WITH
packaging increasingly lending character and
personality to a brand, ITC Ltd has chalked out
a three-pronged strategy to scale up its
packaging business. The company proposes to
explore innovations and technologies to cater to
the distinctive and innovative packaging
requirements of the country’s branded packaged
foods and personal care segments.
As
FMCG products get more and more branded and
aspire to become a brand from a mere commodity,
packaging will connote more than just a secure
receptacle and convenient container. It will
convey brand character, personality and contain
a wealth of information about the brand, its
size, contents and ingredients. It will also
help differentiate a product from the others in
the same category. Besides embracing foods,
personal care items, matchboxes, agarbattis to
lifestyle retailing products, packaging is
significant even in case of consumer durable and
mobile phone industries.
When
contacted by ET, ITC Ltd’s corporate management
committee member R Srinivasan said: “To cash in
on the growing opportunity, ITC’s packaging
business has diversified into flexibles and
backward integrated into the manufacture of LDPE
(low density polyethylene), CPP (cast
polypropylene) and extruded poly. The company is
also investing in new lines for microfluting and
shoulder boxes in a green factory run on
renewable wind energy.”
At
present, India’s packaging industry across all
materials is estimated at Rs 20,000 crore.
ITC’s paperboards, speciality papers & packaging
divisions, which collectively contribute about
15% to its total turnover, have innovated
packaging in several ways. At the paperboard
stage, it is done through ECF pulping, ozone
bleaching and sustainable forestry. At the
printing stage, it is carried out with striking
design combinations and decorative effects and
at the packaging stage, the work is completed
through innovative styles, formats, shapes,
micro-flutes and shoulder boxes.
Elaborating, Mr Srinivasan said: “Our divisions
are constantly adopting new technologies.
Investments in R&D at the plantations stage have
reduced gestation to four years from seven
years. This gestation is targeted to reduce
further with some excellent scientists and
agronomists at work.”
“Slow and steady movement to greater product
awareness, branding and better retailing formats
follows an evolution from ‘loose’ product sales
to branded & packaged products with greater
information to consumers about choices,
ingredients and precautions. Customers today
demand variety and change — sometimes desiring
uniformity, sometimes dazzling variety,
utilitarian, convenience, or even dual usage
etc. All this drives changes in packaging,
materials, colours, decorative effects, formats,
shapes and sizes,” he added.
