LMAI Board of directors


The 3-day LMAI label conference from 25th-27th July 2019 was an event that was efficiently organized and delivered the promise of comradeship, entertainment and knowledge sharing. From the time of landing at Kochi to the time of departures on 28th, it was all done with clockwork precision. It was a gigantic task of hosting over 550-600 delegates from all over India and various parts of the world attending this biennial event. They were put up in 317 rooms spread across 3 hotels The Bolgatty Grand Hyatt, The Marriot and The Taj. The event was held at Grand Hyatt, perched on 26 acres of plush green land on the serene Bolgatty Island, Grand Hyatt Kochi Bolgatty is a waterfront urban resort overlooking the backwaters of Vembanad Lake.

After a smooth check-in and registrations, the delegates reassembled for start of conference. 

It all started with traditional lighting of the lamp.

Welcome address by Kuldeep Goel President LMAI followed next.

Pankaj Bhardwaj Senior Director and General Manager Avery Dennison delivered the thought-provoking keynote address, setting the tone of the conference. Pankaj, while referring to the growing Indian market mentioned, “Diminishing divide between urban-rural population in India and an aspiring middle class means a growing demand of consumer products and also label”.

Due to a delayed flight, special guest Lisa Milburn Managing Director Labelexpo Group UK could not reach in time to deliver her address and in her absence, Pradeep Saroha country manager Labelexpo spoke to update the audience about the forthcoming Labelexpo Europe in Brussels, it being the 40th anniversary of Labelexpo additional features included will be on sustainability, flexible packaging, digital printing and a host of other technologies.

Manish Desai Conference chairman spoke on the flow of events at the conference.

Shahidi Ainain Director SIES School of packaging who was moderator for the event gave the guidelines to be followed while making presentations and advised speakers on the need for time management.

The audience dispersed to re-assemble again later for welcome dinner with Thallaavia theme.

L to R: Ajay Mehta, Amit Sheth, Dinesh Mahajan, Raveendran, Harveer Sahni
Pankaj Bhardway-Avery, Kuldip Goel, Rajesh Nema, Sandeep Zaveri,
Vivek Kapoor, Ramesh Deshpande and Amar Chhajed

The conference being held in Kerala, it was an imperative to give it a local theme on the very first evening. All the Board of Directors of LMAI and Committee members dressed up in the local Malayali traditional dress, giving the evening a local celebratory touch. After felicitation of sponsors by committee members and their walk on the ramp there was Carnatic band playing, networking and dinner.

A surprise announcement was made for bestowing upon Amit Sheth of Label Planet and Intergraphic a lifetime award for contribution to the Indian Label Industry! After an emotional thank you speech, Amit walked the ramp with wife Rupa and their two daughters.

Next day after breakfast the audience reassembled for a busy day full of presentations by eminent sponsors and of very high standards. Past President Vivek Kapoor’s welcome address was followed by presentation by Manoj KM and Parag Bagade of Avery Dennison. While Manoj spoke on futuristic labelstock offerings, Parag spoke on the sustainability endeavours by Avery including collection and recycling of liner and self-adhesive waste.

Presentations made were as follows;
Avery Dennison India, Manoj KM and Parag Bagade, “Emerging Technology & Sustainability”Pulisi Technology, Olive Liu, “Relationship between Technology and Life”SMI Coated Products: Ajay Mehta and Rohit Mehta, “Technical Aspects of Applications of Label Stock Solutions”Domino Printech India: David Ellen, “Advantages of HYBRID systems for labels and Packaging converters”Vinsak India: Ranesh Bajaj, “Future Based Solutions”Retail Solution and Technologies: T. R. Ravishankar, “Trends in Barcoding and Enterprise Mobility”WEIGANG: Spring Xu, “Features enhancing to choose a good flexo machine”Luster LightTech Group: Carrie Duan, “Mining your potential”Nilpeter India: Manish Kapoor, Indian Label Indusrty – “The question of Scale and Scalability”Insight Print Communications: Ajay Aggarwal, “Transition to Digital – Now and for Future”Loparex: Manish Jain, “Future Sustainability”Heidelberg and Gallus: Samir Patkar, “The Power of 2 – when conventional meets digital (hybrid technology)”DuPont Advanced Printing: Shyamal Desai, “End user benefits”Flint Group India: Shailesh Kumar Sharma, “New Gen Color Management”HP India Sales: Appadurai, “Future is Now”BOBST Firenze SRL: Ludovico Frati, “Connectivity”Dragon Foils – Inter Films India: Raymond Lu, “Innovation and frontier of cold foil technology”

Two interactive and knowledge imparting Panel Discussions moderated by LMAI Board member Harveer Sahni of Weldon Celloplast were held after lunch. The first one was with printers where the topic was, “Creating the future vs embracing the future”.

Panelists included Priyata Raghavan Sai Security Printers, Tejas Tanna of Printmann, Aaditya Kashyap of Marksfine, Mahendra Shah of Renault Paper, Shakti Jain of Great Eastern IDTech, Yudhviram Solanki of Sicon Packs and Anurag Mohan of Interact.

The second Panel discussion was with industry suppliers as panelists and titled, “Evolving trends in Labels manufacturing!” Eminent suppliers who were in the panel and gave thought provoking inputs included;

Bhupinder Singh of Avery Dennison, Samir Patkar of Heidelberg Gallus, Appa Durai of HP, Ranesh Bajaj of Vinsak, Pawandeep Sahni of Omet, Manish Kapoor of Nilpeter, Prasenjit Das of Dupont and Sreenivas Goud of Flint. Time being a constraint the audience wished there was more time for these engaging discussions but since the schedule for the conference was so packed that there was no room for extension

After the day’s presentations ended, there was an excellent talk sponsored by SMI and Pulisi on “Secrets of Impactful Success” by motivational Guru, Gaur Gopal Das which left a full packed hall of almost 600 people spellbound and in awe of what he delivered. 

The evening ended with yet another program sponsored by SMI and Pulisi, a musical performance by the visually impaired performers from the National Organisation of Disabled Artists. They sang old Bollywood songs so well that it left the audience full of awe and at that moment, compassion turned into joy, watching their special abilities to deliver so well to a large audience.

The label printing fraternity was up on its feet and on to the dance floor enjoying the renderings of this awesome group. Towards the end, the President LMAI on behalf of his team announced an additional sum of Rupees one lakh over and above what they had contracted for.

This was followed by many in the audience committing large sums to support the social cause of encouraging disabled artists.

On the final day after a welcome address more presentations as mentioned below followed;

Apex Asia Pacific: Carl Brock, “Nothing short of revolution in flexographic printing”Flexo Image Graphics: Ian Pollock, “Future of Printing Technology”ROGLER International Sàrl: Hannes Rogler, “Future based solution”Multitec Aids: Amit Ahuja, “Life beyond labels”RotoMetrics: Cain Harper, “It’s about more than the die”Brotech Digital Graphics: Ramon Lee, “The future of hybrid printing and finishing”GEW: Marcus Greenbrook, “Upcoming Technology”Numex Blocks: Supachai Theravithayangkura, “Innovative Flexo Plate Solutions for Narrow Web Printing”JN Arora presentation

A panel discussion jointly hosted and moderated by Ajay Mehta of SMI Coated papers and Amit Sheth of Pulisi Technology was conducted with young panelists that included Hemanth Paruchuri of Pragati Pack, Vidur Agarwal of Veekay Industries,

Krishh Chhatwal of Kwality Offset, Denver Annunvciation of Janus International and Naveen Goel of Any Graphics titled “Young printer’s perception on future of label industry”

After the presentations concluded that afternoon it was time for a “Sadhya” typical of that area. Sadhya in local language Malyalam is a feast of Hindu origin and of importance to Hindu Malayalis, consisting of a variety of traditional vegetarian dishes usually served on a banana leaf in KeralaIndia.

Sadhya means banquet in Malayalam. It is a vegetarian feast prepared by both men and women, especially when needed in large quantities, for weddings and other special events. Sadhya is typically served as a traditional dish for Onam, the state festival of Kerala. It was a feast for the eyes to see, a diverse gathering Indians and foreigners relishing the local cuisine and eating with bare hands.

Past president Sandeep Zaveri updated the audience about the next program of Round tables, the interaction between sponsors and Printers.

“Round tables” program with all sponsors attending to a rotating groups of label printers was a much-appreciated part of this conference. 

It gave the sponsors opportunity to interact with existing and prospective customers. This program was highly appreciated by the sponsors.

The final evening sponsored by Avery Dennison was themed “The Great Gatsby!”. 

American author F. Scott Fitzgerald that follows a cast of characters living in the fictional towns of West Egg and East Egg on prosperous Long Island in the summer of 1922. Fitzgerald—inspired by the parties he had attended while visiting Long Island’s North Shore—began planning the novel in 1923,

desiring to produce, in his words, “something new—something extraordinary and beautiful and simple and intricately patterned.” In the novel the character Gatsby throws very extravagant, excessive parties with hundreds of guests, all for the purpose to attract a lady’s attention. The evening had the settings of the 1920s.

The evening began with a vote of thanks by LMAI treasurer Dinesh Mahajan of Prakash Labels.

It was then time for SMI Managing Director Ajay Mehta’s talented daughter Nikita Mehta who trained in the USA and is all set to go professional in the Indian singing arena, to go on stage and give a melodious heartwarming singing performance.

Finally, while people enjoyed photo ops and networking over drinks.

Bollywood singer Nakash Aziz took the stage while the LMAI conference delegates hit the dance floor and enjoyed the fun until late in the night.

Credit goes to Hemal Bhagwat who heads the event management company Mercury Integrated along with her husband and a dedicated team. “Thank you Hemal for making this a memorable event, memories will linger on till it is time to plan yet another better and bigger LMAI CONFERENCE”

Written by Harveer Sahni Chairman Weldon Celloplast Limited New Delhi July 2019

Magazines are free to reproduce by giving credit to author.

Ashok Jaipuria
Ashok Jaipuria led Cosmo Films Limited, headquartered in New Delhi, is one of the largest manufacturers of BOPP (Biaxially Oriented Poly Propylene) films in the world. According to Wikipedia they are in fact the largest manufacturer of thermal lamination films in the world. Ashok Jaipuria is prided with his lineage from an elite Marwari family (people from the Marwar region of Rajasthan).   Ashok is the only son of his father Late Sri Sitaram Jaipuria, who was an Industrialist and Promoter of Swadeshi Polytex Limited,  Swadeshi Cotton Mills Limited and was a member of the Upper House of the Parliament of India. Ashok started his own firm Cosmo Films in 1976 with an objective to manufacture and market BOPP films. He qualified in Business Administration and Marketing Science in the year 1973. BOPP film was a licensed item those days, visualizing growth and opportunity in this nascent area; he applied for and acquired the license to manufacture it. He setup and commissioned his first BOPP production line in 1981 at Chikalthana, Aurangabad. Being one of the first entrants to produce BOPP in India, the initial years were very tough, more so because customer awareness did not exist and educating them on the product was a challenge. Print lamination and self adhesive packaging tapes were the first target segments for this product. Once settled, there was no looking back, they commissioned their second production line at Waluj, Aurangabad in 1988 and third line also at Waluj in 1996.
 
Entering the new millennium, Cosmo Films was steadily growing, so was the market for 
Cosmo Films Vadodara Unit
BOPP and also the market share of Cosmo for BOPP films. With a positive situation prevailing, they became bullish and registered unprecedented growth in this decade.  In 2001 they commissioned their fourth line and a year later in 2002 they acquired Gujarat Propack Limited, the Karjan Vadodara based BOPP manufacturer which became their fifth BOPP line. In 2003 the sixth line was commissioned and in the very next year in 2004 they decided to go for specialties in BOPP by adding a metalizer, an extrusion coating plant and yet another BOPP line taking their total count to seven. Expanding on coated products, they commissioned their second extrusion coating line in 2005. Encouraged by the success, Cosmo added five more extrusion coating lines. Two were added in 2006, one in 2007 and two more in 2008. Extending their footprint globally, in 2009 they acquired USA headquartered GBC’s Print Finishing Business from Acco Brands Corporation USA. Also in 2009 they enhanced their BOPP production capacity with yet another line at Vadodara, taking the total to 8 lines. 
 
 
Cosmo Films Hagerstown USA
They wrapped up the decade by installing their 2nd metalizer at Karjan, Vadodara. In the second decade of the millennium Cosmo continued on their growth path. Pankaj Poddar also of Marwari descent, a qualified Chartered Accountant, took charge as the CEO of Cosmo Films in 2011. In the ensuing years a new plant was commissioned with their existing eighth extrusion thermal coating line in South Korea. Two more BOPP lines in Aurangabad SEZ and Karjan Baroda were added in subsequent years taking the total BOPP production lines to ten. In addition, they have five coating lines, three metalizers and one CPP (Cast Polypropylene) line. When the first line was commissioned Cosmo’s capacity was only 850 tons per annum, which now has reached 2,00,000 tons from five different locations that include three in India, one in Korea and one in USA, the biggest facility being the one in Vadodara. The production in India spreads over 100 acres of land with 850 permanent employees. Even though volume growth of BOPP was coming from packaging and lamination yet the business had sometime along the way started to get competitive. To maintain their leadership and profitability, they had in the 1990s, shifted focus to specialties in films and label films for wrap around labels, IML (that had started evolving) along with limited presence in self adhesive labels.  Out of their initial endeavours, white film for Parle and production of synthetic paper was vital in their rapid growth. 
 
With Pankaj Poddar at helm, the company became more aggressive especially in the label segment. The label segment comprising of self-adhesive labels, wrap around labels and IML is continuously growing in volumes. They supply these films worldwide with some sales also in China. Today leading Indian Labelstock and other label producers use Cosmo’s products for labels. Label films continue to become a substantial part of the company’s product offerings these are now around 15% of their total production. Cosmo has invested in creating the right products to facilitate top of the line decorative packaging. Their offerings include films that are white opaque pearlised, transparent, solid white, gloss/matt metalized, etc. Their films have a clean surface, have excellent gloss, high clarity and can be printed by different print technologies that include printing by using Water based inks, UV inks, Gravure inks, Thermal transfer ribbon printing and some Digital print processes. According to Pankaj, while the domestic BOPP market is growing at around 10 % per annum, the growth is slightly more in self adhesive labels and IML, yet Cosmo is registering a growth rate above this due to their increasing exports. They are committed to diversify more and more into the specialty segments due to depressed margins of commodity products in a competitive scenario. They will soon be launching direct thermal printable film and paper. Being firmly committed to maintain their leadership, for them delivery of quality and innovative products is a priority. They have invested more than 1.50 Million US$ in their new Research and Development/Innovation centre. The centre has capability to analyse the entire film’s chemistry viz. surface, polymer and chemical analysis.  The centre is also capable of testing all properties of the film right from its concept stage way upto its end applications.  Centre can also conduct in house  printing tests with diverse processes like Screen, UV flexo, Gravure printing, Direct Thermal and Thermal Transfer Printing.
 
Pankaj is emphatic that BOPP consumption will continue to grow at a fast pace, but he wishes to see Cosmo diversify more into specialty segments. They will also be adding a Cast Poly Propylene film (CPP) and metalized CPP film line in 2018; they will also be installing a PET film line. Both product lines will be packaging and label centric. PET will be majorly offered as label face or later for release liner applications. PET liners can reduce the adverse impact of liner waste on the environment by bringing down the tonnage of liners using thinner liners. While most of the present paper siliconised liners go to landfills, PET liners can be recycled. Capacity enhancement for synthetic paper is also on cards. Their biggest competition at global level comes from Jindal Poly films subsequent to their acquisition of Exxon Mobil’s BOPP films division and from Innovia films. However still, Pankaj says, “We will be enhancing capacities. As for specialties, we have no real competition”. Pensively and hesitantly he does agree that digital printing direct on product that will eliminate the substrate maybe a challenge but he is confident it will not affect Cosmo’s growth plans.
 
Pankaj Poddar
Pankaj Poddar is an alumnus of Delhi’s Shri Ram College of commerce (SRCC). After finishing his B.Com at SRCC, he completed his articles to be a qualified CA and then completed his degree in MBA from IMT Ghaziabad. He worked with Ernst and Young for 7 years, for automotive parts company Delphi for 5 years two years each with Reckitt Benckiser and Avon Beauty Products. He comes from a traditional Marwari business family, his father dealt with heavy earthmoving machinery spare parts, brother traded in air-dryers and chilling plants and sister’s husband supplies alloy metal to auto parts companies. Moving away from the tradition Pankaj preferred to be a professional executive. His wife is a dietician and they are blessed with two school going children, a son and a daughter. When he joined Cosmo, the turnover of the company was Rupees 850 Crores (130Million USD) and it has now reached Rupees 1900 Crores (300 Million USD). He was awarded as “Indian CEO of the year” by ABCI, Association of Business Communicators of India at their “Brand India Summit” in 2016.  When Pankaj took charge, Cosmo Film’s share was trading at Rs.80-90 and now it has reached Rs.350-400.
 
Cosmo Films is an environmentally conscious company and continues to make strides in implementing eco friendly measures.  All coatings on their films are water based and they support water based ink printing for conversion of their films. They are an ISO: 14001 certified company. The waste water in all their plants, after effluent treatment, is used for gardening. All plant sites have water harvesting. Natural lighting is used wherever possible. They plan to initiate a solar power plant at their Vadodara site as a first experiment and if found successful, they will replicate in other sites as well. Every employee in their organization has to undergo training. As a part of their corporate social responsibility, they work on supplementing basic education provided to young children in government schools in and around their plants through various sustainable programs like Computer Literacy, basic English Learning, basic reading, writing, and arithmetic skills. They have trained about 150 rural youth as qualified teachers to be able to execute this and till date more than 25000 students have benefitted from these programs.
 
Pankaj feels in 5 years Cosmo’s turnover will more than double up from the present 300 million US Dollars to 600-700 US Dollars. This he states will be just from the ongoing organic growth. However if they install more projects and happen to acquire some businesses, the turnover may reach USD 1 billion. The present share of specialty films in the company portfolio is around 40%, he hopes and wishes to increase this share to 60% so as to keep adding value to its bottom line.

 

 

 

Written for Packaging South Asia magazine by Harveer Sahni Chairman, Weldon Celloplast Limited, New Delhi, December 2017.
 
Print Publications wanting to reproduce may do so by giving credit to the author Harveer Sahni and by mentioning that it is published in arrangement with "Packaging South Asia"