Bharat Packaging Expo 2027 to promote export Excellence!

To promote the Bharat Packaging Expo 2027, a roadshow was held titled, “Business Leaders Connect-Faridabad”, it was held on Friday, 18^th September 2026 at Hotel Delite Sarovar Portico, Faridabad, Haryana India. Bharat Packaging Expo 2027 is being organised by Indian Institute of Packaging (IIP) , Ministry of Commerce and Industry, Government of India, India Exposition Mart Limited, supported by WPO World Packaging Organisation and The Asian Packaging Federation. It is a show that envisions a position for India as a global leader in sustainable and innovative packaging, advancing a circular economy and strengthening its role in global trade. It is slated to be perhaps the biggest packaging event covering all segments of packaging, may it be based on paper or paper board, films, rigid plastic, glass, metal or Jute, etc. It will cover the complete production of the manufacturing chain that will include suppliers, converters, equipment manufacturers, material suppliers, accessories and all that is a part of packaging. 

The Expo is planned to be more than an exhibition. It is India’s leading platform where innovators, suppliers, and global buyers come together to showcase how packaging powers industries, supports exports, and builds sustainable solutions for the future. The event highlights breakthroughs across the value chain that improve safety, efficiency, and sustainability. 

Speakers besides I included, Rishu Gautam, Deputy Director, Indian Institute of Packaging–IIP, Sanjay Singh, Deputy Director, Plastics Export Promotion Council (PLEXCONCIL),  Vishesh Gupta, Director, P.R. Packaging Ltd. Dr. Ashok Marwah, Vice President - Marketing & Business Development, MLJ Industries Limited, Somya Agarwal (Mittal), Director, Manik Printpack India Pvt. Ltd.

India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi addressing the nation from the ramparts of Red Fort on the occasion of 80th Independence Day said, “Our factories must be competitive, our products user-friendly and our packaging must be the best”! He also mentioned, “We need to focus on three things; Cost, quality and scale, Every Indian is embracing the spirit of Make in India and Vocal for Local.” Bharat Packaging Expo intends to take the Prime Minister’s statement to another level. The industry is already in that mode in all segments of packaging, making world class machines. Our printing and converting fraternity continue to be innovative  delivering creativity. Our flexo label press manufacturers have made a credible development. Just a few years back all the machines displayed at Label expo were international brand state-of-art presses. All that stands changed, at least 7 flexo label press manufacturers are in Faridabad alone and exporting worldwide, there are other producers elsewhere.

 I was called upon to make the opening address at this event; I reproduce it here:

In the mid-1990s, when Dr. Manmohan Singh, then India’s Finance Minister, liberalized the economy, he changed the country’s trajectory. Until then, India’s major exports were largely bulk spices, minerals, garments, food products, and similar commodities. After liberalization, international trade and exports became preferred business opportunities. As Indian manufacturers began supplying products worldwide, the need to ensure that goods reached buyers safely and in acceptable packaging became a critical concern. I remember that the Indian Institute of Packaging (IIP) was initially tasked with improving export packaging and expanding India’s offerings to include packaged goods. At the time, IIP was largely led by representatives of the corrugated box industry. I also recall a presentation by the late Mr. P. V. Narayanan, then Director of IIP, in which he showed a photograph of a shipment: a stack of corrugated boxes damaged by moisture, leaning to one side and nearly collapsing. The international buyer had taken the photograph to demonstrate the inferior quality of the packaging and may have sent it to IIP. We have come a long way since then. Safe, attractive, and effective packaging has become essential to strengthening India’s export competitiveness. Our target market has shifted from primarily domestic to increasingly global. Over the years, IIP has evolved into an institution that educates and promotes some of the best talent in innovative packaging. Many packaging development managers in large industrial enterprises are IIP alumni. Machine builders and material suppliers are also driving growth, innovation, and distinctive packaging that promotes Brand India globally.

As we moved ahead, our focus shifted to heighten the shelf appeal of products. Product decoration or embellishments, started to find preference in label and package design. Even products like food, garments, tissue paper, medical items, retail and industrial use applications, started being sold in innovative packaging. These packaging were created for ease of use and their design appeal. The initial developments were “me too” creations, copying global brands but with promotions done by IIP and ministry of commerce, introducing packaging awards and exhibitions,  local packaging development fraternity started to deliver the much-needed impetus to growth, creating and development of internationally acceptable packaging. However still, much needs to be done for the infrastructure so that even after good packaging, the finesse and quality of the material should reach the buyer intact, and uncomfortable questions are  not raised. I will cite an example of what we went through many years back. We shipped a container load of labelstock to a customer in Germany. When we started producing labelstocks decades back, we would wrap the rolls in paper and then pack them in plastic woven bags and stitch them. To match global standards, on starting exports, we started to stretch wrap each roll and then stacked them on a pallet and the whole pallet would also be stretch wrapped. It looked very nice and customers sent appreciation messages. But, another time, for some reason a container of goods was withheld by customs and put in the customs warehouse. After clearance, the goods were finally shipped and when they reached the customer, who is a close friend, he was fuming on the packaging. I was worried wondering what happened, I visited the customer in Germany. I was shocked, in the customs warehouse in Delhi there were pigeons flying around, dust and pigeon droppings were there on all the pallets. The customer workers were not ready to touch the goods, fearing infection. Fortunately, our people in factory had packed the goods well and my friend agreed to my suggestion and used a garden hose to wash all the pallets, and we were saved a lot of trouble. So, when we are looking forward to excelling, the infrastructure needs to be upgraded as well.

Of late consumer safety has become a big concern. In pharmaceuticals statutory information must be put on the labels, security features, track and trace  and compliance with government directions have become necessary. All packaging must be created keeping consumer safety in mind. Over the years, with the dire need for reducing pollution and environmental concerns have made it necessary to include sustainability as a must feature in designing packs. We need to give back to mother earth what we draw from it. We need to dwell on the end of life of any pack that we create. Reduce, reuse, recycle and recover must be our integrity and a part of creating packaging. Sustainability regulations and their implications are getting strict now. In India Pernod Ricard set a good example by removing the monocartons from their liquor brands. This reduced usage of hundreds of tons of paper boards. This, even though it was the much-needed advertisement space on the carton was lost, as liquor advertisement is banned. Other brands also followed suit. The European Union Packaging and Packaging Waste Regulation (PPWR) is a strict European Union law that sets legally binding rules to reduce waste, ban non-compliant packaging, and enforce recycling standards across all member states as of August 12, 2026, onwards, this will become applicable all over the world gradually. A massive regulatory clampdown on single-use plastics has been witnessed in India and many parts of the world. Many countries have started enforcing strict Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) laws. For Indian exporters, this means non-recyclable multi-layer plastics will eventually face rejection, if not complied with. It is the onus of our material suppliers to support this transformation. Global demand for sustainable paperboard and innovative mono-material flexible packaging is increasing exponentially. Hi-barrier films that are fully recyclable are now being preferred for Indian FMCG brands.

Our machine suppliers must come forward with automation and speed to create packaging that has variable data inline, ease to use and make unboxing products a wonderful experience. A smudged barcode or a non-functional pack opening function can result in big time rejections. Smart packaging is another area that is becoming important worldwide. It is changing the operating systems in logistics. Global buyers want total traceability. They want to scan a QR code or an RFID tag on a pallet and know its temperature history, its authenticity, and its exact journey through the cold chain. For equipment manufacturers, integrating these digital touchpoints directly into the coding, marking, and packaging processes is no longer optional, it is a baseline expectation. Circular economy is something that must bear in mind each time a package is being designed. The earlier perception of disposable packs is not a preference now if they are not biodegradable, compostable or recyclable and non-polluting.

Packaging is and will be required till there is need by humanity for food pharma and clothing and the entire system to create it. The world needs it. Our “make in India” is a great initiative and mindset that will take us a long way but yes, we need to dwell and improve upon our packaging as per needs of the global users to excel and deliver quality as desired.

 

Harveer Sahni Chairman, Weldon Celloplast Limited 18/09/2026

SANJAY GHOSHAL HEAD PACKAGING DIAGEO- "THIRTY YEARS ON THE PACK!"

Pack Stories-1

Inside Sanjay Ghoshal's journey from by lanes  of Kolkata to the highways of Indian packaging Industry, and why he believes Indian Packaging Industry has a lot to give to the economic development of our country.

Sanjay Ghoshal is one of the more familiar faces on the Indian packaging conference circuit — a speaker whose sessions draw full rooms and whose career reads like a map of the industry itself. Over three decades he has moved through India Foils, Huhtamaki, Hindustan Unilever, Dr. Reddy's and Havells, and today he heads packaging development at Diageo India, the global Alcobev major. Audiences keep coming back to hear him because few people have seen the business from as many angles: sales, procurement, supply chain and R&D, on both sides of the packaging value chain.

His family's story begins with Partition of India. Ghoshal's parents moved to Kolkata from what was then East Bengal — later East Pakistan, and today Bangladesh — and both went on to spend their careers at the Steel Authority of India Limited (SAIL). He was schooled (during which he won two National Scholarships in 1987 and 1989) and did his undergraduate studies in Kolkata, graduating from Presidency University, Kolkata in 1994, before moving to Mumbai for postgraduate studies in Packaging which he passed with 1^st position and Gold Medal from the Indian Institute of Packaging (IIP) in 1996. An internship at Unilever followed, and — while he was still finishing at IIP — a job offer came from India Foils, that he accepted. He never went back to Kolkata. He also went on to complete Advanced post graduate studies in 2009 from Loughborough University, UK as part of the Unilever Technical leadership program.

He spent four and a half years at India Foils and six and half years in Huhtamaki- PPL, based in Mumbai, in a front-line business development role. It set the pattern for the first half of his career: roughly eleven to twelve years on the front line of business, dealing directly with key accounts/customers. He never saw a contradiction between studying packaging technology and building a career in sales. "Sales needs a lot of understanding of packaging," he says, the two, in his experience, were never really separate disciplines.

A sunrise industry, and a policy tailwind

Ghoshal traces his decision to enter packaging back to the economic reforms of the early 1990s. When the then finance minister Manmohan Singh opened up the Indian economy, it changed the country's trajectory — dismantling the License Raj and the bureaucratic hurdles that had constrained industry for decades. Packaging, he felt, stood to benefit directly from that shift.

"I was told at that time that packaging is a great opportunity. It was an emerging opportunity because India... as the then finance minister, Manmohan Singh opened up the Indian economy. So that changed the face of the country. And Packaging is great barometer of the economic development of a country. "

The logic was straightforward: as consumption and exports grew, products would need to be packaged well to sell, and the government of the day — keen to protect and promote sectors from cars to food — had every incentive to back the industry. Packaging, in other words, was less a gamble than a bet on where India's economy was clearly headed. Looking back, Ghoshal believes it was the right call — even if the institution that trained him, IIP, has not kept pace with the industry it helped seed.

Supply side or demand side — which is better?

After more than a decade in sales and marketing at companies like India Foils and Huhtamaki, Ghoshal made a deliberate switch — from the supply side of packaging, where materials and machinery are made, to the demand side, where the brand owners consume them. In the years since, he has held packaging procurement leadership at Havells and supply chain and R&D roles at Unilever, giving him a rare, full view of the value chain from both ends.

Asked which side he would recommend, his answer is candid rather than diplomatic.

"Perhaps I would have done better if I had stayed back in supply side or stayed back in sales roles. On that side, packaging is at the core of their business. In the demand side, packaging is never at the center — it is in fringes of their business."

At a company like Diageo or Unilever, he explains, the center of gravity is always the product — Alcoholic spirits in his current role or Homecare/Personal care products, when he was at Unilever —packaging remained a critical yet peripheral function. At India Foils or Huhtamaki, by contrast, packaging was not a supporting act; it was the core business. The transition between the two worlds, he adds, is not one many packaging professionals attempt, and it was not easy for him either. Brand-side companies tend to offer better compensation, he notes, but the visibility and centrality that come with being a supplier are harder to replicate.

The Big Bets – paving the patch for future.

In 2014-15, “Development of Medical device” had emerged as a mission critical task for the generic pharmaceutical companies with ambitions to launch their generic formulations in the mature markets like the US and the European Union(EU). It is not only the packaging that needed to work exactly the way the innovator drug did, but also the drug-device combination that warranted similarity from functional and human factor point of view which needed approval by the local FDA. Developing a new drug delivery device from scratch or finding one available with due “Freedom to Operate” turned out to be a serious challenge for the large Indian generic pharma industry. The challenge Ghoshal had to go through during his DRL stint was to accurately characterize innovator drug-device combination and ensure equivalence for the generic device without stepping into the minefield of patents and IP(Indian Pharmacopoeia) barriers. The work Ghoshal did on creating device readiness specifically in the space of complex peptide Injectables for US ANDA (FDA Abbreviated New Drug Application) or other market filings in those early days built the fundamentals for today’s preparedness even with a few Indian device manufacturers. The ability to learn fast- fail fast attitude and entrepreneurial mindset became his biggest companion during those challenging moments.

Mono material Sachet

It was during his stint at Unilever, he was working on creating mono material-based sachet in 2012-2013, way before the current Indian PWM(Plastic Waste Management)  mandates of recyclability, mono-materiality circularity came into being. It was an uphill task in those days to find the right solutions in terms of films, ink and over print varnish systems and tear ergonomics of the sachet at the retail just like an otherwise multilayer sachet structure based on oriented film. Understanding the science and engineering behind the seal and perforation jaw design was big deal and incorporating them into the existing VFFS (Vertical Form Fill Seal) machine was even more challenging. Though it was not implemented commercially at that time as a sustainable alternative, it built the toolbox of solutions and learnings which were put to use subsequently when the need for mono-materiality became more compelling post 2000. Passion for innovation, External curiosity and Multi Stakeholder collaborative approach were demonstrated by him at every stage of such a future forward project.

Diageo's PET Shift

His journey of transition from Glass to PET for the alcoholic beverages segment was an excruciating and exciting one at the same time. The pioneering efforts of shifting an age-old format like glass to a new age format like PET was not only technically challenging to implement at scale but also intellectually stimulating. Technological interventions through supplier collaborations to bring about the lightest PET bottle in the alcobev category without impacting the conventional consumer experience of pouring their favorite liquid from a relatively heavy glass bottle. In 2023-24, there were very few benchmarks or references for designing a PET bottle that had the potential to recruit new consumer cohort and help grow a brand beyond prevalent market growth rates. Since this was adding plastics to Diageo’s overall portfolio, ensuring that the plastic bottle is 100% recyclable, 100% recycled and has the required PCR recycled content, was a non-negotiable imperative. At that time, Diageo became the first alcobev company in India to launch a “glass bottle look alike” PET bottle with 100% PCR FCM recycled PET which was also 100% recyclable and 100% circular. This seminal piece of work lead by Ghoshal had an enormous impact and went on to inspire the future glass to PET shifts across many other brands in the spirits category. Teamwork, decisiveness, agility and focus on progress over perfection helped Ghoshal deliver such a pioneering project for Diageo India.

Looking ahead

Diageo Paper based packaging

Having reached a reasonably senior level with a large brand owner, Ghoshal is candid about what comes next. Staying on the current path, he says, is one option — but the pull toward going back to the manufacturing side of packaging, where his career began, is growing.

"If I really want to use my knowledge, learnings and wisdom  which I have gathered over the last 30 years, being fortunate to sit across both sides of the table, then I think I should go back to the packaging industry and try to serve that industry. Because that's where my heart lies."

He has not ruled out entrepreneurship — either building something of his own on the supply side or partnering with an existing player to chart new growth. What he is clear about is staying within packaging itself, rather than moving into manufacturing or brand building. "Packaging is my core skill, my core competence," he says.

Family, and advice for the next generation

Ghoshal's wife is a business leader at ArcelorMittal. Their two children — a son in class 12 and a daughter in class 10 — are, by his account, charting their own paths: the son toward engineering, the daughter toward the liberal arts. "They get to decide their future for themselves," he says.

For young people considering a career in packaging, his advice goes beyond technical training.

"Along with their packaging learning, they should also very seriously hone their skills, their communication skills, their executive presence. They should build their leadership skills and continue a strong connect with the industry alongside what they are learning at the institute."

It is a message rooted in his own career — one built as much on adaptability and frontline experience as on formal packaging education, and one he clearly hopes the next generation, and the institutions training them, will take to heart.

Interviewed & written by Harveer Sahni Chairman Weldon Celloplast Ltd. New Delhi