The ProPak Conference 2018 was part of the first ProPak exposition on Packaging and Food Processing organized by UBM at the Greater Noida Expo Centre between the 30 August and 1 September 2018. UBM is a UKbased company who are one of the world’s largest organizers of trade shows and conferences. Although ProPak has been staged elsewhere in Asia, this was its first Indian edition. The show was staged in partnership with the Association of Food Scientists and Technologists of India (AFSTI), All India Food Processing
Association (AIFPA), Active and Intelligent Packaging Association (IPIA), Suman Projects and iFCA. PSA were associated with the show as media partners and to assist in curating a couple of conference sessions.
The ProPak conference was featured over 2 days on the 30th and 31st of August 2018 and included multiple sessions connected with packaging and food processing. The Conference started off with a keynote address delivered by Professor Pierre Pienaar, president of the World Packaging Organization (WPO) in which he talked about the work being done by the WPO and the various initiatives started by it on packaging together with other organizations.
This was followed by a presentation by Andrew Manly, Communications Director of AIPA, in which he talked about some new developments in Smart Technologies in the Liquid Food and Beverage Industry and one by Piruz Khambatta – chairman and MD of Rasna International, in which he stressed the importance of transparency and ethical integrity in the food industry for manufacturers to establish trust and consumer confidence. Kausik Saha – Head, Packaging Commercialization of Pepsico then talked about trends in beverage packaging.
Dr. Vijay Habbu, Sr. vice president,Reliance Industries & Secretary
General, PET Packaging Association
for Clean Environment (PACE)
Next on the agenda was a panel discussion on Plastic Waste Control and Solid Waste Management that was curated by PSA. The discussion was chaired by S Chidambar of PSA, who also made a presentation on the concept of The Circular Economy and how important it was to adopt this for all future planning to maximize conservation of scarce non renewable resources for sustainability. The other panelists were Dr Vijay Habbu, senior vice-president of Reliance Industries, who spoke about plastics in packaging and some initiatives on recycling, and Amit Ray, director of Uflex, who talked about how flexible packaging was the most sustainable packaging system despite the difficulties of recycling it; as of now, the most practical technology for conserving its resource value is to put it
through waste-to-energy systems like pyrolysis, he said.
The last session on the fi rst day was a panel discussion on eCommerce Packaging: The New Opportunity. The session was chaired by Naresh Khanna of PSA and the other panelists were Gulshan Kaushik, director of Bizango, Manish Gupta – MD of MNM Triplewall Containers and Mihir Mohanta, general manager of Mother Dairy Fruits and Vegetables. They explained how, though eCommerce presented a signifi cant opportunity, there were many logistical issues that needed to be addressed and sorted out including its reverse logistics.
Achintya Lahiri, national manager– Engineering Services, Hindustan
Coca-Cola Beverages
The second day started with a keynote address by Chakravarti AVPS – Global Brand Ambassador of WPO in which he talked about the global threat to packaging from counterfeiting and described various techniques used to counter this. The second session was about whether the angst against plastics was justifi ed. This session was also chaired by Naresh Khanna and the panelists were Swati Singh Sambyal, program manager, Environmental Governance (Waste Management) of the Centre for Science and Environment, who made an interesting presentation on the status of solid waste management in India pointing out the importance of changing the attitudes of municipal bodies and the mindset of the average consumer without attacking any particular like plastics. Aditya Gupta of the NDG Group representing paper manufacturers, pointed out the sustainability credentials of paper and Deepak Ballani of AIPMA, put forth details of discussions with the government on how to implement the new Plastic Waste Management Rules issued in March 2018.
L-R: L K Singh, vice president – North, The All India Plastics Manufacturers’Association (AIPMA); Swati Singh Sambyal, Programme Manager, Environmental Governance (Waste Management), Centre for Science and Environment and Aditya Gupta, Chairman – Technical Committee, Paper Merchant Association, Delhi
The next session, chaired by S Chidambar, focused on Packaging Design and Innovation. There were two presentations, one by Deepak Manchanda of Autumn Design on the aesthetic aspects of packaging design and the other on systems design of packaging citing two case studies by Achintya Lahiri of Hindustan Coca Cola Beverages. This session was also curated by PSA.
The next session – a panel discussion on experiences of new products in food processing – was chaired by Dr. Sagar Kurade of AFSTI. It featured panelists Aditya Bagri MD of Bagrrys India and Dr J N Khushwaha, CEO of BTW India, both of whom talked about experiences in launching new concepts (breakfast cereals and ethnic Indian snack foods respectively) in the Indian market.
The last session was on Women in the Food Processing and Packaging Industry. It was chaired by Dr Eram Rao of AFSTI and featured panelists Parna Dasgupta, director, Regulatory Affairs of Kelloggs India, who said she did not face any particular problems being a woman in the business. Pooja Mahajan, MD of Unitas Foods, shared her experiences and views that suggested there was no particular problem for women entrepreneurs in implementing a new project and obtaining fi nance if one had done one’s homework and had in place a sound business plan.
