Khosla Printers, a Sahibabad-based company, recently installed its second Bobst machine, a Visionfold 110 A2 folder-gluer. The new machine was demonstrated during an Open House organized by Bobst at the Khosla Printers premise on 27 July 2018. Around 40 leading packaging converters and printers attended the Open House which was followed by a seminar at hotel Holiday Inn in Delhi.
The Open House highlighted the Visionfold 110 A2’s capabilities by producing tapered crash lock bottom (CLB) and straight line cartons in the presence of the visitors. Sanjay Khosla of Khosla Printers shared that they are running the Visionfold 110 A2 at speeds between 80,000 and 100,000 cartons an hour for straight line pasting while maintaining a speed between 40,000 and 50,000 cartons an hour for crash lock bottom pasting. Khosla Printers also has plans to invest in a Bobst diecutter in coming days.
“At Bobst, every year we make on average 200 specialities with our machines. When a customer comes to us with a very special box, we come up with a custom-design, specially for that customer and for that particular job,” shared Venugopal Menon of Bobst. “Bobst as a company provides solution to almost 53% of the global packaging industry.”
At the seminar following the Open House, Menon shared some interesting facts about the Indian folding carton market. He said, “Around 2.7 million tonnes of paper boards are produced in India – a figure that is expected to touch 3.4 million tonnes by 2020. Of these 2.7 million tonnes, 2 million tonnes is consumed by cartons, which is estimated to grow to 2.86 million tonnes by 2020. Of the 2 million tonnes, around 90,000 tonnes is duplex which is used for micro-flute production. The board production, as well as consumption, is growing at a CAGR of 10%.”
In India, around 40 to 45% of carton manufacturers belong to the unorganized segment. A majority of them produce cartons on hand platen and manual pasting machines, and lack any standard invoicing process. Menon shared that with the introduction of GST, in next three to four years a lot of these unorganized players have to either close down or get organized and go mainstream.
Shedding more light upon the Indian market, Menon said that monocarton – including both duplex and micro-flute carton – is estimated to be a 24,000 crore industry and is expected to grow to 36,000 crore by 2020. The biggest growth driver of packaging cartons in India and globally is still the food and pharmaceuticals segments, with the two contributing around 35% of the total global carton business.
Another aspect of the Indian market is a lot of direct physical export of cartons is also happening – mainly in the pharma, garments and food segments. Micro-flute carton is also growing at a rapid clip with a growth rate of around 20 to 25%. Meanwhile, industries like automobile, industrial hardware, food, electronics, footwear are also getting into the production of litho-laminated (e-flute, f-flute) cartons.
— Mahan Hazarika