Essel Propack, part of the US$ 2.4 billion Essel Group with turnover of over US$ 300 million, has invested in a HP 6800 label press at its Vasind facility. Packaging South Asia spoke to Ram Ramasamy, president of Essel Propack on the occasion. “We produce 3 billion tubes every year domestically and print 45 million square metres of laminates each year in India,” says Ramasamy.
Short-run print orders
The unit already has a HP Indigo 6000 installed in 2011, besides several letter presses, offset presses and flexo presses. This is the second Indigo digital press at its Mumbai unit which does the lamination and printing of substrates used for its four tubing locations across India. The digital label presses are used for short-run applications for a lot size of 5,000 to 30,000 tubes while the offset and flexo presses deal with the larger print orders. They print directly on the substrates that usually vary from 200 micron to 280 micron laminates forits domestic lamitube plants.
“The digital press has not only the advantage of short-run printing butis also very good for ensuring repeatability and color matching which is essential in packaging,” says Ramasamy. “It has a quick turnaround time and has the ability to print on metallized surfaces. We use digital, offset and flexo printing processes but ensure that each job gets repeated by the same method to ensure proper color matching each time.”
Essel which has 24 plants spread across 11 countries has seven manufacturing units in India and dominates the domestic lamitube industry with over 50% market share. Holding a global market share of 33% in the laminated tubes domain, Essel Propack is a market leader with units operating across countries of North and South America, United Kingdom, Poland, Germany, Egypt, Russia, China, Philippines, Indonesia and India. It is also India’s largest specialty packaging maker producing laminated and seamless or extruded plastic tubes. Its plants caterto diverse packaging needs of consumers and include oral care, cosmetics, personal care, pharmaceutical, food and industrial sectors with clients like Colgate, Unilever, Procter& Gamble and L’Oreal.
Eco-friendly products
“We are growing at a rate of around 10% year on year in revenue terms globally,” says Ramasamy confirming that growth in India is keeping pace. “We expect good growth in the oral care segment in India in the coming years where the market penetration is around 55% currently.” On being questioned on the recent ruling by the National Green Tribunal to reduce plastics in packaging Ramasamy says, “ Our products are committed to be environmental friendly and we have recently launched the Etain lamitube solution that is a plastic tube for packaging made out of recyclable material.This aims at reducing the total waste generated from plastics and is in line with our corporate thinking.”
This also complements Essel’s eco-friendly solution termed Green Maple Leaf that maintains the freshness of products while keeping in line with the company’s commitment towards the environment. This fully recyclable packaging solution helps prevent oxidization of contents with a proprietary oxygen-barrier coated core layer and a polyethylene film multilayer laminate. The above is used for cosmetics, toiletries and food products.
