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Jul 21, 2023

Some observations at Interpack and Metpack 2023

Fewer exhibitors and visitors although Asian exhibitors increase In a way,

Fewer exhibitors and visitors although Asian exhibitors increase

In a way, Interpack 2023 had to be two shows in one, as it also represented the postponed Interpack 2020. At the time, Messe Düsseldorf's Interpack and Drupa were to be held with less than a month's interval between the two events, as had been the case in previous years. In the history of Interpack as the lead processing and packaging trade fair, there has been a growing overlap with the leading print fair, Drupa, as commercial printers have taken to packaging printing and as packaging has become part and parcel of the converting technologies presented at Drupa. Increasingly, exhibitors from these industry segments complained that their presence at both trade fairs was too costly and time-consuming. For this reason, at a press conference in May 2017, the organizers of both fairs announced their intention of refocusing Interpack on actual processing and packaging machinery, while keeping most of the equipment and substrates for packaging printing and converting at Drupa.

We expected that the six- to seven-year gap enforced upon Interpack 2023 and Drupa 2024 respectively, by the pandemic would have relativized this project for the time being. However, effectively, there were not many exhibitors from this overlapping segment at this year's Interpack. Heidelberg Web Carton Converting only had a table at the Printcity booth, Gallus and Soma each had a rather small presence as well, and the digital printing segment was limited to Fujifilm, Ricoh, and Domino, next to Polytype for tube-printing as well as the usual panoply of labeling and marking equipment.

W&H focused on its FFS and converting equipment. Nevertheless, Sun Chemical, Toyo, and Sakata Inx made sure that the printing ink manufacturing industry was not totally absent. And a few companies, like DCM, Kurz, Schober, and Uchida, showcased converting machinery such as laminating and slitting/rewinding equipment.

After the six-year gap, one would also have expected more visitors than 143,000 this year, as compared to the average of 175,000 in previous years. Both European and American companies sent fewer professionals to visit, but there were also fewer visitors from Asia, even though the number of Asian exhibitors increased again significantly. Between 2,500 and 3,000 visitors made it from India, i.e., half of the Indian visitor numbers in previous years, whereas the number of exhibitors from India increased from 56 in 2011 and 98 in 2017 to 120 this time.

The total number of exhibitors, 2,807, was slightly down from 2,860 in 2017 but remained close to the average of 2,700 over the past two decades. This year, exhibitors from Asia-Pacific totaled 612, including 313 from China and Hong Kong, 120 from India, 68 from Taiwan, 48 from South Korea, 24 from Japan, and a little over 30 from Malaysia, Indonesia, Singapore, Vietnam, Thailand, Pakistan, and Australia. The next largest contingents were Germany with 584, Italy with 436, and Turkey with 298 exhibitors. Processing and packaging machinery was shown by some 1,000-1,100 exhibitors, packaging materials and supplies by another 1,100-1,200, and around 500 exhibitors showcased marking, labeling, and inspection/control systems. A growing number of exhibitors from Asia, Turkey, and Eastern Europe actually offered converting and other services.

Interpack's four focal areas – circular economy, resource management, digital technologies, and product safety – reflected the constraints determining the manufacturers’ developments on show. Apart from the technologies enabling far-reaching automation and cost reduction, the two main issues with regard to packaging materials remained recycling and sustainability, including the growing use of biodegradable cellulose fibers from wood, paper, palm leaves, bagasse, bamboo, corn, algae and what have you. In addition to BASF, Jindal, Manish, Mitsubishi, Toppan, Uflex, and smaller Asian and Turkish film manufacturers, most of the paper and board manufacturers had large booths at the event, including Metsä, Mitsubishi, Omya, Sappi, Stora-Enso, UPM, Vacmet and others. Mondi was shining by absence.

From India, Sumilon occupied an entire pavilion on the exhibition grounds. The Surat, Gujarat, based company that also has a facility in Morocco, showcased its recycled materials and its full range of BOPET, heat-sealable PET, and high-barrier polyester films incorporating recycled inputs.

Vishakha Polyfab from Ahmedabad came to Interpack with a range of high-barrier multilayer films, including PCR/PIR-based formulated film, vacuum-formable film, bio-based PE polymers, water quench co-extruded barrier films, multilayer tray-lidding films, barrier films for vertical FFS applications, and various lamination films.

Another interesting film product was presented by Riyadh, Saudi-Arabia, based company Sabic, introducing a pouch for frozen food (cold water prawns) made from multi-layer polypropylene with around 60% recovered OBP (‘ocean-bound plastic’) content.

But processing and packaging machinery is what actually dominates Interpack. This year, the show's largest exhibition spaces were taken by IMA Industria Macchine, Coesia, Syntegon, Marchesini, Ishida, Optima, and Multivac.

Occupying the entire 5,000 square meters of Hall 17, IMA had 46 processing and packaging systems for the pharmaceutical, cosmetics, tissue and nonwoven, food, tea, coffee, and eCommerce industries on show. New developments included IMA's Aquaria washing line, Nebula decontamination tunnel, X-Pen medical auto-injector assembly device, C24-IQ tea bag packaging machine, Doytronic stand-up pouch FFS machine, Delta horizontal FFS machine, R-Line rotary FFS machine and the Ecoflex eFulfillment packaging line.

Marchesini had some 50 machines and tools for the pharmaceutical and cosmetics industry at the event, including its new MA 360 cartoner and processing lines for environmentally friendly materials such as paper, recyclable plastic mono-materials, rPET, and aluminium. A large cluster focused on sterile and injectable pharmaceuticals, whereas another cluster was dedicated to process and laboratory tools for small and medium pharmaceutical production.

Divided over three booths and an open-air pavilion, Multivac showcased several fully automated lines for the food, medical and pharmaceutical industries, including a fully integrated line for the production and printing of combi packs. The company also introduced a new slicer, a portioning machine for trays, a flow-packer line for minced meat, and a number of semi-automatic packaging solutions for small and medium-sized processors, from chamber equipment to tray-sealers and compact thermoforming machines.

GEA came to the show with several new developments, such as the OptiLoader belt loading system, the OptiRobot 6000 loading robot, the OptiBuffer buffering system, a multi-purpose gelatinizer combining on a smaller footprint the functions of its xTru former and cooker, a new electric oven and retrofit kit for the conversion from gas to electric heating, and a pre-dryer for pasta. GEA also showcased its new vertical packaging solution for particularly fragile products in the pastry and bakery segment, the V-Packer IM-IV.

Ishida introduced a complete snacks packing line for pillow packs with a multi-head weigher, rotary bagmaker, seal tester, and automatic case packer. Other new developments on show included the CCW-AS multi-head weigher, the IX-PD inspection system, and an upgrade to its Sentinel software for machine performance monitoring and data capture.

Mettler-Toledo limited its presentations to digital check-weighing, metal detection, inspection, and track & trace systems for the food industry. The company introduced a new entry-level X-ray inspection system, the X12 for contaminant detection with added integrity checks.

Syntegon showcased a panoply of horizontal packaging solutions for cookies and bars and introduced a new top-load cartoner as well as a fully automated tube bag filler.

Romaco's product launches included the MicroRobot 50 microdosing machine, the Unity 600 blister line, the IGL granulation line, the TPR Optima coater, and two new KTP tablet presses.

Schubert highlighted its ‘cobots’ for the rapid feeding of different segments on packaging lines, an ultra-compact filling machine for cosmetic products, and a new feeding system for carton blanks.

For the first time in Europe, Australia's tna showcased its vertical FFS packaging system Robag 3, complemented by tna's Auto-Splice 3.

In addition to numerous Asian companies, more than 100 Turkish machine manufacturers brought processing and packaging machinery to the show, including filling and capping equipment, bottle unscramblers, sleeve applicators, bottling, shrink neck banding, casing, labeling, and palletizing machines.

Marking, labeling, track & trace and inspection systems occupied another significant part of this year's Interpack. Markem-Imaje showcased several continuous inkjet, thermal inkjet, thermal transfer, and laser systems for front-of-line and end-of-line coding of multiple substrates, including glass, metal, rigid and flexible plastics, cardboard boxes, corrugated cases, and trays, and directly on food.

Atlantic Zeiser, Eidos, Valentin, and Bluhm-Weber brought a number of in-line and handheld marking systems based on piezo and thermal inkjet to the show. Citronix also exhibited several updated continuous and thermal inkjet marking systems, including printing capabilities in the Arabic, Russian, Chinese, Korean, and Thai alphabets. UV laser marking, etching, and coding systems were showcased by Videojet and UV curing and control systems by IST Metz.

Among the Indian exhibitors, Condot Systems (CSPL) from Mumbai came up with several coding, marking, inspection, and track and trace systems, including inkjet heads, ink and object detection systems, OCR tools, feeders, and batch authentication and print controlling systems for bottles and boxes.

Preceding and then alongside Interpack, the metal packaging trade fair Metpack was held at Essen – once the centre of Germany's coal mining and steel industry in the Ruhr region, and still one of the headquarters of the Thyssen-Krupp conglomerate. Metpack's tenth edition with 310 exhibitors was attended by 6,500 visitors, as compared to the 300 exhibitors and 7,200 visitors at its last edition six years ago.

Next to Tata Steel and Arcelor-Mittal, four exhibitors made it from India – Metaldec from Mumbai, SASPack Ventures from Pune, Scan Holdings from New Delhi, and Sharma Presses from Haryana. With 77 exhibitors from China, 6 from India, and a few from Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, Thailand, and Australia, Asia-Pacific represented one-third of Metpack's exhibitors. We also noticed a growing number of exhibitors from Turkey, the Emirates, and Poland at this show.

Metpack 2023 was all about the production of cans and cylinders, mainly in steel, tin, or aluminum. The principal issues at this fair were networked production, process automation, printing, and design. Tube- and can-making equipment could be found at the booths of Can Man, Soudronic's CanTec, Crown-owned Carnaud, Crabtree, Lanico, Mall + Herlan, Brückner-owned PackSys, Sanyu, Stolle, Titan, and several other Asian and Turkish manufacturers.

Koenig & Bauer MetalPrint showcased its MetalStar 4 and flying sheets at its Venturi sheet guiding system for coating lines and received the golden Metpack Innovation Award for its new closed-loop colour control system. Cylinder printing presses were shown by Carnaud, Hinterkopf, Mall + Herlan, Omso, and Sharma. Inks and coatings were offered by Huber, Inx, Sun Chemical, Toyo, and Zeller + Gmelin. Several exhibitors, such as Actega, Henkel, Inx, IST Metz, Sun Chemical, Toray, Toyo, and others, had booths at both Metpack and Interpack.

The next Metpack has been scheduled for 5-9 May 2026, and Interpack for 7-13 May 2026.

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