In the print business for 28 years, Indore-based Vijayshri Packaging started as a wedding card commercial printer. The company shut down its commercial printing in 2001 and entered corrugated packaging. In 2016, the company moved to a new plant and currently supplies folding cartons, litho-laminated cartons and liner cartons. With customers across the country, its main supplies are within Madhya Pradesh.
“For a packaging company, you need to be geographically accessible to your customer. Pricing is a deciding factor but service time is more important than price. We provide prototyping services and a range of cartons under the same umbrella. Recently, we built a retail display shelf using corrugated board for one of our FMCG customers. These kinds of special services help improve the engagement with the customer,” says Ayush Jain, director of Vijayshri Packaging. Focussed on paperboard solutions, the company is keen to expand its customer base.
GST eases inter-state business opportunities
Talking about constraints in the industry, Jain says that these have diminished ever since GST was enforced. “In the GST era, it has become easier to increase our inter-state business. Since you work on your merits with level taxation throughout the country, it has been a boon for us. And with the inflow of eCommerce, the logistics industry is being funded well, becoming more reliable and tech-savvy at a brisk pace. There is a cost added to the product, which either we or the customer bares ultimately, but the ease of doing business has definitely improved,” explains Jain.
Vijayshri’s range of equipment for producing cartons
Vijayshri is using a Komori fleet for printing with three 40-inch 6-color plus coater presses with extended deliveries. One of the presses has interdeck and end-of-press UV as well. There is 20 x 28-inch 5-color press with coater, primarily being used for short-run jobs. Apart from the presses, the company has reel-to-sheet cutter, a reel-to-sheet laminator, a metpet laminator, four Brausse autoplated die-cutters, an automatic foil stamping machine from Yawa, and UV coaters from Autoprint. Vijayshri’s QC lab is used for testing finished packaging materials.
The company has an automatic 2-ply corrugation line with printing on both back and front. Of its two flute laminators, one is for 3-ply and the other for 5-ply corrugated board. All these machines are of Chinese make and the 5-ply flute laminator was purchased from Suba Solutions. It also has a window patching machine with wide window application. A Heiber+Schröder liner carton pasting machine, and three folder gluers while another new folder gluer sourced from an Indore manufacturer will be installed in August. All the folder gluers at Vijayshri are sourced from Chinese or Indian manufacturers.
Promising business scenario for Vijayshri
On a monthly basis, the company outputs close to 900 metric tons of packaging material using both paperboard and unbleached liners. “Our capacity is around 2000 metric tons a month,” Jain says, adding, “We do a lot of our business using metpet with hot-foil stamping. Nearly 90% of our business comes from the value-added segment. We are not a volume-oriented company. However, the monocartons and litho laminated cartons business has over the years turned out to be a promising one. There is price competition and service competition in the industry of which service competition is good for the industry, while the price competition is not so good.”
Vijayshri is extremely strict about its price margins and unlikely to bend on that front. It is also very particular about the quality of its products. “If I’m using 5 mm or 7 mm brass blocks for foil-stamping, it means I’m using Rs. 8,000 to Rs. 10,000 worth of consumables for that job. Now, if my competitor is using Rs. 1,500 or Rs. 2,000 blocks, it becomes extremely difficult for me to match the price. We’re focussing on selling a product rather than a commodity,” adds Jain.
Vijayshri uses Seigwerk and DIC inks on its presses. In FY 2018-19, the company registered 21% growth and is aiming to achieve at least 25% growth this year. It will expand capacity by adding more presses and die-cutters. All the presses at Vijayshri are second-hand machines that it has imported itself.
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