Mahan Hazarika: What is the prospect of the Indian packaging ink sector? What kind of opportunities do you see in the coming years?
JK Sharma: The future of the Indian packaging Industry is quite grandeur. The growth of the Indian packaging sector largely depends on the growth of the FMCG sector which is being the fourth largest sector to contribute to the Indian economy. Trends like sustainable packaging and intelligent packaging are also driving the growth of the Indian packaging sector.
Additionally, the rise in customized packaging requirements of the customers and variations in packaging and food safety regulations on an everyday basis also provide thrive to grow and create newer opportunities for innovation in the packaging sector.
Mahan Hazarika: Will an increase in packaging consumption in terms of volume be matched similar rises by value, and how this possible gap between volumes will reverberate on packaging inks sales?
JK Sharma: Several factors are associated with the gap between volume and value. Uniform quality consciousness between consumers, government quality standards parameters, and brand owners is a must to reduce this gap. This will further be minimized if the dependency on imported raw materials is reduced to a minimum so that the fluctuation in the raw material price can be controlled, followed by bridging the gap between volume and value. This is why the Yansefu R&D team is focusing more on developing indigenous technology on its key raw material requirement for ink production.
Mahan Hazarika: What is the role of inks in sustainability?
JK Sharma: Sustainability is the current strategic mantra is in rage within the packaging industry. And, being an important component of the packaging, printing inks play an influential role with the packaging and the trends related to it. However, the air about the exact definition of the term ‘sustainable’ is not clear yet. Retailers, converters and brand owners, and packaging material suppliers, everyone has customized their own definition of sustainability based on their business requirements.
According to our knowledge, packaging should be called sustainable if it can be easily renewable as well as degradable by living microorganisms when decompose, leaving less carbon footprint and harmful breakdown products that will eventually tend to end up in the environment. For example, if a non-biodegradable ink is printed on a bio-renewable and bio-degradable substrate, the entire packaging cannot be considered sustainable since the package will release harmful chemical components present as solids in printing inks.
Mahan Hazarika: Please tell us about the challenges in meeting compliance and regulations?
JK Sharma: Undoubtedly, meeting the compliance and regulations is quite an arduous challenge in India. The reason is, the largest share of the Indian packaging market has been shared by unorganized players who do not either bother about meeting the compliance requirements or have inadequate knowledge about it. The only requirement remains is printing inks with excellent printability but at a cheaper price.
Therefore, it is really taxing for printing ink manufacturers to formulate a high-performance complaint but low-cost printing inks using cheaper raw materials. However, being a proactive linkage of the packaging supply chain, we at Yansefu make continuous efforts to create awareness about compliance and regulations requirements among our customers.
Mahan Hazarika: What are your future plans in India?
JK Sharma: Yansefu has been achieving steady growth in sales for the past few years and has carved a name for itself in the market. Yansefu also strives to provide the best solution possible to pull off its customers’ requirements. We are planning to expand the commercialization of our high-performance innovative products and reach out to more customers in the domestic and international markets. Besides, we are investing heavily in developing bio-based products to meet the challenges of sustainability in the upcoming future.
