Marks Emballage, an international banker’s foray into Label Manufacturing

Marks Emballage factory at Baddi

In May 2018, the Indian label fraternity was amazed to read the news of an upcoming relatively young label company Marks Emballage announcing the confirmation to buy two Gallus Labelmaster presses in one go. This one step would take this nondescript label manufacturing company into the big league. The author has been in the Indian label industry for over four decades. As far as memory recollects, there have been instances when two presses have been ordered by printers to be delivered one after the other with a gap of time, but the unique instance of two presses to be delivered and installed in just one go is a first one such occurrence so far, this is history for the Indian label industry! By rough estimates, a 4 billion Dollar labels industry (not label stock but finished labels) growing at an average of 10-15% per annum surely needs such investments regularly to meet the 400-500 million Dollar growth in demands of labels. Leading Mark Emballage, Aadtiya Kashyap, a former international banker, is the courageous one who made his foray into the Indian label industry and announced his first significant expansion investment with a bang.

Aaditya and Khushboo

Aaditya was born and brought up in Mumbai, an Alumnus of St. Xavier’s School Mumbai (He prefers to call the city Bombay as he has called it all his life). Later he finished his graduation from the prestigious Ruia College, Mumbai, in Mathematics. He had considered a career in computers and did a couple of courses in that, but he graduated in the subject since he was good in mathematics. While in Ruia college, he fell in love with Khushboo Singh, who was pursuing BA in the same college. After a courtship lasting almost five years, they decided to tie the knot and got married in 2008. After graduation, Aaditya got his first job in the international bank J P Morgan, where he worked for the next seven years. This job was a good learning experience in how systems in business work and how different departments work. He was the only one in the organization at that time who got four promotions in seven years. Those were many learning years that added to his experience. Looking back, he is happy that he worked there, as the experience has been helping him when in business. 

Aaditya’s wife Khushboo belongs to a successful business family involved in pharmaceuticals, so it was a matter of time that his In-Laws prompted him to consider entrepreneurial options. The suggestions ranged from indulging in pharmaceutical products to items connected to pharma. Khushboo’s grandfather Samprada Singh took it upon himself to mentor Aaditya. Samprada Singh, the founder of Alkem Laboratories, had a significant influence on Aaditya. He was a true visionary and an impactful leader whose life was full of beautiful lessons of courage, resolve, hard work and indomitable willpower. His journey from a tiny village in Bihar to establishing India’s largest pharma company is just an extraordinary one. His life story portrays the old English adage, “From tiny acorns grow mighty oaks.”

Initially, Aaditya spent time in Alkem Laboratories to learn various aspects of the pharma business. First, he spent time with the purchasing team before moving on to “Doctor’s gifting”, a concept that was a contact-building and promotional cum marketing exercise undertaken by pharma companies to stay connected with doctors. A year down the line, he moved to Galpha laboratories owned by his Father-in-law N K Singh taking care of the same portfolio of doctor gifting until a government notification limited the scope of “doctor giftings”. At this time, he faced another change of job profile or considered another line. In his time spent with the purchasing team at Alkem & Galpha, he had gained much knowledge about packaging and its nuances. Khushboo, being born into the pharma business family, was a natural fit to take up professional responsibilities. As business was in her blood, she joined her father’s company, GALPHA which she had joined immediately after college in 2004-2005, primarily taking care of production planning, purchase of packaging and raw materials. The circumstances, as they evolved, led Aaditya to consider making a foray into packaging.

Meanwhile, Aaditya and Khushboo decided to move to Baddi to set up a pharma unit extension of GALPHA, manufacturing formulations. Aaditya’s experience as a banker kept bringing to him the realization that if two people are doing the same thing, then the output is restricted. He started looking at some other venture. His brother-in-law Dr J P N SINGH (Khushboo’s sister’s husband), who also is looked upon as a mentor by Aaditya, was making pet bottles, suggested label manufacturing and that, eventually led him to decide on labels. JPN had prompted, “all the bottles I make will have labels made by you on them”. His father-in-law NK Singh and grandfather Samprada Singh all agreed that labels were good business. So, in 2011 the decision was taken to set up a label manufacturing unit. The initial two and half years were spent trading in labels, outsourcing them from different vendors and supplying to group companies. During this period, he spent much time with the printers at their factories, getting the right kind of labels and in the process learnt the basics of label manufacturing from prepress to plate making and finally converting. He is indebted to Datta Ram Fulsundar of Aarya Printpack - Mumbai, with whom he had confided about setting up his unit, yet the printer agreed to teach and train him all about manufacturing labels.

Since Aaditya had made up his mind to invest in a label press and print labels himself, JPN mentoring him on, suggested; that to test the heat, one should check with just a finger touch before putting your hand in, meaning start the operation at a tiny stage and go thereon. In November 2013, Aaditya, with his wife Khushboo as a partner, launched their maiden startup venture, Marks Fine Printers in Baddi Himachal Pradesh, in a 2000 square feet industrial shed with just one Chinese stack type flexo label press. While Khushboo continued to look after GALPHA Laboratories Baddi, Aaditya got full time into setting up the label unit. The first order, even though it came from a family-owned company GALPHA laboratories, the experience was, as Aaditya says, “Exhilarating! It was like scoring a maiden cricket century.” For the next two years, they catered to family-owned pharma companies. The biggest challenge was getting the suitable operators and people to run the press but then time elapsed, which has taught him to manage that. 2 years after initiation, Aaditya seemed to have tested the heat and confidence, invested in a Bobst label press. Once the operations were well set, it was time to get customers beyond the family companies. The natural step was to rope in companies that were contract manufacturers to the group. Subsequently, they ventured out to service customers outside the family reach, initially it was all pharma as they had much experience in the segment, but later, they got into all segments like Food, FMCG, Liquor and others. He remains indebted to the four mentors that including his father. It is their advice that made this possible. Aaditya always wanted to be like his father, who taught him; "The name that you earn, always has more value than the money earned".  Walking on his father's footsteps, Aaditya has ensured a good name for himself along with setting up a successful business. Once established, it was time to get experienced professionals in and systemize the whole operations. They looked around and slowly got their team together.

C K, Aaditya with Ferdi and Sameer of Gallus 

In packaging requirements for pharmaceuticals, the size of labels is relatively small, but when Aaditya started to look at other segments, the label size was much bigger, which meant that with the same inputs and infrastructure, the costing would be different, turnover would grow bigger. This was an exciting realization, and the vision to expand started getting more precise. Initially, Aaditya had planned to add a press every three years, but this new realization prompted him to grow exponentially. He established the new company Marks Emballage Pvt. Ltd. in 2018 to invest in two Gallus label presses in one go. Hoping to make a substantial impact in the Indian label industry with their big move, however, as luck would have it, they started printing on these two presses in April 2020 when the pandemic hit across. Covid has been a difficult time for Marks Emballage. The first few days were a mixture of too many different feelings inside, from the fear of the unknown, concern for employee’s safety, responsibilities to serve the customers. Despite the uncertainties, they gathered themselves and planned to navigate through the difficult time. This was possible only with the total dedication of their team, who put up great courage and kept the business going and growing. They realize that going into the future, leaner companies and more automation will be the way forward. Cloud technologies, robotics, artificial intelligence, and virtual reality combined will reduce human physical contact and dependence. This will be the biggest shift for all businesses and Marks is no exception. This goes on to validate their investment in the right equipment, processes, certifications, and team.

Author with Aaditya on shopfloor

Besides having residence in Mumbai, Aaditya and Khushboo now stay in Chandigarh with their 8-year-old daughter Kiara. While they complement each other in work yet look after different businesses. Marks Emballage Pvt. Ltd. is a fast-growing company headquartered at Chandigarh and operates out of factories at two locations in Baddi. The plant is spread over 30,000 square feet and equipped with some of the finest equipment like print kits from Gallus, Bobst, AVT, Prati , Pantec and Xrite. A team of 60 people is creating a work culture of excellence. Talking of new ideas and projects and the vision for the next five years, Aaditya says, “We have too many ideas to implement. I am working on many exciting new projects in technology, consumer products, packaging, and pharma. We aspire to roll out at least one new project every year for the next five years. This is the time for us to spread our wings before getting into a consolidation mode in 5 years. 

CK Gadhia of Marks giving student of year awards

The journey has just begun”. Marks Emballage has, as a part of its CSR initiative, invested in sponsoring the annual “Printweek Student of the year” award. They are very keen to backup educational initiatives for encouraging the new generation to take up print as a career. 

As he plans his way forward in the label and packaging field, Aaditya makes a fervent appeal to peers, “I would like to appeal to all the fellow label printers that we should all work with better collaboration and work with each other rather than work against each other. Together we can have great strength to backup print education to ease our recruitment needs, have complimentary print technologies to avoid idle capacities, and have a better say in purchase or sales negotiations. The advantages are just many. It is time to team up and grow the industry together. We need to increase the overall pie. While we are all doing the basics of waste management today, the need of the hour is to attack the problem from the very base. We are studying and closely following linerless labels and believe that they can be a game-changer for our industry. As per industry reports, only 5% of the laminates and self-adhesive label stock is reused or recycled. This area demands our closest attention. 

Marks Emballage is a company to watch, as an ambitious team aspires to grow 10-fold by the end next five years. With a young, dynamic leader like Aaditya Kashyap at the helm, hoping the pandemic's after-effects soon end, this company will be moving fast to achieve targets and move tangentially, investing in technologies in synergy.

 

Written by Harveer Sahni Chairman Weldon Celloplast Limited New Delhi July 2021

Dettol Labels used to salute "Covid Warriors"!

Never in our lifetime, the world has witnessed such a calamity as that caused by the pandemic, due to the lethal corona virus. Its reach has been unlimited and spread across almost all geographical regions of earth causing severe devastation, such that millions of people have got impacted, many have succumbed to the disease. Governments in most countries had no alternative but to declare lockdowns to stem the progress of this deadly virus and save precious lives of their citizens. Businesses came to a standstill globally, the economies saw a downturn, jobs were lost, and negative sentiments prevailed creating need for governments to announce financial relief packages to support their populations for survival, their livelihood or preventing closure of businesses. The increasing rate of infections and fatalities triggered a frantic search for vaccines. Such was the emergent need that governments had to forego set procedures of testing for years, before giving permission for any vaccine to be injected to people all over the world. Health infrastructure in most developing and even in developed countries came under extreme stress. Such was the relentless escalation of the rate of those infected that health workers were either falling short or were also getting affected, many losing their life in line of duty. At this time, many ordinary people stood up, despite the challenges, to serve the cause and call of humanity to rescue and help those suffering and in dire need. Not caring for their own lives, they put in their time, money and efforts to save those who were helpless and needed support. Whether it was arranging oxygen, medicines, hospital beds or providing transport and help for putting to rest with respect, those who unfortunately lost their battle and passed away fighting the infection. Even relatives at these times are hesitant or advised to stay away from those infected, living or dead. These brave-hearts, who ventured out from the safe confines of their home to come out and serve mankind at this traumatic time in whatever way they could, came to be called “Covid warriors”. Humanity will and should, remain indebted to these dedicated persons some of whom also lost their life in the process.

In a unique way FMCG major Reckitt Benckiser or hereinafter referred to as RB,  decided to honour these Covid Warriors, who not only contributed to the cause but also set examples for others to follow. RB’s marketing team came up with this idea to honour such people who endeavored to indulge in service despite the risks of getting infected themselves. They also thought of taking forward the government’s call that came through prime minister Modi, “Banega swachh India” means India will become clean and this later transformed to yet another call. “Banega Swasth India” means India will become healthy. The idea was adopted, and Dettol was the ideal product through which promotion could be carried out as it was synonymous with cleanliness, health consciousness and sanitisation. The packaging development team at RB took up the project and formulated a scheme to identify the covid warriors and put their pictures on the Dettol bottle labels with their story as to how they contributed to fighting the pandemic. The next challenge was to identify the persons to be covered, an exercise was done with help of team, inputs from social media and media agencies connected to RB to identify the people that would be covered. In April and May 2020 lot of such stories were appearing in news and social media so 100 persons were identified, and their stories were selected to appear on the Dettol bottle labels.

Additionally, they created another website, “Dettol Salutes”, whereby anyone who wants to create a label with his own picture, one can log on to the site and create a mockup digitally with a story to generate a virtual image of a label on a Dettol bottle and keep the digital copy as  a momento. Prebuilt appreciation stories are uploaded on the website to be used. This option is only for creating a digital image but for the 100 covid warrior stories it was decided to print the labels, affix them on the bottles and market through their distribution channels. It is heartening to note that Dettol Salutes has seen 200,000 people have already uploaded their pictures creating their images on a Dettol label affixed on a bottle and the number is growing.

Being RB’s way to celebrating the covid warriors, they wanted a maximum number of variants to be available on each shelf, it was decided to have 1-100 variants one after the other consecutively and then repeated so that at the packaging line each shipper carton would have different stories on every pack. A small retail outlet who buys one carton only will have all bottles different from each other. The need for such variables to be printed made it very clear that this was ideal case for creativity that could be achieved on digital printing presses. So, from within their approved suppliers they selected Skanem and Huhtamaki to do the job who were suitably equipped and could meet RB’s need to do this quickly. Since the vendors wished to print CMYK only it was a challenge to get as close to the pantone shade in which Dettol brand is printed. By mutual cooperation between RB and the vendors, this was achieved to almost similar existing shades done on flexo for regular Dettol labels. RB even removed their own logo on the bottles to make space for the pictures and stories of Covid warriors The total run for this campaign from the first week of June 2021 for just over a month until the second week of July was planned at 4 million (40 Lakh) packs to be put into the market.

Huhtamaki PPL Ltd. India (HPPL) part of Huhtamäki Oyj, Finland is one of  India's leading manufacturer of primary consumer packaging and labelling materials. They were one of the two approved vendors of RB that were selected to produce labels for this special campaign to celebrate Covid warriors. According to Huhtamaki, “Reckitt and Huhtamaki India partnered to deliver some warranted consumer attention to our pandemic heroes. We printed over 100 uniquely inspiring stories on PS labels to pay tribute to the unsung ones! This is a special project for us since it also gave our internal teams a reason to celebrate record-breaking, speed-to-market performance, despite time-constraints and other complexities. It reinforced the idea of the whole being greater than the sum of its parts. Our sense of customer-centricity and cross-team collaboration was the key!” They further added, “Our HP Indigo 20000 wide-web digital press has afforded unique possibilities of bringing brands further alive through packaging. With strong partner collaborations, we have helped in elevating consumption experiences with striking pack designs using Variable Data Printing for mass customizations.”

Skanem Interlabels, a part of Norway headquartered Skanem AS was the other approved vendor of RB who were roped in to execute this special campaign of Dettol customized labels. According to Nalin Gupta regional Sales Head-North for Skanem, “We did this project in record time! We are proud of having done this campaign”. The deliberations for this campaign started when Reckitt approached Skanem in second week of May 2021 and discussed the possibility of creating 100 variably printed unique labels. Having an HP Indigo press the capability was there, and thus the preparations started in the right earnest. They were given an order for 2 million labels; the other 2 million labels order was given to Huhtamaki.  It was a gigantic task as there were 100 artworks, mutual cooperation was an imperative to create the labels in speed. RB wanted the right pantone shade of Dettol and the job had to be done in speed so Skanem requested RB to give them the artworks also in CMYK because to match the green Dettol shade as close as possible to the required shade it is necessary to have the prepress right. The approvals were done online without wasting any time as the timeline for delivery was a mere 3-4 weeks. By end of May the first order was supplied to RB by Skanem to reach their factory on 2^nd June and it went into production by 5^th or 6^th of June 2021. There were challenges but backups were created so that there were no bottlenecks. The flexible dies were sourced from Germany, but spare flat-bed dies were kept in readiness to be the backup for any delay.

With RB producing 100,000 to 150,000 packs per day, the whole project would be completed in 30 to 35 days. The experience of capabilities at hand with digital printing has given fillip to the new marketing ideas to the RB marketing and packaging development team. They are very excited to use more of the variable printing possibilities of digital label printing in future. The success of this campaign is attributed to excellent teamwork of RB, Skanem, and Huhtamaki. It is a matter of coincidence that both vendors converted the labels on HP Indigo digital label presses. Digital label printing has hesitantly but surely made their place in the Indian label industry and such campaigns that also have social message gives a reason for label printers to invest in digital printing which opens a plethora of opportunities. According to Umesh Kagade, Segment manager, Labels & Packaging at HP, "Brand Marketing is about telling powerful stories, Dettol told amazing stories of common men as protectors and warriors that relates to the brand.  We salute Dettol team for conceptualising such an amazing campaign considering the complexity and the variable designs, coupled with Speed of delivery. The campaign  is generating an amazing traction in social media". 

Digital label printing is surely emerging as a very important and strong marketing tool that can present enormous possibilities of customization even for short runs.

Written by Harveer Sahni, Chairman Weldon Celloplast Ltd. New Delhi June 2021

Printing magazines and publication may reproduce the article giving credit to author.

The article is the author's personal tribute to these "Covid warriors"