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$125 m machinery imports; Indian market is 6th largest
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Wednesday, 01 July, 2015, 08 : 00 AM [IST]
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Loveleen Sharma
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fiogf49gjkf0d Packaging industry in India consists of both organised and unorganised sectors. India has the second- largest GDP among emerging economies based on purchasing power parity (PPP).
The packaging industry in India is one of the fastest growing industries which has its influence on all industries, directly or indirectly. In the world scenario, the total turnover of packaging industry is about $550 billion where Indian share is about $24.6 billion per annum. It stood as sixth-largest packaging market in the world in 2011. The annual growth rate of this sector is about 15% and it is expected that it will touch $32 billion by 2025.
Food processing
The Indian food processing market is the largest in the world in terms of production, consumption and growth prospectus. Approximately 50% of packaging machinery and materials produced is absorbed by the food processing sector, personal products, tea and coffee and industrial products. Another factor, which boosts the packaging machinery industry, is the importance given to the rapid growth of exporters. It has become very urgent for Indian food products to adopt better packaging methods, materials and machinery to ensure quality to stand in international market. Indian packaging machinery imports are $125 million. Indian imports of packaging equipment for food processing contain mainly automated advanced machines and systems. Germany, Italy, the US, Switzerland and others including Taiwan are major equipment suppliers to the Indian market.
The unorganised sector
It represents the larger opportunity, given the increasing quality-consciousness of end-customers. The cost of equipment, smooth ‘upgradation’ and lower processing costs hold the key to success in this segment.
The organised sector
Large companies, primarily the multinational corporations (MNCs), which comprise another segment would be guided for the choice of such equipment by the global policies and standardisation of their parent company. The organised segment, which caters to the major food processing companies are most conscious about quality and the ability to produce various packaging products, thereby enabling them to address a larger market. As packaging becomes an important link in the food processing chain, so does the need for proper packaging machinery and systems for food processing. Currently, there are a very few companies in the organized sector that manufacture packaging machinery for processed food. Besides companies in the organized sector, there are also a number of firms in the unorganized or small-scale sector that manufacture a range of packaging machinery.
The food processing industry has contributed in a major way to the growth of the packaging industry. According to the Indian Institute of Packaging (IIP), only 2 to 5 per cent of India’s total processed food is packaged compared with 70 per cent in Western countries.
In collaboration with IIP in Mumbai and The Central Food and Technological Research institute (CFTRI) in Mysore, the Government of India’s ministry of food processing industries, has taken up various projects for developing the packaging of processed foods. One of the prominent projects is the production of aluminium cans for packaging food products. The food processing industry has contributed in a major way to the growth of packaging industry. Several multinationals have entered the Indian food processing sector like Nestle, Coca Cola, PepsiCo, Kellogg’s , Pillsbury, Heinz and Del Monte have established presence in India through their manufacturing ventures.
Nowadays, new forms of packaging for processed foods have been introduced in India. Shrink and stretch films and laminates, thermoformed containers, PVC, shrink labels, leak-proof composite containers, laminated cartons, Tetra Paks, PET bottles, multilayer film containers, polypacks and retortable pouches, are some of the packaging material and forms that are available. Some other developments in the packaging of processed food include high barrier plastics, aseptic packaging, and gas flush. Vacuum packaging, map-cap edible films and coatings, thermoform packs, 2-piece tinplate cans, lightweight glass containers, stretch blow and coextruded bottles.
The food processing equipment industry may be grouped as follows:
- Processing machinery and equipment
- Packaging machinery and equipment, and
- Utilities (include all other machinery and equipment used to clean/ purify air, water etc.)
The packaging machines are categorised as Forming, filling and sealing equipment
- Thermoformers
- Moulders
- Heat sealers
- Can making equipment
- Can closers/ sealers
- Seam testers
- Fillers of all type
- Cutting / slitting / trimming equipment
- Typing / sieving/ stappling equip
- Closing / sealing equip
- Form / fill/ seal equip
- Cappers/ crumpers/ hooders
Wrapping and packaging equipment
- Wrappers
- Cartoners
- Multipackers
- Bundlers
- Shrink wrappers and tunnels
Marking and inspecting equipments
- Labellers
- Coding equipments
- Check weighers
- Metal detection equipment
- Level checking equipment
- Code/ lable ispecting equipment
- Printing equipment
Containers/ package preparation and handling equipment
- Unscrambers
- Palletisers
- Bottle spotters
- Aligners
- Container cleaning/ washing/ drying systems
- Accumulator/ collectors
- Feeding/ orienting equipment
- Unloaders, stacker
Packaging machines such as automatic form filling and sealing machines, Tetra Pak aseptic packaging machines for sterilised filling and packing of liquids, testing instruments and can making machinery offer considerable business opportunities.
Various packaging equipment are currently being imported by the Indian food packaging industry. These Imports include metallised multilayered films of PET, BOPP, nylon, aseptic packaging equipment for manufacturing packaging products for liquids and equipment for recycling and reusing packaging products. No canning lines are manufactured in India. All cans presently used by a few beer manufacturers and soft drink companies are imported. Packaging can be regarded as of different types.
The single item such as a bottle containing soft drinks can be regarded as the item that consumer would purchase known as “ primary packaging” whereas pack of bottles, shrink wrapped, would be regarded as the transport package - used within distribution chain - is known as “ secondary “ packaging. Packaging machines are of different types such as filling, coding, wrapping, bundling and palletising, case forming, packing and sealing. Filling and dosing machines are packaging machines which measure out a production from bulk supply by some predetermined value, e.g., volume, level in a container, mass or count.
Filling method used is influenced by the nature of product e.g., liquid, gas or paste. Coding machines are those which apply code, dates, or other variable or unique information to a package or transit container. Wrapping machine wrap a flexible packaging material (e.g., paper, aluminium, plastic films) around a product or a group of products. Pallet forming, dismantling machines that assemble or dismantle pallet loads of products, groups of packages or rigid container on a pallet, with little or no manual intervention and secure the load on the pallet for security and stability during transportation. As technology advances, packaging machines are becoming more and more advanced not only to meet the current demands but to try and “future-proof” the packaging equipment and product development with an organisation.
Key lever
Beverage companies in India are increasingly using packaging as a key lever to boost the use of their products. The beverage business in India is still maturing and PET bottles are predicted to command a sizeable portion of the trade. Typically, float glass consisting of 300 ml returnable bottles is the most popular segment with a share of nearly 80 per cent. The remaining 20 per cent is split between PET bottles and cans and 1 litre returnable glass bottles- unlike in the US where PET bottles and cans account for nearly 85 per cent of the business. The buying and consumption patterns of beverages, suggest an increasing trend in household consumption. One primary factor contributing to this trend is the availability of convenient forms of packaging like the aluminium beverage cans and PET bottles. Yet another form of packaging for processed food which has become popular in recent times is tetra packs. The primary reasons for the increasing popularity of tetra packs is convenience, and longer shelf-life. Also, tetra packs address distribution hurdles in India; distributors face transportation difficulties, and they also face extreme climatic conditions. Most of the products sold in tetra packs are produced and sold by reputed food companies. These companies are likely to prefer reliable, branded and tested packaging machinery and equipment.
Indian packaging machinery exports are rapidly growing and the industry is growing at the rate of 22-25 per cent per annum. In the next five years, the sector is expected to triple to around $ 60 bn
(The author is research scholar, department of food engineering and technology, Sant Longowal institute of engineering
and technology, Punjab.)
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