Yogesh Kapur recently took over as managing director of inks major Sakata Inx India. Packaging South Asia met Kapur at Sakata Inx’ office in Gurugram in Delhi-NCR to learn about Sakata’s latest products, innovations, the trends in the inks market, and his outlook for the company.
Sakata Inx is a supplier of liquid inks to the flexible packaging industry, sheetfed offset to the commercial and packaging industry and coldset inks to the newspaper industry. Liquid inks for flexible packaging account for the majority of Sakata’s total ink production, Kapur said. “We are looking at more innovative products, including NTNK (non-toluene non-ketone) inks, PVC free inks and aqueous or water-based inks for flexible packaging,” Kapur said.
Sakata India wants to continue to strengthen its service and support capabilities. “Sakata’s philosophy has always been to satisfy the customer in the overall usage of ink in production, including reduced printing costs, waste generation, and service support. Printing is all about how a product (ink) looks on a substrate. If the ink quality does not look sharp, end-users will not read it or buy the product,” he said.
Customers could have multiple questions about a printing ink product – its sharpness, wastage, support, range, etc. They would want to know if a certain combination would work. “This is where Sakata scores high. We might not be the cheapest per kilogram of ink, but we are the most economical and lowest in overall printing costs. Our focus is on strengthening our gravure and offset ink portfolio, staying competitive, and meeting the customers’ changing requirements for both gravure and offset,” he said.
Sakata has products for surface and reverse printing, which are required for CI flexo and rotogravure printing applications, he said, adding Sakata Inx has the largest range of products for these categories.
According to Kapur, there has been tremendous growth in film manufacturing in India in the last few years. “It establishes the country in a different league. I think it would catapult India into a manufacturing hub for flexible packaging films. In the short term, we saw some competitive pressures. Going forward, it would be beneficial not only to the Indian film manufacturing industry but also to the ink industry, as we supply ink products for flexible packaging. We anticipate an increase in raw film exports and printed film products. It’s a value addition as instead of looking at domestic growth from the ink perspective, we are optimistic to see growth in the value-added export business too.”
Liquid ink production
Sakata Inx India is a pioneer in the Indian manufacturing landscape, setting up its ink production plant in Bhiwadi in Rajasthan in November 1998 to meet customer requirements in printing and packaging inks, primarily in North and East India. Sakata has another plant in Panoli in Gujarat, which serves the Western and Southern regions.
Liquid inks for the flexible packaging industry are manufactured at both the Bhiwadi and Panoli plants, Kapur said, adding this provides not only short delivery lead time but also reduces transportation costs for customers.
“Being close to competition in Bhiwadi and Panoli is of no consequence to us. As long as it is healthy and we are on the same playing field, competition is welcome; it keeps us on our toes. Competition ensures we keep looking out for what is best for the customer. We are always on the lookout for a better, more viable product appreciated by the customers. Being close to our competitors does not stop us from doing what we want to do,” he said.
The changing geopolitical situation, such as the Russia-Ukraine war and the Gaza conflict, or the happenings in the Indian sub-continent, has not affected the company, Kapur said.
Sustainability agenda
Sustainability is Sakata’s focus, coming from SIC (Sakata Inx Corporation) – its corporate HQ in Japan, Kapur said, adding the company understands the importance of having sustainable products in its portfolio in today’s world.
“Some of our sustainable products are PVC-free products, NC products, NTNK inks for reverse printing, and water-based inks for surface printing. Our R&D continues to work on multiple areas to develop sustainable products. There is a great push for inks that can be de-inked – where the inks are removed before recycling the substrate, so that there is no ink contamination. We are also seeing a pull toward the use of paper in flexible packaging.”
Sakata recently introduced some water-based ink products in India, he said, adding that customer push will drive this plan forward. “We are a global company with a huge portfolio of products. Customer demand ensures that we choose to localize certain products and how fast we localize them. We are focused on local manufacturing rather than sourcing the products from outside India,” he said.
Paperization
Paperization, a recent trend in the flexible packaging industry, involves the use of coated paper for packaging food products. Kapur said there is a healthy tussle between multilayer and monolayer packaging in flexible films. Some converters, he said, are trying to make products out of coated paper, which can meet film requirements. At the same time, film manufacturers are also trying to come up with more sustainable and recyclable products. Another trend is replacing some layers of multilayer film packaging with paper.
“Sakata Inx is ready to support all three areas of flexible packaging. If brands come out with coated paper as an eco-friendly and recyclable alternative to flexible packaging films, we have products. We supply ink for printing on flexible packaging films as well as coated paper. If a film layer is replaced by paper, we have printing ink solutions and our expertise in R&D to develop more effective ink solutions. We don’t want to guess who will win this battle. A lot of work is on in multiple directions, and ultimately the customer will decide who wins that battle,” Kapur said.
Sakata’s products in the liquid inks segment have anti-counterfeiting measures. “We have photochromic inks that change color when exposed to UV light, and thermochromic inks that change color in response to temperature variations, along with other specialty products. We have had these products in our portfolio for some time,” Kapur concluded.
