Ruchira Printing and Packaging at Kala Amb in HP

Investing in technology for growth in paper-based products

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A new Komori 7-color plus coater UV press installed at Ruchira Printing and Packaging, Kala Amb in HP.

Located just across the Himachal Pradesh border in Kala Amb, Ruchira Printing is primarily into offset printing for both commercial and carton packaging and also uses flexo and screen printing as needed. It offers specialized system packaging solutions for consumer products including secondary and tertiary packaging. The company can print and convert about 1,50,000 sheets a day, using inks from the global manufacturers in the country such as DIC, Siegwerk, and Toyo.

The company’s principal business activities are paper manufacturing, spiral paper tubes and paper cores, offset printing and packaging, and exports. As hotel owners in the foothills, they also are a part of the hospitality business. Including its subsidiaries such as Ruchira Printing and Packaging, Ruchira Papers, Ruchira Packaging Products and Well Pack Industries, totaling a turnover of about Rs 1,000 crore for the 40-year-old group.

New press and die-cutter

In the recent Q4 of FY 21-22, the company installed a new Komori 7-color G40 advance plus coater UV press and a Robus automatic BHT 1060 CE die-cutter. “The ethos of our group is to raise the bar on efficient and quality printing and to thrive using advanced technology, and so as a group, we decided to invest in these machines,” said Yogi Garg, Ruchira’s chief executive officer.

Ruchira
A new Robus automatic die cutting machine installed at Ruchira Printing and Packaging.

The company has segmented its market into four target groups – MNCs, large Indian corporates, PSUs, and top-end co-operative societies under the umbrella of food, dairy, beverages, personal care products, textiles, and footwear. “The printing and packaging industry is doing well, with a CAGR of around 15-18%. We too are performing within the same bracket,” said Lucky Garg, managing director, Ruchira.

Sustainability and expansion

On the expansion plan, Garg added, “With our new strategy in place, we are going all out in our expansion plan in our targeted packaging segments. We are adding new printing and converting pieces of machinery towards the end of April also, expecting to further increase our capacity by 30%. We’re focusing on building a strong team for idea generation as human capital is one of the most important resources for any organization to thrive.”

Bahrisons

Sustainability is an important goal for Ruchira as paper and paper-based packaging are recyclable and biodegradable by nature. “We are trying to reduce the usage of plastic wherever possible and we’re taking initiatives like water discharge treatment, organic farming, dust reduction, and usage of organic products. We are also considering shifting to solar energy to reduce carbon emissions,” said, Deepan Garg managing director of Ruchira.

“The pandemic has undoubtedly brought considerable shifts in perspective in business dynamics. As every industry faced challenges and disruptions, we too had our fair share, but there were visible positives in terms of building our resilience for this sector,” said Atul Garg. 

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.

– Naresh Khanna

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