Avery Dennison India, a leading manufacturer of label materials with a dominant market share of more than 50% in India, inaugurated its state-of-the-art greenfield manufacturing facility in Yamuna Expressway Industrial Development Authority (YEIDA), Greater Noida on Thursday, 22 September 2022. The site is about 70 kilometers from New Delhi and is Avery Dennison’s fourth label-producing site in the country.Â
Shailendra Kumar Bhatia from YEIDA was the chief guest for the occasion. The event was attended by officials from YEIDA, the product management team of Avery Dennison, South Asia, and representatives from its North American headquarters and label manufacturers in India as well a large number of Avery employees from around the country.
The inauguration of its fourth and largest plant in India coincided with Avery’s 25th anniversary of business operations in India. Starting its Gurugram, the company established its Pune plant in 2007, and distribution centers in Bengaluru and Kolkata in 2011 and 2018, respectively. It established the Avery Dennison Innovation and Knowledge Centre (ADIKC) in 2012 in Bengaluru and Asia’s first iLab for RFID technology in 2019 at the Pune plant.
Avery Dennison’s YEIDA manufacturing facility, spread over a total area of 12 acres, is an investment exceeding Rs 250 crore (approximately US$ 35 million) taking its investment in India to Rs 1,000 crore plus (approximately US$ 125 million). Pankaj Bhardwaj, the company’s vice-president of Marketing Asia Pacific and Sub Saharan Africa, Labels & Packaging Materials, said that the new factory ticked all the boxes in terms of quality, reliability, capacity, speed, and sustainability while providing low tolerance for deviation. The facility, strategically located from a logistics and raw material point of view, was also listed in the groundbreaking ceremony of the UP Investors Summit 3.0, which listed the top 75 investments in the state during the Coronavirus pandemic. The plant is LEED-certified and equipped with German-made Kornit machines and used a high level of automation and robotics for material handling.
Saurabh Agarwal, senior director, and general manager, Labels & Packaging Materials, South Asia – Avery Dennison stated that more than a fifth of the company’s India revenue comes from new product innovations. He described the sustainability manufacturing process at the plant counting raw material sourcing, recycled and renewable content, reductions in emissions of greenhouse gases, employment of solar power panels, reduction in water usage and enabled recycling efforts.
In the last two pandemic-driven years, the label manufacturing industry has seen several setbacks such as the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic coupled with global supply chain disruptions, inflation, and raw material shortages. Avery Dennison’s commitment to the label market is demonstrated through the completion of the industrial allotment, plant approval, and construction in the last 2.5 years. YEIDA’s Bhatia noted that Avery Dennison’s manufacturing facility is the first functional unit in what is planned to be one of the leading manufacturing hubs in North India with a very high level of transportation connectivity, including the new Jewar airport to be commissioned in 2024.Â
Deon Stander, president and chief operating officer of Avery Dennison, shared that the firm is committed to innovation, pursues a passion for innovation, and has displayed a continued commitment to excellence in products, solutions, values, and relationships. He highlighted the values of integrity and excellence from Avery’s eight company values. He emphasized that the company had pursued several innovative strategies to achieve its developmental goals in the country. These include growth in all areas, profitable and successful support, productivity improvement, and maintaining social and environmental responsibility. “We bridge the gap between the physical and the digital as our products and technologies aim to add a digital identity to every physical item in the near future,” he said.
Avery Dennison has embraced a host of corporate social responsibility (CSR) initiatives for employment and skilling, women empowerment, and education. These include the InvEnt scholarship program, adolescent education program in collaboration with Magic Bus, Swabhimaan Project along with the Smile Foundation for reproductive health education and entrepreneurship development in women, Read India community centers and libraries, Care for Children, CanKids for the education of children affected from cancer, 2018 Kerala Flood Relief Program, sustainability, and waste management projects under India Cares, Earthwatch, Project Transformation along with the Connecting Dreams Foundation for the promotion of self-sufficiency, Covid-19 relief measures and social impact programs in several cities, including Pune, Gurugram, Kolkata, and Bengaluru.Â
The presentations, lamp-lighting, and ribbon-cutting ceremonies at the inauguration of the new plant were followed by a plant tour, demonstrating Avery Dennison’s adhesive coating and lamination in a single pass on the automated 83-meter IM6 coating and lamination line with material handling by three robots. The well-equipped QA lab as well as the extensive finishing section was shown. Altogether an impressive plant that promises the best adhesive label stocks for the fast-growing label and packaging industry in the country and region, with plenty of headroom for continued improvement and expansion.Â
