Thursday 6 December, 2012

Consumer demand boosts top packaging labels

Unilever CEO Paul Polman said at a Bengaluru press conference this month that the company will generate threequarters of its revenue from developing markets such as India and China by 2020 — almost 20% higher than today. Unilever labels like Kissan, Knorr, Annapurna, Tajmahal,
Bru, Lux, Rin, Ponds, Lakme, Close Up and Sun Silk that have straddled the urban Indian retail marts for decades are now moving to the smaller towns and rural interiors which have become the fastest growing areas for its Indian arm Hindustan Unilever. As per a Nielsen report released last week India’s poorest households with income below M72,000 annually will add US$ 3 billion (around M16,710 crore) to the sales of the consumer packaged goods industry by 2015.

The buoyancy in the FMCG and retail segment of packaged goods is unbelievable despite the fact that the overall economic situation is still to improve, with high fiscal deficit, low government investment spending, and extremely high interest rates prevailing in our country. Nevertheless
the demand surge has improved retail consumer spending significantly and its effect was observed by us at the recently concluded Labelexpo India in New Delhi, where exhibitors were happy and business was brisk. The live demos of narrow web label presses by both foreign and Indian manufacturers like Mark Andy, Gallus, Omet, Nilpeter, Gidue, Weigang, Multitec, RK Machines and several others livened up the atmosphere — creating a happening buzz for the show.

As per our information more than a dozen flexo label presses, digital label presses and other converting and inspection and finishing equipment were presold before the show and several more were finalized both during the show and immediately after. The label stock and associated consumables, accessory automation and software exhibitors did equally brisk business — established buyers and first time walk in visitors were impressed and looked satisfied. Another example of the packaging and label industry’s bouyancy came immediately after the Labelexpo India with the news of Huhtahmaki Paper Products acquiring Webtech. In our special Labelexpo review issue we cover these success stories.

Our article about Tata Elxsi in the Packaging Design and Marketing section reflects the growing awareness by consumer product companies for integrating branding and packaging design. In our packaging production section we cover FMCG packaging giants, Manjushree Technopack and Positive Packaging.

- Sandip Sen, edit1@ippgroup.in

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