical labelling, especially for exports. He also mentioned that Packaging & Labelling have a significant role to play as it provides the first point of contact with the patients or customers. It provides important communication and help to build a credible brand as well. Proper Labelling helps in creating a good first impression of your product on the customers since the customer is procuring through on-line.

Naveen Stuart

“Today we are a part of Generation X” said Naveen Stuart, packaging development manager, Reckitt Benckiser, he also mentioned that there is a demographic and cultural shift which is witnessed in today’s world. The generation is now moving towards a digital world. There is an imperative need to look beyond decoration of labels, Label needs to play an extensive role in package design process and convey the whole brand story. As regards digitalization he said; behavior of consumer is paramount to brand owner’s decision, error free smart label process, quick turn-around time and consistent quality. Also, digitilization in pre-press process aids error free production.

Tamal Ghosh

A very interesting presentation was made by Tamal Ghosh, strategic packaging development leader, corporate packaging development, Dabur India whereby he spoke on Brand Owner’s perspective, on labeling trends and their expectation and requirements that they need from converters. These expectations include need for thinner filmic release liners contributing to sustainability as they can be recycled and lower tonnage of liner waste, flexible filmic label substrates for contoured shapely containers and label decoration capabilities.

Somnath Chatterjee

The last presentation was made impromptu by none other than Somnath Chatterjee GM procurement in Pernod-Ricard India, he spoke on the imperative decorative and brand security needs of liquor industry. He asserted, it was an imperative to deliver genuine and safe products to consumer customers who trust them.

Harveer Sahni

A panel discussion followed, moderated by the author, Harveer Sahni of Weldon Celloplast. A very interactive session that dwelled on various aspects of label industry. Barun Banerjee, Head of Packaging Nestle, gave very important inputs as regards government regulations and sustainability. All speakers and guests on the panel enlightened the audience. Final comments of Kuldip Goel President LMAI and Managing Director Any Graphics were “We need to mentor our generation next for the label industry to move on”

Panel Discussion

Interactive panel

Felicitations

Priyata from Sai security felicitating

S K Garg Holostik

Aditya Chadha Felicitating Barun Banerjee, Nestle

Sanjeev Sondhi felicitating Somnath Chatterjee Pernod-Ricard

Yogamurthy Chromaprint Coimbatore

Deepak Gupta Shree Lamipack with Naveen Sturta Reckitt 

Raman Neovation with Tamal Ghosh Dabur

All sponsors to Kochi conference were invitees and many like Avery, SMI, Label Planet, Vinsak, Reifenhauser, Weldon, etc. attended. Leading printers besides those in LMAI management  from various locations in India included, Manish Desai-Mudrika Labels Mumbai, Sanjeev Sondhi-Zircon Dehradun, Priyata Raghavan-Sai Security Faridabad, Yoga Murthy Chromaprint Coimbatore, Mohit-Encana Baddi, Ankit Kapoor-Printrays Jalandhar, Parshav and Rishab Jain, Jain Transfer-Noda, Aditya Chadha-Update Prints Gurgaon, Gurpreet Dilawari-Printwell Haridwar and so many more.

Networking

Parshav of jain Transfer giving vote of thanks

The evening ended looking forward to getting together again at KOCHI!

Written by Harveer Sahni Chairman Weldon Celloplast Limited New Delhi July 2019

 Print publications are free to reproduce this article by giving credit to author