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Bosch in India: A strong development for a great future
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Tuesday, 01 March, 2011, 08 : 00 AM [IST]
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Interview with Ashok Gourish, General Manager of Bosch Packaging Technology, India
What do you think about India’s quick shift to flexible packaging from rigid packaging materials & technology?
In the last one decade Indian economy grew steadily at 6-8%, next only to China. This growth helped increase the middle class population to a sizable extent. Ease of availability of liquidity, easy bank loans, increase in the purchasing power of average Indian and increase in the number of working women, resulted in the super market and hyper market culture in the metros and other urban areas. Thus the concept of change from the rigid pack to flexible pack emerged in India. The Modular kitchen concept in Indian houses of the urban areas gave rise to the tendency of “use and dispose” amongst the Indian families. This tendency was also followed by the roadside grocery shopkeeper, as it reduced their investment in warehousing facilities. This accelerated the change to flexible packaging. The change shifted to the top gear, when the multinational companies penetrated rural India with their products in sachets.
What are the top five emerging packaging trends in the global food industry and the Indian food industry?
The basic packaging trend in the Indian food industry has the main focus on ease of transportation of product from the factory to the end user, without damage during the entire supply chain. The next important focus is on enhancement of shelf life of the packed product. This is achieved by not only using multi-layered films, but also by creating inert atmosphere in the packs and avoiding oxidation of the product. For the higher volume packs zip lock pack is used so that the desired quantity of product is removed from the pack for consumption and then the pack is closed so that the balance product is not exposed to the outer atmosphere and is safe. In order to keep the packets self standing on the shelf in a store or in a kitchen, the manufacturing of self standing pouches was the next phase in the packaging trends. Now the trend is moving towards machines that can handle the eco-friendly packaging material.
How do you compare the global packaging market with Asian market amid emergence of two super powers – India and China?
The Indian packaging market is maturing with time and is maintaining the pace with the global packaging trends. Though the packaging requirements of products in India are different than that of the developed nations, still the basic requirement is the safety of the product. While the matured markets are moving towards the eco-friendly packaging materials, India has also realised the importance of the same. Steps towards this move have been initiated by Indian entrepreneurs too. The HACCP norms required in food and pharmaceutical industries from processing to packaging are in place. Even the Indian machinery manufacturers are now very well educated on all the requirements of safety and hygiene. This has made the market very competitive and price sensitive.
Looking at these trends Bosch is the best partner for customers. Bosch knows the trends and the answers to succeed. Our products are reliable and will deliver agreed performance levels over a machine's entire life cycle. Whether proven, tried-and-tested machines or completely new developments, we guarantee high levels of availability; this translates into low failure rates and high process stability.
Do you think packaging materials and innovative methods will further help achieve international safety norms and also improve shelf life of the food products?
Yes certainly. Packaging means to safeguard food. We always have to look at the entire chain from production, transportation, storage up to the end consumer. Safety packaging helps ensure food does not get spoiled during transportation or storage. Packaging is an important factor in product protection. Looking at international safety norms often they can only be handled by the correct packaging. Bosch Packaging Technology is a leading company in packaging solutions and product protection by packaging around the globe. We invest around the globe in research and development to improve technologies or develop new ones, e.g. ultrasonic sealing, solutions for aseptic packaging of products and hygienic measures of machinery to serve customer needs so that our customers are able to fulfill international safety norms. At the end of the day the end consumer profits from our equipment and know-how. Bosch provides its customers with security.
What packaging equipment/ machinery you offer for the Asian and Indian food processing sector? What are the demands from your customers?
Bosch Packaging Technology is a globally established company. We offer the whole product range of process and packaging equipment to Asian customers. Especially our service excellence all over the world helps our customers to reduce the down time and improve the efficiency and output from our machines. We do have small or mid-sized customers to global players. Each customer has his own requirements. Bosch is able to serve all customer needs at its best because the company’s portfolio has all the variety of primary to tertiary packaging system to be offered to the Asian food processing sector. Still the manual labour in Asia is economical, hence automated secondary and tertiary packaging is not popular in the region. The main focus is on the primary packaging. The customers are looking for machines with higher output and higher efficiency with low operating cost. Though the initial investment is slightly higher they save in costs as soon as the machine starts running. The
So-called OEE and TCO make the difference. No doubt, packaging machines are investments. And this means you have calculated the whole life time costs. In my opinion Bosch can offer customers a very solid investment.
Recently, Bosch has announced Rs 250 million investments in India. What plans you have chalked out for the Indian packaging market?
Bosch plans to enhance the portfolio in India to serve the Indian market and increase the market share in India. The target sectors shall be not only food but also pharmaceutical. Presently we are serving the vertical market, where we are enhancing our portfolio with some latest generation machine. Apart from vertical segment we have introduced horizontal machines for food, personal care and other sectors. In the confectionery segment we are having good success in the niche A-market, we can absolutely bring in our know-how into the B-market. In the pharmaceutical machine we have been supplying machines from our parent plant in Germany in the A-market and now the B-segment too with machines made in India.
In India, what kind of progress has been made by Bosch Packaging Technology over the years?
Bosch Packaging Technology started the operation in India in 1994 with just one jaw draw off vertical machine from the Netherlands. This machine was localised in the year 1997 and further nationalised in the year 2001. The real boost to the Indian operations was experienced in the year 2003 with the introduction of our TERRA 25. We entered the candy wrapping market with the BVK 2000 candy wrapper in 2004. In order to handle the higher volume packs TERRA 40 was introduced to the market in 2005. The year 2006 saw the launch of the continuous motion bagger SVE. In the year 2007 we shifted the manufacturing base from Bangalore to Goa. This was also the year we achieved a production capacity of 100 machines in a year. In the year 2008 we started the manufacturing of pharmaceutical machines in India. As on date we have more than 8
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