There are sever floods in some parts of Karnataka. There is a big problem of food and safe drinking water. May people are working on it. I got a call from Dr Jagannatha Rao of Koday group to help them. Dr Rao reads our Good Morning Packaging Newsletters every week from the day one of first newsletter and likes www.packagingconnections.com He is well known in his field and asked me if packaging could help to arraneg hygienic food and safe drinking water. Khpday group is interested to support such initiatives. If anyone is interested then they should contact Dr Rao directly, Its the great initiative and an opportunity for packaging professionals to work on a social cause.

I start this blog today on the day of ganesh chaturthi 23 august 2009. Anything that starts with lord ganesh in india is supposed to be successful and meets the purpose. Ganesh Chaturthi is once such day and i personally believe in ganesha. For last few years, we do ganeshji sthapana (placing) at home and then do immersion in yamuna river after 10 days. So i look for your blessings to make the www.packagingconnections.com to meets its purpose for the friends of packaging to bring them on the common platform and make it truly the "your destination for anything in packaging".

Recently I came across Dr Karnik's interviw at fnbnews. Dr Karnik's first interviw was published at www.packagingconnections.com .

Product-package relationship is a complex phenomenon and understanding this relationship is the crux of success for any packaging project: this is what Dr Karnik sais in his interview at Food & Beverage news.  I fully endorse his comments. Normally it is seen that product professionals in the company do not appreciate this point but that is what we have to stress as now Dr Karnik also says so.

Dr V V Karnik, a business consultant to the food processing industry, with over 35 years of experience in the F&B segment, takes us through the various intricacies that a packaging professional comprehends and the challenges he undergoes before producing that spectacular package design complementing the product inside, that wins the enviable stares from the consumers and becomes a delight for the retailers.

Read the full interview at http://www.fnbnews.com/article/detarchive.asp?articleid=26152&sectionid=11

http://www.packagingconnections.com/interviews/dr-vinod-karnik.htm

Today in Ahmedabad, India 6 November 2009, I read the newspaper Times of India talking about the killer desiease diabetes in India and particularly in Gujrat. Its alarming. You can read more at http://epaper.timesofindia.com/Daily/skins/TOINEW/navigator.asp?Daily=TOIA&showST=true&login=default&pub=TOI&AW=1257474777500

Some initail lines are given below:

 

Ahmedabad: City-based diabetologist Dr Mayur Patel has come out with a unique research-based analysis on diabetes, the silent killer which threatens to have a whopping 8.5 crore Indians in its grip by year 2030. Such is the silence of this disease that it is much after the disease has taken firm root that it is detected.
   His path-breaking doctoral thesis on ‘Diabetes Mellitus ....."

Now my point is what packaging can do this? While medical professionals, pharmaceutical experts will be working to solve this problem, I think we packaging technologists can help to manage the disease and learn to live with it. This can be done to the great extent by creating cost effective, platic moulded, easy to carry pens and we can use our knowledge. We at www.packagingconnections.com are working very closely with Haselmeier in Germany to come out with some solutions.  Additionally we are also working with Schreiner MediPharm in Germany to offer special functional labels so that proper information is available to patients in time and medical errors could be further reduced. If you have any ideas or requirements then please feel free to post your thoughts,

Have a great day, Sandeep Goyal

This is the critical part of our dailf food in India: Wheat flour. Now more and more of it coming into packaged form and still many things are not clear. So there is a good case study here and you can read that. If you have something more to auggest, please do share with us. Link to downlaod the study is: http://www.packagingconnections.com/downloads/linkedin%20-%20Wheat%20flour%20case%20study.pdf

See the picture of a rag pickers helping india to recycle more. He is using a stick with magnets at the end and trying to find small metal objects, nails, screws etc in such a big heap of garbage. I tool this picture on my way to office this morning and then i saw some more people doing such picking using similar sticks in the middile of traffic. So my point is that can we not do it some more organized manner. Take teh help of these people wo are helping us to recycle using their own simple tricks?  Are there any ngos already on such jobs and we could then probably try to collect more plastic waste to recycle? The funny thing is that this is happening in front of expensive multistoreyed apartments in the premium dlf city of india

 Nice food served in Jet Airways 9W 309 flight on 3rd December 2010 on my way back to Delhi after CPHI India 2010. Getting Indian brad Roti was great. What hits me as a packaging technologist, that why this was simply put on the food trya with foil on top. Could this had not been packed better and some place to keep it while eating. I am sure we packaging technologist can design some MAP packaging where these Rotis would not harden too much with better shelf life and airline cutlery experts can design some spcae within the tray where this could be kept while eating. What do you think?

 I do not know what is right or wrong here but I know Mr Chaturvedi has given a new face to flexible packaging industry of India? he has built big packaging business and also made the way of hundreded of other packaging suppliers in India. It could be converting machines or packaging machines or packaging materials or support materials like inks, they do all and so many more after uFlex started it. So I always like UFlex and look them as the fathers of packaging for India flexible packaging industry

 This is quite interesting that Honourable court is banning the plastic sachet packaging for Gutkha. Why hit packaging and NOT attach the root cause of tobacco consumption? Tomorrow to stop liquor, glass bottles can be banned? I am personally not convinced this way of reducing tobacco consumption rather I would say that eitehr tobacco cultivation to be stopped or more education, We would also need to look the alternate jobs for the people involved in the trade.

Today in the Mail Today I read that Indian packaging industry is growing approx 10% annually and estimated packaging market is 13 billion USD. The growth is happening due to growth of pharma and food industries. Its also getting lot of push by the growth of retail outlets in India. Mr Sanjay Bhatia, Chairman Indian Institute of Packaging said that " People are becoming more health conscious, there is a growing trend towards well packed, branded products rather than the loose and unpackaged formats. Today, even a common man is conscious about the food he consumes in day to day life". I agree with his statement, in fact companies are appreciating the value of packaging more and more. You can see road side hoardings by Tetra pack explaining the importance of 6 layer packaging. They are also advertising on TV. The message is directly going to consumers about the direct benefits of packaging. I think it was the packaging which was one of the critical & key contributor of Operation Flood of milk in India that now milk is easily available across the country in poly pouches, Tetra packs etc. Packaging helped here in better distribution of milk successfully in addition to great work done behind by dairy technologists and not to forget the great visionary Dr Kurien.

Only thing I wonder if government would ban poly bags for milk too in view of environment pollution!

  System integration is the heart of any industry and same goes for packaging too. I was reading this e-  news  on surface treatments and came across the new high definition  Corona treatment for high bonding for OPP/CPP. This is a yet another excellent example of system integration where the Corona treaters are from Enercon which are designed specifically to integrate with the  Nordmeccanica laminator both electrically and mechanically for golden eagle extrusions.

In this system one treater is mounted at the primary unwind, and the other is mounted on the secondary unwind. The surface treater's design is said to virtually eliminate film wrinkling, puckering and pin holing.

 Great looking cartons on top of great looking laminated tube. I think laminated tubes are quite strong and can be designed to move without any outer cartons. As I see the utility here for the cartons is limited. The carton is immediately thrown after opening and its the tube that remains in the bathroom. So its important that more display work is done on the tube rather than on the carton. This would also help in a big way to reduce the load on our forests as cartons are made of paper board. This could be another step in reducing and then less laod on recycling network also. Do you think we call can work in this direction and whether my think is right? Just an idea came to my mind when I opened the new toothpaste packet this morning.

 Packaging does matter and if you want a real successof product, and not being attacked then you must take packaging seriously and sincerely. Afterall bears to attack humans and packaging protects,. So one should know how to tackle bear encounters if you plan to go hiking or camping. Same is the caseif you want to launch a product successfully, right packaging must be known. It may be a funny cartoon but bears do attack people. I picked up this picture from jet Airways magazine,

Sandeep Goyal

http://www.packagingconnections.com/

This is the question hit me one day, that Do we really need packaging? If yes, then why and if no, again why?  Thinking about it, we started a Poll at Linkedin and started getting interesting results and comments. You too can give your opinion and comments. The link is http://linkd.in/iiswLt  It would be interesting to see what comes out.

I strongly feel that its important that we question the vary basic existence of ourselves and so as a packaging professional, I thought to question myself: Do we really need packaging?

I understand that Government of India has announced that all pharmaceutical export shipments must have track & trace feature to avoid any spurious Indian pharmaceutical products in the market. Governemnt of India has recommended 2D bar coding. This is the great positive step by authorities and I feel that it would definitely help India's pharmaceytical image to be further enhanced. While with all good things associated, implementing total track & trace will have its own limitations and advantages. We would like to hear the following:

1. Will it really help?

2. How can this be done?

3. What are the real challenges?

4. Which vendors can offer the services?

5. Why should this be only for exports and why not for local market within India?

Thank you, Sandeep Goyal www.PackagingConnections.com

Recently while a over the tea conversation with some of my colleagues, a discussion on cosmetic packaging erupted. Discussion stirred towards enamels and near unanimously all the female counterparts said that they were vary of the good old cylindrical shaped glass bottles. I asked why the  major reason being the glass factor – Weight, Breakage, not much of travel friendly

And I who was listening all along, reminded them about the innovation we already have on www.PackagingConnections.com  and then showed them those PA bottles,  the instant reaction was wow, Trendy, sleek, near weightless and not glass!

These PA bottles have very good chemical resistance, Excellent aroma, oxygen and

solvent barrier and Scratch resistance. These bottles were available as crystal clear transparent bottles and as well as in colored form. The link is  http://www.packagingconnections.com/innovation/pa-bottles-nail-paints.htm

The difference between what we do and what we are capable of doing would suffice to solve most  world problems."Gandhi”

Packaging Industry is a very dynamic industry. Every other day we see a new technology, better systems, improved and value added services being offered to customers.

Whether from Packaging raw material manufacturer to Packaging material manufacturer or packaging or packaging services , from professionals or from packaging user companies, packaging consumers etc. , the list is endless.

Every step is crucial for the next step to be flawless. So to analyze and share our experience, in this segment of www.packagingconnections.com, you have an opportunity to write something about any of your packaging experience and rate the company; Now over to you and we look forward your active participation as always. This we call p-reviews and would request you to review on the following three aspects:

• Service
• Approach
• Quality

Today in the aircraft from Mumbai to Delhi, I was reading the newspaper Mail Today, New Delhi 19 November 2010. I just noticed a classic photography by Avedon that would be auctioned soon in Paris. The picture looks great that Nastassja Kinski and the Serpent. Since I am from Packaging, I saw what a wonderful way of using live Serpent as a packaging medium to protect the key elements of human being. This is not only protecting and looking great, but it would also keep the bad guys away without any security. Do you think that we can get some clue from this to make our packages more secure?

  Quite a point, I think many a times, same happens with packaging. Everything looks good from outside when we look at packaging but once we open the packaging and look at contents, then we find what really the problem is? So what should we do ? Any thoughts?