Festival or no festival, sustainable packaging leads

Diwali gift aisle at the Big Boutique supermarket at Mall of India in Noida. Photo - PSA

Festivals in Bharat are known to lift spirits and bring joy to people from all walks of life. For consumer businesses, the festival season is more significant because yearly targets loom large in this menstruation. The GST collection for Oct has already touched the pre-pandemic levels of over Rs. 1 lakh crores.

Speaking of the demand during the festival season, Jeevaraj Pillai of Uflex said, "Overall, we await the demand to go up in sure categories like staples, sanitation, pharma products, and average demand for cosmetics, loftier-stop perishables and other non-essentials. However, the finish consumer is still non feeling confident about their purchasing power due to the on-going pandemic and would rather proceed their expenditures to a minimum."

Consumers' buying behavior

Jeevaraj Pillai, joint president – Packaging and New Production Evolution, UFlex

The Covid-19 pandemic has brought meaning changes in consumers' buying behavior. The necessities take become the master focus, and non-essentials have been deprioritized. Also, rubber, hygiene, and wellness accept become permanent factors to consider before making any purchase. Pillai added, "The spends on luxury goods took quite a hit, and although it volition take longer to come dorsum to its pre-pandemic levels, we can see a marginal option up in it during the festive season. Furthermore, consumer values and perspectives are evolving as the younger generation becomes a larger and more pregnant portion of the workforce."

Pillai says that almost of Uflex'due south FMCG clients target only linear growth without any particular focus on new products and features during this festival flavor. He too sees a shift from unit-packs to value packs.

Sustainability

"While sustainability goals got pushed to the dorsum burner during the pandemic, nosotros are now seeing consumer packaged goods (CPG) brands recommitting to these goals, and they prefer to work with companies that can assistance them accomplish these. Irrespective of the festive season, sustainability will drive the conversation in the industry time to come," states Pillai.

UFlex has been scaling its investments in products and technologies to offer a green solution portfolio and address plastic waste matter. "Our portfolio of multilayer packs is recyclable. UFlex also recycles PET bottle waste to make packaging films out of it and further uses those films to make labels and packets, thereby creating a round economy." He explains that the company'due south approach would continue to exist driven by innovating and improving its product portfolio with a high sustainability quotient while being economically viable.

Impact of Covid-19 on business to date

Covid-19 had brought various industries to a halt and impacted the global economy substantially. "During the lockdown and border shutdowns, the consumption levels for life-sustaining commodities such equally food and medicines increased manifold, leading to hoarding of stocks, hence the packaging industry that serves these essential industries of FMCG and pharmaceuticals were non afflicted. On the contrary, packaging companies like ours that were able to service the essential commodity industries to ensure the supply of goods to the public at large witnessed college need," he said. "Since packaging is deemed an essential services segment, our plants were running with minimal staff strength and maximum-security measures."

At the showtime of the pandemic, Pillai said the demand curve surged from panic buying and hoarding. "Equally normalcy set in after the lockdown was lifted, we observed the need coming dorsum to normal. Overall, our concern grew every bit the demand for packaging also increased due to the safety and hygiene factors fastened to packaged appurtenances."

Considering the overall market sentiment, Pillai expects demand to remain constant or experience a slight uptrend without any desperate shifts over this festive flavour.

Economy and industry recovery

"Packaging is an essential industry that binds the earth together and has truly been a forerunner of the economy and consumption. It is of import to understand that packaging serves as a gateway to ensure safety consumption and is necessary for people, especially given the fear of spreading the virus. This is the reason why nosotros haven't seen the industry affected much as other segments." Uflex has various clients, including leaders from pharmaceuticals, FMCG, and dairy products.

"With the consequence of the pandemic starting to wane and the festive season approaching, we have started to see green shoots of recovery in certain industries that are recovering similar white goods, car, and retail. However, aviation, travel, and tourism are likely to remain affected till the vaccine is introduced, and the world is free of Covid-xix," he concludes.

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Source: https://packagingsouthasia.com/application/festival/

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