Paharpur 3P’s new greenfield plant in Sri City, near Chennai in South India, has recently installed a Pelican Solomark 6450, a 9-color rotogravure printing press with 100% defect detection and ARC(Automatic Register Control) from Baldwin. For Paharpur, it’s the third gravure press from Pelican, with the first press replacing an older European gravure press in 2017 at its main plant in Sahibabad in the Delhi-NCR. Paharpur installed its second Pelican press in 2021 at its new plant in Sri City.
“Seeing the growth and demand from the Southern region, we decided to set up the new Sri City plant, which is now up and running,” said NS Sundaram, CEO, of Paharpur 3P on our visit to the Sahibabad plant. Talking about the new plant as a strategic investment for the company, he said, “We have a long-term plan to set up an R&D center in the second unit, which will take care of all the new developments and a variety of sustainable solutions.”
Being a pioneer in liquid packaging in India, P3P manufactures high-quality flexible pouches and sachets for liquid packaging applications. The company produces custom-printed multi-layer roll stock films on its multiple blown film lines and laminators and sophisticated pouches with closures for aseptic liquid packaging for beverages, condiments, and all types of oils. It also manufactures custom-printed retort packaging films and laminates and at a separate facility in Manesar, retort pouches for ready-to-drink beverages and other food products.
Innovation for high-value consumer products first
According to Sundaram, there has been a significant surge in the demand for liquid flexible packaging, indicating a shift in consumer behavior. He cited the change in household use from detergent powders to liquid detergents together with the increase in the of hand washes.
In the meeting, Manoj Bisht, CMO, of Paharpur 3P emphasized the crucial role of packaging economics, citing the pack-to-product ratio. Each product needs a tailored packaging solution, he said, drawing attention to the relationship between the packaging and the product type and value.
Speaking about kitchen commodities such as pink salt and normal salt, he suggested that while pink salt can be viably packed in a five-panel pouch, this solution is too expensive for normal or common salt. He says that a one-size-fits-all strategy is impractical and may compromise the ratio between the value of a product and the cost of its packaging. “Wherever you have a high product cost, one can have more innovative pouches with good aesthetics and various applications or value adds on the packaging.”
The balance of sustainability and price is the current challenge in the market, Bisht says. “The consumer may be ready to pay, but whether our customer [the brand owner] is ready to pay the price for sustainability is the question.” Nevertheless, he highlighted the fact that Paharpur 3P’s sustainability developments aim at maintaining competitive price levels by redesigning the concepts and structures of new packaging.
Sustainability in production, process and plant
The Sahibabad plant’s built-up space, which we visited earlier, is green and expansive. The majority of the land is devoted to greenery and open spaces reflecting its environmentally responsible processes including being a zero discharge company. Bisht says, “On the sustainability front, we have everything in-house. All our waste is being recycled, we have our effluent treatment plant (ETP), our sewage treatment plant (SDP), and our solid waste recycling system.” Sustainability is an entire ecosystem that goes beyond simply producing a recyclable pouching solution.
In the concluding moments of our interaction when we mentioned water-based gravure since P3P is very much a gravure-oriented company, Bisht and Sundaram suggested that this is not the likely strategic direction of the Indian flexible packaging market. Although Bisht drew our attention to his view that gravure printing with water-based inks does not require a specifically configured press, he admitted that it does require skilled resources. According to him, an appropriately skilled team that understands particular job requirements can handle water-based inks in gravure printing without having to change or replace the press.
