AIPIA and Packaging South Asia are pleased to announce a new virtual Smart Packaging event for India and South Asia. The stand-alone event will focus on some of the critical issues facing India’s burgeoning Food & Beverage and Pharmaceutical sectors – Sustainability/Food Waste & Food Safety/Secure Supply Chains/Consumer Engagement. We will gather some of the leading practitioners in these areas, offering solutions that can impact waste and extend shelf life, counterfeiting, market diversion, tracking, and forging closer and more dynamic links with consumers. Leading Brand Owners will discover the latest trends and how they can work cost-effectively to benefit their products and build trust with customers.
Delegates will join in ‘round tables’ for one-to-one or shared discussions with our sponsors and speakers. This is the FIRST event of its kind for the Indian and South Asian markets, driven by a powerful combination of AIPIA’s decade of expertise in all aspects of Smart Packaging and IPPStar’s and Packaging South Asia’s local market knowledge and networks. The program so far has sessions such as Smart Packaging in the Supply Chain, Condition Monitoring, Dealing with the Pandemic, Smart Packaging for Food Safety & Security, Smart Packaging Tech for Authentication, Consumer Messages – Explaining Sustainability thru Packaging, Recycling and Circularity… How Digital Fits In, Smart Materials, Augmented Reality and the Next Step in Smart Packaging and using RFID/NFC/QR Codes to Enhance the Consumer Experience.
The Virtual Congress will also issue a Brand Challenge in advance from one of the Indian consumer product companies seeking a solution for brand security, sustainability, condition monitoring, customer engagement, or any area where technology and packaging can offer a solution. The brand owner will present the Brand Challenge, and in a later session, the winners will present their solution.
2023 promises an interesting ride for print in India
Indian Printer and Publisher founded in 1979 is the oldest B2B trade publication in the multi-platform and
multi-channel IPPGroup. While the print and packaging industries have been resilient in the past 33 months since the pandemic lockdown of 25 March 2020, the commercial printing and newspaper industries have yet to recover their pre-Covid trajectory.
The fragmented commercial printing industry faces substantial challenges as does the newspaper industry.
While digital short-run printing and the signage industry seem to be recovering a bit faster, ultimately
their growth will also be moderated by the progress of the overall economy. On the other hand book
printing exports are doing well but they too face several supply-chain and logistics challenges.
The price of publication papers including newsprint has been high in the past year while availability is diminished by several mills shutting down their publication paper and newsprint machines in the past four years. Indian paper mills are also exporting many types of paper and have raised prices for Indian printers. To some extent, this has helped in the recovery of the digital printing industry with its on-demand short-run and low-wastage paradigm.
Ultimately digital print and other digital channels will help print grow in a country where we are still far behind in our paper and print consumption and where digital is a leapfrog technology that will only increase the demand for print in the foreseeable future. For instance, there is no alternative to a rise in textbook consumption but this segment will only reach normality in the next financial year beginning on 1 April 2023.
Thus while the new normal is a moving target and many commercial printers look to diversification, we believe that our target audiences may shift and change. Like them, we will also have to adapt with agility to keep up with their business and technical information needs.
Our 2023 media kit is ready, and it is the right time to take stock and reconnect with your potential markets and customers. Print is the glue for the growth of liberal education, new industry, and an emerging economy. We seek your participation in what promises to be an interesting ride.
