The recently held one-day Bobst Vacuum Metallizing conference devoted to sustainable structures for flexible film and paper packaging in New Delhi began with an interesting announcement. In his opening remarks that revealed that the Indian market is perhaps the biggest customer of its metallizers, Chris Cheetham, the company’s Regional Sales director based at Bobst Manchester, announced that Bobst, which has two metallizer production and research plants in Manchester, will be establishing its third metallizer production plant in India.
The plant in Pune, adjacent to the company’s Indian head office and its existing manufacturing plants, is already under construction and should be ready at the end of this year with assembly of the Bobst Vision KHS metallizer to commence in the middle of 2024. The Vision K5 is already a widely accepted metallizer by Indian flexible packaging converters and film producers. At the Pune plant, the Vision K5 HS, the high-speed model will also be produced.
The Bobst Pune location was at one time considered an immense tract of industrial land where the company has been incrementally constructing plants and transferring technology for the manufacture and assembly of most of its folder-gluers and the downstream modules for its flexo folder gluers that are assembled at its plants elsewhere.
Bobst Vacuum Metallizing conference at The Lalit, New DelhiThe day-long technical conference on vacuum metalizing was well attended – with about 130 attendees not only from North India but from all other parts of the country. Metallizing has become a hot topic as packaging converters and film manufacturers increasingly look at producing sustainable and recyclable high-barrier packaging structures. The Bobst OneCycle film and the FibreCycle paper-based barrier packaging structure and collaborative developments were explained in detail.
Apart from the Bobst metallization processes and recent technical innovations, sessions at the conference discussed its metallizer spare parts and maintenance infrastructure in the country, the lamination processes in detail, and information about the research and development at the Bobst Montefiore plant and competence center, and also the characteristics of the UPM paperboards for the FibreCycle developments.
Significantly, the leading film producers and label and packaging converters from the Delhi NCR and the rest of the country, including Gujarat, Andhra Pradesh, and Kerala, remained till the end to participate in the lively question and answer session followed by some cheerful networking. Altogether, the event was remarkable both for its content and for the interest shown by industry and the community, which increasingly perceives the necessity and value of understanding the technology behind productive and sustainable packaging innovations and solutions.
To receive detailed technical information about some of the complex collaborative solutions displayed and talked about for the past three or four years at international fairs – in a well-organized, in-country, in-person setting brings them closer. Branded consumer product packs that have already reached store shelves globally were shown for close examination. Accessibility and the understanding that comes from it bring the possibility of innovative implementations near home – despite the challenges and learning that will still be needed.
