Shri Uma Plastic Industries, a provider of flexible packaging solutions in Jodhpur’s Basni industrial area, is expanding and diversifying its export portfolio by leveraging its production plant in West Africa’s Sierra Leone.
The Kings Beverages plant, inaugurated in 2017, produces water and soft drinks along with its packaging, which has lifted the company’s Y-o-Y growth. The plant is set for expansion with more investments. In the coming 5-6 months, it will double in production with multiple SKUs.
In India, the company has been operational since 1975 in Rajasthan. Its portfolio consists of packaging for household goods, namkeen, jaljeera, spices, snacks, grains and cereals, tea, non-alcoholic and alcoholic drinks, agriculture goods, customized and sustainable product designs, and pouching solutions. It exports packaging solutions to African countries such as Sierra Leone, Ivory Coast, Ghana, Liberia, and a few South Asian nations, including Nepal.
The soft drink and its packaging are both manufactured at the Kings Beverages plant in West Africa’s Sierra LeoneIn an interaction with Packaging South Asia, Chandresh Raj Lodha, the fourth-gen MD of the family business, explained that his great-grandfather, the late Sampath Raj Lodha, initially established the business with a shop named Lodha Plastics in 1960. It was later industrialized by his grandfather Sudhraj Lodha, who established the firm as Rajasthan’s first manufacturing unit in the year 1975. Lodha said that it was India’s 13th manufacturing plant. The company was named Shri Uma Plastic Industries after Uma, his grandmother.
Promoting the company’s slogan ‘We print before you think’, Lodha said he joined the family business in the year 2012 while his father, Jitendra Raj Lodha, was the chairman and MD. He learned much of the technicalities in production and sales from his father. At present, both Chandresh and his father are the presidents of the Rajasthan Laminator Manufacturing Association and members of the All India Plastic Manufacturers Association (AIPMA).
According to him, packaging serves two purposes — promoting and protecting. “The promotional effort is to grab the attention of a customer in less than a few seconds towards a product on a supermarket shelf and say ‘take me home’. While protecting has more to do with the longevity of the product. We provide our solutions to some of the renowned brands in the country.”
On technology, Lodha said, “We have an 8–color rotogravure printing machine, solventless lamination, a slitting machine, a trimming wastage machine, zipper, and pouching machine, quality testing equipment, and more.”
He believes that the strength of Rajasthan as a packaging manufacturing hub has increased significantly in the last decade. “The Indian manufacturers and converters are gaining high traction globally. Rajasthan too has no shortage of players, and we are growing with increased investments in the latest technology, R&D, and growing exports,” he concludes.
