Self Adhesive Labels Industry In India and The World: 2023

Thursday, December 21, 2023

The young czars of Indian Label industry!

While the Indian labels industry keeps evolving, adapting different printing and converting technologies, there is also a generational change happening in the leadership. Most of the founders, while still active as mentors, have passed on substantial decision making to their next generation who are now in the lower middle age group of 40 years, plus or minus 3 years. All those who I have covered belong to family managed companies. Though largely these young inheritors are the influencers or drivers of growth in their respective companies, yet, complying to the cultural heritage passed on in the Indian families, they give the credit to their parents or their mentors who founded the company. This is so heartwarming! These young men are professionally trained, well-educated and are always ready to adopt new managing systems. They do not hesitate to invest in new and innovative capital equipment to stay ahead of competition and drive expansion. They have come to establish themselves as the young czars of Indian label Industry.

Hemanth Paruchuri

Pragati Pack Pvt. Ltd., part of the Pragati Offset Printers group Hyderabad, founded by the legendary Paruchuri Hanumantha Rao in 1962, is led by his 37-year-old grandson Hemanth Paruchuri who is taking care of the packaging business in the group. The commercial printing business is taken care of by his brother Harsha Paruchuri. Hemanth is qualified Mechanical Engineer, an Alumnus of Purdue University Indiana USA, he has been mentored by his father Narendra Paruchuri who is an industry stalwart. Joining the company in 2007, he learnt the business hands-on practically, while working within Pragati. Presently, designated as director with responsibilities that include development, production, marketing and selecting areas of further expansion as well as identifying appropriate capex investment.

When Hemanth joined Pragati, packaging was just a small part of their business, which has now become 75% of the company’s overall business. Pragati is one of the highest awarded printing companies in India. Their annual calendar created by great teamwork at their commercial printing division is a piece of art that people preserve as prized collections. Talking of future, Hemanth says, “Plan is to keep growing in packaging and in labels by doing more specialized labels predominantly self-adhesive.”

For labels and packaging they operate at multiple locations in Hyderabad and in Noida. As for roll labels they have three flexo presses and one HP Indigo label press, for sheetfed they have a small Konica Minolta digital press. For digital sheetfed packaging they may invest in larger sheetfed press in digital. Total manufacturing area for labels and packaging is spread over 440,000 square feet in Hyderabad, 120,000 square feet in Noida plus 80,000 square feet for commercial printing. The workforce for labels and packaging is 700, and 300 is for commercial printing.

Ankit Gupta

Alumnus of Harvard Business School, UCLA Anderson and IIM-A 42-year-old Ankit Gupta, Joint Managing Director of Holostik India Limited, had pursued higher education after completing his BE in computer science. He along with his brother Shobhit Gupta took over the reigns of Holostik, a company founded in 1991 by their illustrious father Umendra Kumar Gupta who was leading personality in the Hologram and anti-counterfeiting label and packaging industry and passed away due to Covid in 2021. After a stint at A V Birla group as an IT engineer, he joined Holostik in 2005 as head of its real estate and chemical verticals. Thereafter, from 2007- 2020 headed the MarCom, HR, and Strategy followed by heading the Sales department. After taking over as Joint MD in 2021, he launched NaturTrust, the bio-degradable and compostable packaging business in the year 2022.

Ankit’s achievements include winning the prestigious Larry Wolfen Award for Entrepreneurial Spirit in 2006. Investing in multiple start-ups including Edukart - India’s leading education marketplace that was later acquired by Paytm and Bedrock Ventures and Mentoring and angel-investing in more than 15 successful startups across India. For future he plans to keep working on innovation and integration of innovative technologies to fight the cause of counterfeiting, explore new markets and geographies both in India and globally and increase the use of sustainable technologies as their commitment to a green earth. Holostik India Ltd. is headquartered at Noida producing Anti-counterfeit security OVDs (Holograms), Security Labels, 3D Labels, Holographic Packaging Films, Induction Liners, Digital Supply Chain Solutions among many others. They operate with 450 employees out of the 100,000 square feet shop floor with three European Flexo label presses and 2 Screen Printing Presses besides a host of other equipment.

Naveen Goel

Thirty-eight-year-old Naveen Goel is the Managing Director of Noida based Any Graphics, founded in 1987 by his father Kuldip Goel, past President of LMAI. After completing his MBA, Naveen joined Any Graphics in 2009, beginning his career in printing and packaging as Director marketing, responsible for business development, client acquisition, customer relations and direct sales for the company. 14 years on, now as Managing Director, he is committed and focused to providing solutions to customers across all sectors providing innovations, value engineering or cost engineering. Naveen says. ”Leading the company from 60 people to 800 people over the last decade has been a satisfying journey. Being second generation, it was very important for me to sustain the founder's vision to consistently innovate and handcraft solutions to diverse needs of the customers.”

Any Graphics has achieved exceptional growth through sharp focus on award-winning products and solutions that include Rigid Boxes, Labels, Mono Cartons, Dome Stickers, Panel Overlays and Decals. They employ an 800 strong workforce operating with 6 label presses and many sheet fed, screen, digital presses and a lot of other allied equipment from 250,000 square feet shopfloor in 15500 square meters of land.

Prakash Shivlani

Prakash Printers and Coaters Pvt. Ltd., established in 1975 by Thakurdas J Shivlani in Ahmedabad, is now led by his 40-year-old son Prakash Shivlani as Director. Prakash joined the family business while still in school as a salesperson. Those days they used to print on sheet Offset and were amongst the first ones in the Gujarat region for printing sticker labels exclusively. Transforming the sticker business to labels in roll form, they initially installed some smaller Flatbed and Letterpress narrow web presses machines Onda and Iwasaki. Later at the start of a new millennium, as business grew, they installed a CI Flexo from Etirama, Brazil.

After completing his undergraduate studies, Prakash joined the family business in 1997 sharing responsibilities along with his father, specialising in sales, however he now also takes care of production. Their production profile now includes Labels, Shrink Sleeves, Flexible laminates. They also produce silicone liners, Hotmelt adhesive label stock with diverse face stocks like Holographic/Metalized paper, Aluminum Foil , 2/3-layer substrates for In-house consumption. Prakash endeavors to expand into packaging in the near future. Presently they operate with seven European flexo presses besides other equipment from a 355,000 square foot shop floor with 150 employees.

Krish Chhatwal

29-year-old Krish Chhatwal is the grandson of late Narendra Chhatwal who migrated to New Delhi after partition of India in 1947 and worked for the famous Kwality Restaurant. In 1962 he set up his maiden venture, a printing press and nostalgically named it Kwality Carton manufacturing company. Later, the name was changed to Kwality labels unit of Kwality Offset Printers. Krish Chhatwal, a BBA in Finance and Marketing has been the director of Kwality Labels since 2017. He initially worked as a trainee in all departments of the company learning the nuances of printing. As for sales, he made cold calls, met potential clients and gained new ones for the company. Accompanying his mentor, his father Rajeev Chhatwal, visiting expos around the world, he realised the growth potential of labels industry.

After his active involvement, Kwality invested in a Xeikon digital toner label press, implemented ERP systems, Inspection systems, hybrid Xrite colorcert software for Density control of colours and software for pre-press. They have won awards for excellence from Printweek, NAEP, LMAI, Finat, Asian print excellence and many more. Krish plans to make continuous investments in equipment to produce highly embellished and security labels. They operate with 110 employees and seven label presses complementing their offset presses and allied equipment in a shopfloor admeasuring 35000 square feet, producing Self-adhesive labels, Anti counterfeit security labels, Wet glue labels, Variable data labels, Customized and Personalised labels, consuming more than 800,000 square meters of label stock.

Priyank Vasa

Founded in 1992 by Hemen Vasa and Bhupen Vasa, Unick fix-a-form & Printers Ltd. Ahmedabad is a specialized producer of functional Labels, multilayer leaflet/booklet labels, piggyback dual labels, tri layer labels, scratch off labels, hanger labels, special peel and seal labels for pharma applications, shrink sleeves, etc. Heman Vasa’s 31-year-old son Priyank Vasa, a BE in Printing Technology from Manipal Institute of Technology, is now the youthful leader at Unick fix-a-form. He is designated as development & strategy director. Priyank specialized in Financial Modelling and Analysis. Before joining the company in 2014, he had spent his summer break as a trainee in the company while still pursuing his engineering. After joining, Priyank supported the sales team with new developments and innovations to venture into segments outside their comfort zone of pharma. He later also became part of the QA team to standardise inputs, ensuring error-free products.

Priyank has been instrumental in implementing ERP systems for smooth operations. Since their specialized labels lacked in aesthetics, he led the implementation of value additions like screen printing, embellishments, using special inks varnishes foils, metallics, touch and feel effects etc. The company has further undertaken projects to curb expenses, reduce wastage and optimise production processes. Unick operates from a 30,000 square feet shopfloor with 5 label presses and 250 strong workforce consuming 400,000 square meters of label stocks per month for their specialty labels.

Aaditya Kashyap

41-year-old Aditya Kashyap is himself the founder and Managing Director of Baddi based Marks Emballage Private Limited and Marks group, that he established in 2011. An alumnus of the famous Ruia College Mumbai, he worked briefly in an international bank and later got trained in family-owned large Pharma companies for packaging development and purchase, followed by interning as a trainee in a label manufacturing unit before initiating his maiden venture. With Two Gallus label presses that he bought in one go, one Bobst Label press, AVT inspection system, Prati finishing machine, Pantec embellishing equipment, Xrite and much more, the company shopfloor is spread across 30,000 square feet having 60 employees. On his journey so far Aaditya says, “The journey has just begun, after setting the unit from scratch to what it is now.” He further adds,” “though we are setting up professional management, yet I am still involved to implement my vision of creating a world class company.”

As a part of its CSR initiative, Marks group has invested in sponsoring the annual “Printweek Student of the year” award to backup educational initiatives for encouraging young people to take up print as a career. Aaditya aims to grow the company multifold in coming years with his latest ideas. He aspires to roll out at least one new project every year for the next five years. He is pensive in his thoughts, ”this is the time for us to spread our wings before getting into a consolidation mode. “

A relatively new entrant in the self-adhesive labels industry 35-year-old Vatsal Vora Director of Asean Pack Ahmedabad, has achieved amazing success in just 5 years including the 2 years passed in covid. Asean Pack was founded by Vatsal in 2018 after completing his MBA. In a short span of time the company is producing Pressure Sensitive Adhesive labels, Shrink Sleeves and In-Mold Labels (IML) in a 40,000 square feet shop floor with 2 Bobst label presses and one HP Indigo Digital label press working with 115 employees.

He plans to add one more press in 2024 followed by yet another in 2025. Thereafter he aspires to make continuous growth to increase their product range to include flexible packaging focused in producing pouch packaging coming from the short run customized and personalized packaging by adding more flexo and digital printing equipment.

Tejas Tanna

Tejas Tanna aged 42 years, had in 2005, joined Printmann Offset Pvt. Ltd. after getting a Diploma in printing technology and B.S. (Bachelor of Science) degree from Rochester Institute of Technology New York USA. Printmann was founded in 1987 by his father Bipin Tanna the Chairman and Managing Director of the company. While working in the company Tejas parallelly pursued studies for getting an MBA from NMIMS (Narsee Monjee Institute of Management Studies) followed by a crash course in packaging from the Indian Institute of Packaging. Tejas and his 36-year-old brother Ankit Tanna are directors at Printmann with Tejas looking after sales and marketing, quality assurance and new product development and Ankit taking care of supply chain and operations. Ankit is an MS in finance from Manchester. Printmann started with commercial printing but by 1991 they felt the need of diversification for future growth and since they were into marketing collaterals for FMCG sector they opted to concentrate on packaging focused on the pharma and health care segment. Now, 80-90% of their business comes from this sector. They supply whatever these companies require in the printed packaging space, which includes cartons, labels, leaflets and foil. Tejas says ,”We are perhaps the only company to offer all the four verticals from just one source.” With European Pharma companies making tamper evident labels mandatory, Printmann is now producing these as well. They are three times winner of Printweek packaging company of the year award, including one that they got this year. For making capex decisions, the brothers become influencers and since their father is controlling finance the final decision is a joint call that is made by all three.

Printmann’s main factory is in Navi Mumbai, for expansion, they were looking for land outside Mumbai and fortunately the adjoining plot became available which they acquired, constructed during covid years and shifted their carton division there. They have another unit for blister foil manufacturing in Vasai. Between the three locations, they work out of 160,000 square feet shopfloor with over 300 employees clocking a turnover of Rupees 160 Crores last year which is expected to rise to 180 crores in this fiscal year. Summing up, Tejas emphasizes, “We understand our responsibility to remain sustainable and thus we have commenced our journey towards sustainability. We are implementing safety measures, EHS (Environment, Health, and Safety) systems and are tracking carbon footprints. We have hired PWC to advise and hand hold us in our endeavours on EHS.”

Denver Annunciation

Janus International led by brothers Denver Annunciation 43 years and Janus Annunciation 36 years is a producer of a wide range of print and packaging products like PSA Labels, In-mold labels, Shrink sleeves, folding cartons, rigid boxes, eflute mono cartons, etc. The company was founded by their father Joe Annunciation in 1999. Both brothers are MBAs and alumnus of S P Jain Institute of Management and Research. Denver joined the company in 2001 and Janus joined five years later in 2006. “It has been an exhilarating experience running and growing the company so far, I am looking at much more” says Denver. He had joined the company when they had just 9 employees in a 500 square feet shopfloor. This has grown to 202 employees in three buildings at the same location in Thane spread over 55,000 square feet. Janus International has 7 flexo presses, one HP Indigo digital press and 3 offset presses.

Talking of the future, Denver mentions firmly that they endeavour to create a World class manufacturing company with ongoing stable growth. The company registered a sale of Rupees 83 Crores in the last financial year and they are confident to double it in 3 years.

Vipul Gulati

Alpine containers Pvt. Ltd. Jammu is a company producing labels and packaging, at the northern most location in India for labels, founded by Harish Gulati who mentored his 40-year-old son Vipul Gulati from starting as a trainee to taking up a leadership role in expanding the company. Though Harish had set up the printing business manufacturing mono cartons in 1978 in an 800 square foot premises, but Vipul joined in 2003. The present company Alpine was established in 2008 when they expanded into corrugated board cartons. In 2012 they installed an automatic corrugation plant, the first one to be setup in entire region of Punjab and Jammu and Kashmir. Vipul Gulati did his schooling from Prestigious Maharaja Hari Singh School Nagbani and BBA degree from Lovely University. Vipul led Alpine’s venturing into label manufacturing in 2015 with installation of a Gallus ECS 340 label press then a Mark Andy P 7 in 2019 and another Label press in 2022 along with 3 inspection machines and screen-printing machine. As Executive Director of the company, Vipul is responsible for purchases, new developments, expansion and day-to-day operations. He is expanding label business beyond Jammu, setting up a manufacturing plant in Gujarat.

The company is now operating from two locations in a shop floor admeasuring 200,000 square feet employing more than 250 people. As for labels, they consume in excess of 400,000 square meters of self adhesive labelstock which is likely to increase exponentially once the expansions being undertaken are completed.

Written by Harveer Sahni Chairman Weldon Celloplast Limited, New Delhi-110008 December 2023

Tuesday, November 14, 2023

A professional climbing the rungs like an entrepreneur!

Chandan Khanna

Prologue by author: In 2010 I wrote an article on Chandan Khanna, where he expressed, “I wanted to be different”! Six years later after visiting his label manufacturing unit in Thailand I wrote again quoting him in the title, “I am different”. He has time and again proved that he is not the one to stay stagnant and moves on in life. He sold his Indian operations at a pinnacle and moved into other arenas in pursuit of businesses pursuing passions other than labels. While his Thailand and Sharjah unit are still in good operations, he did not indulge personally but mentored and groomed a person who joined him in the initial stages of his career as an assistant manager. His protégé, Sachin Arya was a quick learner and a committed honcho who climbed the rungs in labels like an entrepreneur. Yes, Chandan Khanna, you proved you are different!

Sachin Arya, hailing from Faridabad a suburb of New Delhi joined Ajanta Packaging in 2008 as assistant Manager at their Baddi unit in the North Indian state of Himachal Pradesh. After short internships at a couple of international banks he did his MBA from IILM Delhi in 2005 and set up own startup for export and import business in partnership with a friend. While he and his partner were contemplating a foray in to labels industry by importing labelstocks, Sachin came in contact with Chandan Khanna. While he was still trying to understand the labels business, Chandan made him an offer to join his company and asked him to go for some time to his Baddi unit to learn and get a feel of things. He went to Baddi for a week and the team at Ajanta made sincere efforts to teach him the nuances of printing and managing a labels unit. Sachin was a good learner and seriously indulged in getting a feel of all the processes. Though He liked the feel of the labels business yet his commitment to his friend with whom he was in partnership in the import export business was bothering him, leaving their startup suddenly was not sounding right. Since there were some projects that Sachin had initiated so he needed time to complete them before joining Ajanta fulltime. Chandan Khanna is a farsighted businessman, and he had the patience as he saw the potential in Sachin and thus for a year Chandan let him finish his projects and attend to Ajanta’s work for a couple of days each week shuttling between Delhi and Baddi. A year later Sachin completed his pending projects and amicably, both friends agreed to dissolve the partnership. Sachin gave up his share to his friend who still runs that business and himself joined Ajanta Packaging Baddi, full time.

Sachin’s father now retired, had worked as Finance Manager in Friends Auto India Ltd Faridabad for over 30-35 years. His son Sachin was born and brought up in Delhi and moved to Faridabad in 2004 after he finished his education. On joining Ajanta Packaging in Baddi he realised, his learning in labels was limited and he was almost a novice. He did not have a thorough knowledge of fine printing and least of all managing a label manufacturing unit. It was a big change for him to move from a self-owned trading enterprise to working for a service-oriented industry. It was a time when Ajanta’s packaging’s Baddi unit was trying to qualify for P&G (Proctor and Gamble) and the unit was not yet ready for the qualification. Though they were in production, yet to meet the stringent requirements for P&G, there was a lot that needed to be done. Sachin’s original brief was that he was to be in marketing and rest, he needed to find his way around in the company. He was an indulgent worker from day one and initiated his work by putting together SOPs. He got help from the P&G team and his senior, the plant manager, who is an experienced industry professional. While the P&G audit was underway and had yet to be cleared, the plant manager who was heading the enterprise at Baddi suddenly quit the job, just days before the audit. Unfortunately, Ajanta failed that audit but with sympathetic consideration, P&G understood their situation and gave them another final opportunity on date just two months later for another audit. As all responsibility fell on Sachin and it was a challenging situation, he decided to meet the challenge head-on. He hired some knowledgeable people, revisited all parameters and finally got the audit cleared.

The learning: P&G gave them an artwork for “Pantene” a job which was tough, and which they were printing in Ajanta Thailand, on offset with a vignette in single colour from zero to hundred percent. That label was a real challenge. The label also had printing in gravure and screen, and they were to create that on their nine colour flexopress. They also had to print by flexo, the “Head & Shoulder” label by matching the metallic silver that was earlier done on gravure. Having no knowledge, Sachin took the challenge in his stride and worked on it contacting suppliers like Siegwerk and Eckart for support. He even spent a couple of days at the Siegwerk lab learning CIELAB and matching colours to print successfully. The CIE in CIELAB is the abbreviation for the International Commission on Illumination's French name, Commission Internationale de l´Eclairage. The letters L*, a* and b* represent each of the three values the CIELAB color space uses to measure objective color and calculate color differences. The L*A*B* stand for L* indicates lightness, a* is the red/green coordinate, and b* is the yellow/blue coordinate. He was required to match Delta E values and send ink drawdowns to the buyers. Delta E is measured on a scale from 0 to 100, where 0 is less color difference, and 100 indicates complete distortion. It was the first time in his life that he saw a spectrophotometer. When the Siegwerk lab staff showed him, the blue looking a little red, he was surprised how blue can look red? Sachin put in hard work to learn travelling daily from Faridabad to Siegwerk factory in Bhiwadi in Rajasthan, a distance of more than 90 Kms each way. Once back in Baddi, Sachin was able to successfully match the colours, adding more aniloxes to their existing anilox rolls library to get the finer output and at a time when HD flexo was not yet available. His biggest learnings came from all industry suppliers. He learnt the value of cleaner aniloxes so also requisitioned an anilox cleaner. When the challenge came for screen printing, he requested support from Stork. The P&G audit was cleared and then onwards there was no looking back. There was capacity enhancement at Ajanta and Sachin so rightly gives all the credit for his learning to his mentor and boss, the farsighted Chandan Khanna, who reposed full trust in Sachin’s capabilities and kept on investing on Sachin’s grooming as a technically sound person with leadership qualities. Chandan continued to invest in multiple label presses and increasing the capacity of the Baddi unit. This was beside his manufacturing facility in Daman in the west of India and the unit in Thailand. Sitting in faraway Mumbai, he reposed full trust in Sachin and his capability to come up to expectations.

Ajanta Packaging Thailand

Career journey: Chandan had seen and sensed the caliber of Sachin and training did not end at just making him technically sound. He further entrusted him with marketing, besides being the key account manager for P&G as well, to complete the leadership acumen in him with hands-on experience. Sachin set up his systems and a team at production and himself started travelling with marketing teams to brand owners and other customers understanding their requirements and explaining to them the intricacies of their capability to create labels that add value and enhance the sale ability of the product adorning them. Brand owners make artworks on a computer but how it must be converted on complex substrates from the conceptualised label design needs a lot of technical consideration. For this reason, his travel with the marketing and sales teams was an asset in converting efforts to orders. From his initial designation as an assistant Manager at Baddi Sachin rose became the general manager and his presence became necessary wherever in the group new press installation was being done, may it be in Baddi, Daman, Thailand or Sharjah in UAE.

Sachin Arya

Rising to the top: From 2008 to 2015, Sachin had transformed from a novice to an expert, though he firmly believes he has still to learn a lot but is sure that whatever is challenge, he can work his way with support from his mentor, suppliers, industry colleagues and his team, to meet it. If anyone can create an innovative label, he can also replicate. If there are processes that they don’t know or do not have the capability, with Chandan’s active encouragement and support in investment and Sachin’s own eagerness to learn, he could also do the needful. When growth prospects became evident in Sharjah, they had to get the qualification for P&G there also. Sachin with his experience was offered by Chandan to move to Sharjah more so because the team at Baddi was all set to take care, themself. Sachin and his wife had a growing child and wished to move from Baddi and this offer from Chandan suited his needs and after a smooth transition to team at Baddi, he moved to Ajanta Sharjah to work under the then General Manager. Six months after Sachin joined Ajanta UAE, Chandan found the unit was not doing well, the way he envisaged and at that time the then General manager resigned and quit Ajanta UAE. Since Sachin was already there the responsibility fell on his shoulders. As a first step he got the qualification done from P&G by replicating the success he had with them in Baddi. It took him a while to understand the laws and their implications in UAE and the way business was conducted in the Middle East. In 2016 he was formally handed over the full charge of the unit as general Manager of the UAE company. In two years by 2018 the company with day-to-day guidance from Chandan Khanna, achieved stability and was on it way to growth.

Team Ajanta in front of Sharjah Factory

By this time, Chandan was restless and wished to move into other arenas and pursue other lines of business. He sold his India operations to Huhtamaki India retaining the operations in Thailand and UAE. Ajanta UAE was being run well and he adopted a hands-off approach and let Sachin run the company like an entrepreneur and being available whenever he was needed. The company became system driven and he was reached out only for capex or urgent approvals. In 2021 Sachin’s designation was changed to Managing Director, while Chandan is the group Managing Director and Chandan’s father the Chairman of the company. Both Chandan and his father do visit Ajanta occasionally but since all is going well, they have given a free hand to Sachin to run the unit efficiently. Talking of the difference between his profile in Baddi India to now is rightly expressed by Sachin. He mentions that in India he was just a part of the team and was not responsible for the results other than those in his limited profile but here he is answerable for everything including profitability and growth of the company. He is proud to report that with the help of the team created, the turnover of Ajanta UAE has doubled in the last five years, and he targets another 100% growth in the next three years!

Author with Sachin

His vision and efforts have been to bring efficiency in production with existing equipment to achieve. He remains committed to achieving more with less. After his taking charge, two Omet Iflex and one Iwasaki have been added to the existing number of machines at Sharjah. Talking of digital label printing, he says the Khanna family and their company heritage is from offset printing business and for that they find the quality of Iwasaki intermittent offset presses that they have, as the preferred technology. As per the customer base they have, they do not accept very short runs but most of the jobs that are short runs for flexo process, they do it cost effectively with good results on the Iwasaki offset presses and they convert the longer runs on their flexo presses. Presently at Sharjah they have eight label presses out of which five are from Iwasaki, one Nilpeter and two Omets. The total workforce in the unit is 120 operating from 18000 square feet shopfloor. For future they are building a 100,000 square feet factory at Umm Al Quwain. In terms of sustainability, they are working on various things like Solar energy, working with brands to downscale the substance weights, switching to filmic liner thereby reducing tonnage and possibility of recyclability.

Sachin’s wife Sapna is a HR professional, but both are clear not to bring office to home and not take home to office and that is why they decide they will not work in same company. Their son Shamir is 10 years old and goes to Sharjah English School. Chandan’s farsighted approach has transformed a professional employee Sachin to climb the rungs of label industry and work like an entrepreneur doing justice to the trust imposed on him by his mentor Chandan Khanna.

Written by Harveer Sahni Chairman Weldon Celloplast Limited New Delhi Nov. 2023

Monday, October 23, 2023

LMAI’s initiatives on sustainability go north to Chandigarh!

LMAI, The Label Manufacturers Association of India has been spreading the message of an imperative need of implementing sustainability in their member’s products and manufacturing processes. Earlier this year in July 2023 for the highly successful and largely attended LMAI conference at Jaipur, the theme was, “Creativity Innovation and Sustainability”. Leading industry suppliers delivered presentations at the conference on how they were making their product offerings sustainable. In my article titled “Sustainability and circular economy in manufacturing labels” and available on this blog, as also in my opening remarks during a panel discussion at the LMAI conference 2023 at Jaipur, I mentioned, “Sustainability in its simplest terms means, giving back to Mother-Earth or environment, society, or economy, whatever you draw from it. It ultimately delivers a message for us to leave a safer planet with minimum or no depletion of resources, for generations that follow, after meeting your own imperative needs”. Taking the initiative forward and reaching out to the label fraternity in the north of India, on the 13^th of October 2023, LMAI organized an event titled, “4R's of sustainability”. The 4 R’s stand for Reduce, Recycle, Reuse and Report which sum up the sustainability endeavors.

Avery Dennison was the main sponsor for the event and provided two out of the three speakers, namely Sumantha Das, a specialist in sustainability from Avery Dennison, Amit Saxena, an Operations Leader who has led Supply Chain, Capital projects and manufacturing in marquee companies like Hewlett Packard, Mondelez, Merck and in Abbott Healthcare as Director Operations and Raj Karodiya: senior executive-partner growth and a specialist on EPR(Extended producer responsibility) from “The Trash Company” who are consultants to Avery Dennison and other brand owners for EPR Registration.

Sumantha Das touched upon the four R’s of sustainability and goals targeted for achievement by 2030.

Amit Saxena , spoke about the drivers for sustainability in Operations of companies in FMCG, Chemicals and Pharma. He stressed on the need to cut wastages and save on all processes in operations which include, downtime, energy consumption, labour costs, packaging and logistics.

The final speaker Raj Koradiya gave eye-opening insights into EPR, its compliances and penal provisions.

Extended Producers Responsibility (EPR) regime is under implementation in Plastic Waste Management Rules, 2016, according to which it is the responsibility of Producers, Importers and Brand-owners to ensure processing of their plastic packaging waste through recycling, re-use or end of life disposal. Commenting on the implications of EPR which also impacts the label fraternity, Rajesh Chadha Director on board of LMAI and owner of Delhi based Update Prints said, “We have been given to understand that EPR registration is mandatory for all producers (including convertors) who generate plastic waste, irrespective of the size of the business. Only Micro and Small business brand owners are exempt from this and the onus for their waste generated also falls on the converters who are classified as producers.

Part of audience

The consequences of not registering in EPR are that the total plastic waste generation liability falls on the converter only, and heavy fines are there on per ton basis of plastic produced /converted. Further since the EPR portal is centralized by the CPCB (Central Pollution Control Board), data about converters can easily be obtained through labelstock producers who are already registered in the EPR portal like Avery, UPM etc. In view of the above it is requested of all label converters to come forward and comply by with the same as soon as possible, as time is short and deadline for registration is Oct 31st, 2023, this may or may not be extended.” He also reiterated that on behalf of LMAI, “If we have a decent number of converters wanting to apply, LMAI can negotiate with this company ( or any other for that matter) to make the process economical and easier for all the converters and printers”. Adding to this Amit Sheth another Director and founder of LMAI says, “It is an important subject which all of us must pass through one day. Even machine sellers also must register for using plastics for machine covers and packing “. He further adds, “It will be a good initiative by LMAI for its members if they come forward in substantial numbers”.

As per the EPR portal; https://eprplastic.cpcb.gov.in/#/plastic/home/pibopwp

Responsibilites of PIBOS

PIBO stands for producer, importer and brandowners. If you identify as PIBO and have your operations in India that uses plastic packaging as part of your operation, irrespective of your turnover or scale of operations you fall under the obligation of EPR. Under the current framework of EPR, PIBO are responsible to

Register at EPR Portal
Submit their Action plan
Fulfill obligations for :-
1. Recycling
2. Use of Recycled content
3. Reuse
4. End of life disposal
5. Optional engagement in collection and recovery of the plastics
6. Submit annual returns
7. Provide proof of certificates (Plastic credits)
8. PIBOs can engage with PRO's or other agencies separately to fulfill their targets but reporting and responsibility to fulfill the obligations is completely of PIBO

Jaideep Singh

The event at Chandigarh was organized by LMAI at Novotel Hotel in Chandigarh and was attended by over 100 delegates from Chandigarh, Haryana, Punjab, Himachal Pradesh and Jammu and Kashmir. The event was moderated by LMAI secretary Jaideep Singh who travelled from Hyderabad. Speaking about LMAI and introducing the industry association to the widespread audience he said;

LMAI Team

“LMAI, the Label Manufacturers Association of India, is the representative body of the self-adhesive label printing fraternity of India. The ordinary members of the association are essentially producers of self-adhesive labels in roll form. LMAI was founded with just around 5 or 6 printers, by the efforts of Amit Sheth. Over the years LMAI has grown from strength to strength and now has around 400 members. LMAI regularly conducts seminars, panel discussions and culminating in the huge biennial LMAI conference. LMAI conferences in the past have been enormous successes at five- or seven-star properties at venues like Goa, Agra, Jaipur and Kochi. The last two events have recorded around 700 delegates from printer members , suppliers and their families. It is perhaps the biggest label industry event in the world with a spend running into Millions of Rupees.

Author with Amit Sheth

LMAI has partnered with Tarsus UK, now a part of Informa, for promoting Labelexpo India and Tarsus supporting LMAI for their events for the betterment of Indian labels industry. LMAI is a part of L9, the confederation of World’s nine leading label association and is recognized by Finat, the joint global platform for the international labelling industry. LMAI regularly conducts the LMAI awards for excellence in creating labels. It has also interacted with the MSME ministry for getting benefits for label industry. The winners of LMAI awards automatically qualify for submitting their entries for world label awards. LMAI sends two judges for the judging of the World label awards. At the judging held last month in Brussels on the sidelines of Labelexpo Europe, our LMAI founder Amit Sheth and Harveer Sahni were judges representing LMAI.

Vivek Kapoor, Rajesh Chadha and Jaideep Singh

LMAI has been making efforts to create knowledge delivery programs and organising events to bring leading FMCG buyers to express the needs of print buyers and for them to understand the printers. Our senior office bearers Rajesh Chadha, Vivek Kapoor, Amit Sheth, Harveer Sahni and Jaideep Singh, have travelled from Hyderabad, Mumbai and Delhi to be with you all today”.

Pradeep Saroha with guests and LMAI Directors

Concluding his speech, Jaideep informed the gathering that the LMAI president Rajesh Nema had fallen ill and could not travel to attend this event. He also informed that with the label industry expanding it reach in smaller towns of India, LMAI Presidents in their terms, will include regional representatives in their management teams for a wider reach and conduct programs in all geographical zones of the country for the benefit of its members. The presentations ended with a vote of thanks delivered by Vishal Vohra of Stic Prints Chandigarh and followed by cocktails and dinner.

Written by Harveer Sahni Chairman Weldon Celloplast Limited, New Delhi in October 2023

Tuesday, October 17, 2023

Manipal Utility Packaging Solutions acquired by JK Paper.

The Board of JK Paper Ltd. at its meeting held on 16 October 2023 has approved acquisition of Gautham Pai led Manipal Utility Packaging Solutions for a consideration of Rs 88.72 crore (purchase cost of Rs 21.80 per share of Rs 10 each for 4.07 crore equity shares representing 100% of capital). Manipal Utility Packaging Solutions is amongst the top 10 Packaging and Label companies in India with 8 decades of expertise. JK Paper Mill unit at Rayagada (Odhisa) was established in 1962. Today they are a leading Indian player in Office Papers, Coated Papers, Writing and Printing Papers and High-end Packaging papers and Boards.

Earlier in November 2022 JK Paper announced acquisition of Horizon Packs and Securipax Packaging for Rs 590 crore. The two acquisitions are India's largest corrugated packaging manufacturers with a revenue of Rs 832 crore in FY21-22. As per market reports, this move is considered "smart use of bumper cash flows (Rs 960 crore) for forward integration." Horizon Packs (established in 1991) has factory locations in Rudrapur, Baddi and Roorkee in the north as well as Tindivanam, Harohalli, Pondicherry and Chennai in the south to Khamgaon and Nagpur in the west and Kolkata in the east. Securipax Packaging has its manufacturing facility at Roorkee. Key customer segments for the company constitute food & beverage, and FMCG

With these moves JK Paper is also firmly into printing and package converting. This is a very strong move with them being producers of papers for labels, paperboards for packaging, and then converting to labels, folding cartons and corrugated cartons. This places them in an extremely advantageous and leading position in the India labels and package printing industry to take on the huge and growing demand for packaging.

Reported by Harveer Sahni, Chairman Weldon Celloplast Limited October 2023

Wednesday, September 27, 2023

Labelexpo 2023 reaffirms its significance!

Absence makes the heart grow fonder! There was a general perception that the impact of a fierce pandemic, the Finnish Paper Mills strike, Ukraine war, shortages and rising raw material prices, difficult logistics and increased travel costs have left the market sentiments bruised. There was strong narrative doing the rounds in the labels industry that Labelexpo Europe 2023 at Brussels will lose its sheen and may not deliver the desired results. Contrary to all perceptions the show was a huge success. The numbers may have been slightly lower than the previous years, but the quality of turnout brought cheer to the faces of exhibitors. The proof of that is given by the reported rebook rate for the next edition of this important event by Tarsus, announced at a whopping 96%! Labelexpo Europe 2023 was spread over 9 halls covering 35889 square meters. 36588 visitors flocked to the show, coming from 138 countries. Most stands reported robust enquiries or sales from established and serious printers from around the world. Though the aisles were not as crowded as in previous shows, the stands were busy. That is exactly what exhibitors expect from a globally renowned show. I cite a personal experience, I had to conduct an important meeting with one of our company’s several principals. Despite visiting their stand on all days at various times, the concerned person was busy with clients, finally I had to ask him to come to another meeting point other than his stand, so that we could discuss our project in peace. Such was the deliverance of Labelexpo 2023.

Amar Chhajed, Webtech, making a comeback to labels

The Indian presence; The Indian labels and packaging industry has been continuously growing at steady pace to reach a position of stability and strength. The Indian visitors to labelexpo have also transformed. Earlier we saw many of those who mixed their visit with tourism, so the interest was diluted, and the enquiries lacked seriousness. This trend is seen as changing, given the increased travel costs and technologies evolving in different packaging segments, the smaller printers prefer to visit the domestic editions of Labelexpo.

In 2005, my company was the only one from India to exhibit at Labelexpo Europe in Brussels, over years the number of Indian exhibitors has been growing. Indian producers of materials, machines and tooling have improved in quality to match global levels and offer their products in the international marketplace.

From just the one exhibitor from India displaying labelstock in 2005 they reached 14 exhibitors in 2017, and in 2023 the number of Indian exhibitors grew to 26. This number included several label press manufacturers, manufacturers of coaters and laminators, raw material suppliers, tooling manufacturers, etc. In fact, registering their presence in all segments of label manufacturing. As for the visitors, it is an even more interesting result. In 2019 2% of the total of 37903 visitors were from India. This works out to over 750 visitors. This figure has swelled! In Labelexpo Europe 2023. Indian visitors were 3.9% of the total of 36588 visitors and this works out to over 1400 visitors, almost double the number. We can imagine the dynamism and steady growth of “make in India” concept. The Indians are now quick learners who visit these shows and become adapters of global technologies to produce and offer to the world.

Omet Stand

Diverse technologies displayed: Labelexpo global series was in the initial stages aimed at growth of stickers that had evolved as self-adhesive labels. The earliest web label presses were largely coming from eastern part of the World as 4 or 5-inch-wide flatbed letterpress machines for printing labels in roll form to eventually transform with development of label applicators, it led to automation in packaging lines. Development and introduction of rotary flexographic label presses brought a paradigm shift as it provided better speed of printing. Since the web width in the earliest stages was small, the industry eventually started being referred to as narrow web label industry. The rest is history. With evolution and development of prepress printing speeds and quality also improved making the technology widely acceptable. Printing widths increased to 10 inches or 250 mm and had for quite some time settled at 330mm. Speeds that were just 5 or 6 meters per minute in the beginning with the flatbed presses, have reached up to 200 meters per minute and more. The narrow web label industry flourished and kept growing. With time label technologies have undergone a sea change. What was wet glue labels, transformed into self-adhesive labels but later the label grew towards various tangents. The label users started adopting a wide variety that includes wraparound labels, shrink sleeves, Inmold labels, heat transfer labels and many more. In the initial stages of transformation large multinational FMCG companies became users of wrap-around labels and shrink sleeves, because of the large volume they required, these became the product of the wide web rotogravure printing industry. With market changes happening, the need of smaller manufacturers and demand for short runs by marketing professionals, these diverse segments also became evident in the offerings of narrow web industry.

Bobst Stand

The narrow started growing wider still, printing and converting evolved exponentially and became suppliers of not only to wide spectrum of labels but also flexible packaging, Lami-tubes and folding cartons. The flexo presses also transformed to be hybrid ones employing combination of flexo, offset, gravure, screen and digital, etc. At Labelexpo Europe 2023, one could witness displayed, a merger and combination of different printing technologies to produce excellence in print of labels and packaging. This was substantially exhibited by industry stalwarts like Gallus, Omet, Nilpeter, Mark Andy, Bobst, Weigang, Lombardy, etc. who displayed their finest web printing and converting equipment. It is interesting that waste reduction and sustainable manufacturing practices to reduce carbon footprint are becoming imperative for all responsible machine builders.

Avery Dennison Stand

Overview: Material suppliers like Avery Dennison, UPM Raflatac and Fedrigoni displayed their vast ranges of labelstocks with an evident effort towards sustainability. Many did talk of linerless and the initial developments they have made but the actual linerless self-adhesive label for mass usage is still a far cry.

Fedrigoni Stand

As mentioned before, from the just one Indian Labelstock producer in 2005, there were five Indian labelstock producers at the show, Jindal SMI, SticOn papers, MLJ, Shree Lamipack and Varshil. Looking at the number of visitors on stands it was clear that the focus of label fraternity is shifting from commodities to creativity, innovation and sustainability. While all labelstock companies had a steady flow of visitors, the Fedrigoni stand that offered specialty textured and decorative materials was extremely busy.

A similar situation was observed at the Cartes stand whose displayed equipment offered amazing embellishments with various combinations of digital jet screen varnishing and printing, screen printing, laser die-cutting etc. The electronic integration in labels is another field that attracted the attention of forward-thinking printing companies. RFID insertion options for labels and packaging were displayed by many, some of whom include Avery Dennison, Beontag, Muhlbauer, Delta Modtech, etc. Another aspect witnessed is the growing number of finishing equipment manufacturers, which clearly indicates the need for printing companies to produce more with less. The concept of printing at full machine speeds on their expensive presses and finishing offline makes available more time on their main printing presses. The futuristic digital printing equipment continues to evolve indicating it to become a dominant label printing technology in future, given the wider widths and faster speeds. The hall number 8 with exhibitors led by HP, offered a vast variety of digital printing equipment. The increased display of finishing or digital finishing machines is also indicative of the increasing importance of digital printing, which in recent times has become a necessity for prosperous label printers. Running short runs needs offline finishing. else the digital presses with inline finishing will not only be expensive but will not be able to deliver production to their full capacity due to short runs and quick changeovers.

One thing that has become evident at Labelexpo Europe 2023 is that the narrow web label industry continues to go wider and evolve, increasing its footprints in other segments of packaging and it would not be out of place to mention that soon it will be referred to as “Web label and package converting industry.”

The end of show was a nostalgic moment, people bidding farewell to Labelexpo in Brussel where so many wonderful memories, stories of success and friendships had been scripted. The label fraternity now looks forward to making another beginning with Labelexpo Europe 2025 in Barcelona, Spain.