7,927 visitors attended the seventh edition of Labelexpo India which took place 29 October – 1 November at Pragati Maidan, New Delhi. With just under 200 exhibitors taking part, the show floor was busy with product launches and news of many installations being agreed as numerous deals were signed on-site.
Aimed at label and package printers, brand owners and label designers, 2014's show saw the leading Indian and international manufacturers showcasing their cutting edge technology. Product launch highlights included new flexographic plate and equipment from DuPont Packaging Graphics, HP Indigo's WS 6800 digital press, Multitec's two new narrow-web label printing presses - Ecoflex VSi Servo and Ecosmart, Nilpeter's Indian-made FB3300S press with gravure unit, Omet's XFlex X4 8-color all-servo press and Rotatek's Smartflex UV flexo press.
2014's edition also saw the successful debut of the Brand Innovation Summit. Held in partnership with HP Indigo, the half day conference program was attended by several top brands including ACG Pharma, Cipla, Coca Cola, Dabur, GSK, ITC, Morepen, Nestle, Reckitt Benckiser and Siemens amongst others. The insightful session focused specifically on the role and importance of label and package printing in a brand's design and ultimate sales performance in the Indian marketplace.
Jade Grace, event director said: "There was a good buzz about this year's Labelexpo India and our exhibitors reported excellent visitor engagement with revisit numbers up 42%. This is not purely a numbers game however and attracting the right sort of visitor is crucial, so we are delighted to report an increase in senior decision makers attending the show. We've been really satisfied with the anecdotal feedback from our exhibitors with many of them securing large orders and generating strong leads. We look forward to returning in 2016."
Quotes from exhibitors:
Luc Dehandschutter, Arets Graphics: "Arets Graphics and Toyo Ink India, both subsidiaries of Toyo Ink Group, introduced a new series of UV flexo inks at Labelexpo India 2014. The new series, Steraflex, is designed to address the high-end needs of UV flexo customers. This is an ideal product, for customers who are looking for high strength and yet low viscosity, maintaining high curing speeds for quality and productivity. Steraflex is a high strength, fast curing UV flexo ink system ideally suited for label and flexible packaging markets. With the launch, Arets hopes to improve its share of UV flexo ink market in India."
Jitesh Mehta, Avery Dennison: "Labelexpo India has been very successful for Avery Dennison. A large number of customers visited our booth who were keen to know about our offerings in durable, home and personal care and pharma segments. The 14 innovations we showcased this time earned the spotlight at the exhibition. Labelexpo gives us a platform to demonstrate to customers how we can help them grow."
Martin Kugler, GEW: "Once again GEW participated as an exhibitor in this year's Labelexpo India to demo the latest product developments. For GEW the show was an international platform to announce the availability of the RHINO electronic power supply for UV-printing systems that was launched in production following three years of intensive development and rigorous testing. RHINO sets the new benchmark in effective UV technology and includes a series of innovative features with reliability and energy efficiency at the top of the list. Visiting the GEW stand, existing customers and new prospects alike were excited about the benefits of 24x7 reliability, energy savings, ease of use and embedded service support. The combination of the rugged RHINO power unit and the E2C UV-lamphead has made an extremely favorable impact and customers are insisting that OEMs incorporate these systems from GEW in their scope of supply."
A Appadurai, HP India: "Labelexpo India was the ideal platform to showcase the new HP Indigo WS 6800 digital press for the first time in India. One of the major attractions at our booth was the digital supermarket, where visitors could see first-hand, the various application possibilities for label and packaging converters. Our key highlight was the Brand Innovation Summit, where we were able to share insights with brand managers and owners, helping them understand the challenges and opportunities of the label industry. We were thoroughly pleased with the visitor engagement we had at the expo."
Ashish Anand, LinkSmart Technologies: "Labelexpo India was a successful event for introducing smartDNA based new technology and solution for tamper-evidence, anti-counterfeit coupled with track & trace. Our fundamental differentiator of insider threat protection was something of great interest for visitors and other exhibitors as well. LinkSmart witnessed interest for various end-customer applications and at least three licensing opportunities in multiple geographies. Similarly our reusable tamper-evident, duplication-evident and remote-monitorable flexible packaging again based on smartDNA was received with great enthusiasm. To summarize there were more opportunities at Labelexpo than we had expected while doing ground-up architecture, design and development of smartDNA labeling technology."
Atul Gandhi, Macart: "This is the first time we have participated at Labelexpo India and we are very much satisfied with the inquiries generated. We got visitors from all over India and also some international visitors."
Sanjeev Chada, Memory Repro Systems: "This was our first participation at Labelexpo as for the past four decades we've been in pre-press and post press in offset printing. We got tremendous response to our flexo cleaning machine because printers were really looking for one such machine. Labelexpo India gave us exposure and we are sure to gain out of it. Our rough estimate is to get business worth 3-4 million. The enquiries that have gone into the pipeline are serious and we will turn them into orders in the near future."
Ajay Metha, SMI Coated Products: "SMI Coated Products Private Limited has its roots truly entrenched in India. Despite the growth in exports, India has been the centre of our focus and Labelexpo India is a fantastic opportunity to showcase our products, firm commitment and gratitude to the Indian label industry. The four days at the show were very busy and extremely fruitful. Over the period of years the show has progressively improved and the quality of the large number of visitors is truly amazing. Our friends in the industry evinced keen interest in our ever expanding wide range of products as well as the new tools we have introduced at the show. Our new specification sheets, curved diameter indicator and brochures for the seven different types of industry are path breaking tools to help the industry. And last but definitely not the least; Labelexpo has truly made the show of an international standard and hats off to them!?"
Pravin Varshney UPM Raflatac: "We enjoyed the four extremely busy days at Labelexpo India. The atmosphere was great and we had a pleasure to host a successful gala dinner for over 300 customers, industry partners and other stakeholders. Labelexpo is definitely is the best place to meet the people working in the labeling industry and to see where the business is moving. We are seeing overall healthy organic growth in India and across South Asia due to a rapid increase in pre-packaged food products, pharma sector growth and the massive appetite for personal care products. In addition, Indian companies are increasingly becoming aware of environmental issues and that's why our Label Life concept was of interest to both label printers and end-users. We're proud to work in India along the same principles of world-class technology, quality and performance, environmental sustainability and top class customer service as we do everywhere else."
