The 11th Speciality Films & Flexible Packaging Global Business Summit 2024 – the world’s largest flexible packaging business summit also known as ElitePlus, was held in Mumbai on 30 September and 1 October. The two-day conference was held at the Reliance Jio World Convention Centre. The Elite conference is growing and evolving, with its strong mixture of brand owners, suppliers, and converters sharing their inputs on the industry’s growth, individual and collective progress, and solutions. The networking aspect of the event is perhaps unparalleled in the industry since some of the most senior representatives of the global supplier industry take part in an attempt to influence future deals and consolidate those that are under discussion.
The keynote addresses on the first day were delivered by Luciana Pellegrino, president of The World Packaging Organisation, Nadir Godrej, chairman and managing director of Godrej Industries, Saugata Gupta, managing director and CEO of Marico, Jacob Duer, president and CEO of the Alliance to End Plastic Waste and Ashok Chaturvedi, chairman and managing director of the UFlex Group.
Pellegrino was lucid in her presentation of the growth and challenges that the industry faces and in the WPO’s mission that packaging should increasingly lead to a better quality of life for the widest sections of the global population through improved packaging and better use of all resources. Her slides demonstrated the resilience of the packaging industry even during global economic and social crises, which continues to outstrip GDP growth globally and in most regions. Citing Smithers’ data, she said that the combined packaging sectors will grow at a rate of 3.7% from 2026 to 2032. Citing changes in consumer behavior and expectations, she suggested that connected packaging and artificial intelligence would help the packaging industry attain its key goals of circularity and responsibility, by accelerating the growth of value to users with efficiency and agility.
Keynotes by Nadir Godrej, chairman and managing director of Godrej Industries, Saugata Gupta, the managing director and CEO of Marico, Jacob Duer, the president and chief executive officer of the Alliance to End Plastic Waste, and Ashok Chaturvedi all addressed circularity and sustainability. Godrej in his inimitable poetry combined the legacy of responsible business and its care of society and culture with the reason and necessity of environmental consciousness.
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Holostik at the 11th Speciality Films & Flexible Packaging Summit
Gupta reflected on his company’s trajectory of packaging evolution. At the same time, Duer spoke of Alliance’s more than 70 projects in India and its ambition to move from demonstration and pilot projects to larger mainstream projects by fostering greater collaborations, and upskilling the formal waste collection sector. He enumerated several research and development efforts and the ambitious goals of large FMCG companies in the country. “There is no silver bullet,” he said. “The solutions complement each other, and no single recycling solution can stand alone.”
Ashok Chaturvedi, chairman and managing director of the UFlex GroupThe changes in Ashok Chaturvedi’s tone and inflection perhaps best reflect the gradual evolution of the Indian flexible packaging industry and its perception of sustainability and regulatory change. He has always raised the issue of waste collection as a prerequisite to recycling. Last year at the same forum, he asked why our society and industry depend on low or unpaid rag-pickers and scavengers to collect waste, and this year, he exhorted the industry to come to grips with the regulations on plastic waste management that have been notified by the government.
When Chaturvedi says, “The industry should stop looking for loopholes in the legislation. It should focus only on the collection of flexible plastic and use AI in handling and sorting plastic waste,” the industry sees it as a signal from its practical and business leader. He cautions as a matter of course that real sustainability comes from packaging’s role in the safe and hygienic delivery of goods — especially consumer food products without spoilage, and that we should not sacrifice the contents for the mere circularity of its packaging.
There were several other excellent presentations on both days of the conference with important and interesting themes and insights that we hope to present to our readers in the coming days with coverage from all three International Packaging Press colleagues HyeJeong Anh, Shardul Sharma, and Naresh Khanna, who attended the 11th Elite Conference in Mumbai.
