With changing times, our practices of consuming food and beverages are changing. In today’s day and time the most important thing, rather an equally important aspect of consuming food is “packaging.”
The rapid urbanisation and pace, rising population, and growing purchasing power of consumers, have led to changes in the consumption patterns of consumers. These factors have in turn led to consumers progressively relying on convenient, ready-to-eat food products. The amount of packaged food and beverage we consume is startling. Thus, it is about time we focus on figuring out the finer aspects of packaging to ensure safe food. Today, safe food is accorded the highest priority by end-consumers. Consequentially, right packaging, which preserves the nutritional value of food, is the need of the hour.
The Indian packaging industry, which is growing at an approximate rate of 15 per cent annually, is estimated to become the fourth-largest packaging market in the world, with revenues of $43.7 billion in 2016. The market research reports have also estimated the flexible packaging market in India to grow at a compounded annual growth rate of 15-16 per cent over the next five years.
These facts and figures are giving rise to new opportunities for the industry, especially the SMEs (small and medium enterprises) in the flexible packaging segment. We all know that the industry dynamics are changing really quickly; thus, there is a need for knowledge levels of all the value chain participants to be at par with international standards. This can be achieved through relevant capability building and best practice sharing platforms.
In India, certainly, the industry has come a long way. In the previous years, the key function of the food packaging material was to shield the packaged food from getting damaged during the transportation process as well as safeguarding it from the climatic conditions throughout its shelf life. Later, the packaging industry started focussing on the visual appeal of the packaging materials, and thus, started developing eye-catching packaging designs that focussed on attracting the consumers.
Considering the many benefits of flexible packaging, there has been a remarkable shift in the food packaging industry towards flexible packaging materials. It is durable, lightweight—hence, reduces transportation costs—and occupies less space as compared to the other packaging products. As its name suggests, it is a non-rigid form of packaging. Flexible packaging products are made of flexible materials such as plastic, aluminium and paper. There is a detailed conversion process that they have to undergo including printing, lamination, coating and extrusion.
Given the growth potential of flexible packaging in the near future for existing and emerging enterprises, innovation and collaborative efforts is paramount. As packaging forms a key parameter of the food processing quality checklist of stakeholders, flexible packaging coupled with some cutting-edge ideas at all levels of the value chain can make a difference. Therefore, ensuring the delivery of best quality products by sharing best practices as well as forging partnerships among stakeholders of the packaged food supply chain is crucial.
