The Covid-19 pandemic came as a natural crisis and disrupted the normal way of life of people the world over. The supply chain and logistics industries faced unexampled challenges to provide essential commodities such as food and pharmaceutical supplies to people stuck at home in nationwide lockdowns. From disruption in transportation to the deferment of retail business, manpower shortage, and compliance with government regulations concerning the Coronavirus outbreak, manufacturers had a lot to grapple with during the lockdowns.
The corrugated industry had another responsibility at hand – to supply corrugated boxes on time to food and FMCG producers, basic hygiene product makers and suppliers, and medical and pharmaceutical manufacturers to avoid disruption and bottlenecks in the essential commodities supply chain. Being the backbone of the supply chain industry, the corrugated packaging manufacturers made sure they delivered the requisite packaging to grocery stores, pharmacies, and hospitals reliably. The corrugated plants needed to be sanitized at regular intervals with the necessary precautions related to the pandemic followed by workers as well as management.
The Indian corrugated packaging industry witnessed a significant increase due to the increased packaging demand due to the health scare caused by the Covid-19 crisis. In addition, the lockdown of retail markets gave way to a book in eCommerce delivery that relied on the robustness of corrugated last-mile packaging. In the past two years, an unprecedented number of flexo printer gluer machines have been installed by Indian corrugated box suppliers.
VeePee Graphic Solutions at IndiaCorr Expo 2021
VeePee displayed its photopolymer flexo plates at the recently concluded IndiaCorr Expo held at the India Expo Center, Greater Noida from 23 – 25 October 2021, and saw an encouraging footfall at its stand. Speaking with Packaging South Asia, the director of Veepee Graphic Solutions, Jai Chandra (known to the industry as JC) explained the basic procedure behind the photopolymer plates for corrugated printing applications and also spoke of the company’s plans.
The company is looking at rapid expansion shortly with the setting up one more manufacturing unit at Hyderabad. With the company’s second outing at the corrugation industry’s meeting junction – the IndiaCorr exhibition, JC shared a message for our readers, “I think we are out of the pandemic so we should come out and get back to business. The economy has to roll back otherwise it is going to affect all of us.” (Note – this message was shared on the first day of the exhibition – 23 October 2021 before the Omicron variant entered the Covid-19 scenario).
VeePee’s uninterrupted operations during Covid-19
VeePee Graphic Solutions manufactures photopolymer flexo plates for the labels, flexible, and corrugated packaging. According to JC, the firm received a notification from the Ministry of Commerce and Industry to continue operating its manufacturing business while following the Covid-19 rules and regulations.
Established in 1996, the Bangalore-based company processes wide-format (50 by 80 inches) digital flexo plates for flexographic printing on corrugated boxes for the domestic as well as the international corrugated liner market. JC has a thorough understanding of the flexo prepress market with 20 years of rich experience in the business supplemented by his technological know-how.
With associations with flexographic equipment leaders such as Esko Graphics and DuPont VeePee Graphic Solutions claims to be the first full HD-certified trade shop in South East Asia. Its flexo plate manufacturing infrastructure consists of five Esko CDI imagers equipped with full HD and five inline plate processing lines.
Apart from flexographic plates, VeePee also deals in mounting tapes, anilox cleaning solutions, splicing tapes, and carrier films for mounting flexo plates for the corrugated printing segment. The company also supplies coating plates, rotary letterpress and embossing supplies, color management solutions, and dry-offset plates along with flexo prepress and premedia services for narrow web, flexible packaging, and corrugated industry. Veepee was recently awarded the AFTA award for its flexible packaging jobs and FTA for folding cartons in narrow web.
