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Valco Melton’s focus is still very much on packaging at the moment says Ravi Kiran, director of Valco Melton India. In PackPlus 2016, Valco Melton, one of the world’s leading suppliers of adhesive dispensing equipment and quality inspection systems is offering its technical expertise, along with its solutions.

Actually there is no centre-stage at drupa for packaging. The 17 halls are spread out and although the organizers presented packaging award exhibitions and high level discussions on the concepts and future considerations for the packaging industry, the subject is too large to be contained just in the centre of the stage. Packaging has always been an integral part of drupa – especially since it has been the key platform for multicolor offset presses and monocarton converting. drupa has also had exhibitors such as W&H and Comexi, Uteco and Bobst and many others including the electronic gravure and flexo prepress suppliers for the longest time.

Laurel Brunner writes, “Drupa 2016’s attendance and sales numbers show that print is in rude health.” (Just so this British idiom is not misunderstood – if someone’s in rude health, they are very healthy and look it.) Brunner writes this in the context of sustainability but I am quoting her so that our readers can benefit from the considered opinion of a savvy industry expert.

Kodak showed 20 new technologies and products at drupa but there are two or three main themes that one has to keep sorting out when referring to its overall presence at the show. The first is Kodak’s announcement a few weeks before the show that it was pursuing the sale of its Prosper Enterprise Inkjet Division because it did not have the extensive capital and other resources to market this technology. The company said at its drupa press conference that there were several suitors looking to buy its Enterprise Inkjet Division.

The first few days at drupa have been busy and well attended. Total occupied exhibition space has been reduced, to the delight of the software and paper vendors who finally got rid of the unpopular upper floors in Hall 7. The number of exhibitors remained relatively stable with 1,837, and we wouldn’t be surprised if visitor numbers will turn out to be on the rise. The industry’s multinational players appear to be upbeat, and there are many new developments to be discovered in all printing segments. From Asia, several new exhibitors are showcasing CtP systems, diecutters, cutting and milling plotters, curing systems and consumables.

There has been a great deal of capacity building in the South Asian packaging industry since the last drupa. The last four years have seen an influx of high speed gravure presses built both in Europe and in Asia. India itself has five quality manufacturers of gravure presses. Wide web flexo has also taken off, finally in India with the influx of presses increasing from two a year to something like a 10 to 12 new CI flexo presses from the likes of W&H, Bobst F&K, Soma and CMYK just in India. Flexible packaging continues to grow in double digits throughout the subcontinent with half a dozen new film manufacturing lines scheduled for installation in the next two years in Bangladesh, India and Pakistan. As we had written earlier, major investors include Jindal Polymers and Cosmos as well as a new entrant to film manufacturing in Bangladesh.

Not many know that Surya Foods is also present in the juice market. Known as a biscuit, confectionery and chocolate manufacturer Surya Foods started off in November 1992 and launched its Priyagold biscuit brand in October 1993. The company has established strong biscuit manufacturing capabilities and invested substantially in developing consumer preference for its products. Its brands ‘Haq Se Maango’ and ‘Priyagold’ are now powerful FMCG brands. The company has six plants in Greater Noida, Lucknow, Surat, Haridwar, Jammu, Hyderabad and has diversified to upmarket biscuits and chocolates as well as fruit juices under the Treat and Fresh Gold brand names.