Packaging’s Contribution to Reducing Food Waste

Samrat Atta embeds itself into tasteful bonds, born of sharing

Parakh Agro has rolled out a new film for Samrat Atta. The film has been conceptualised by Grey group India.

The film is themed on how people eating together can help bridge societal divides. It opens in an office canteen. A young man walks in with his lunch, and looks at three colleagues on the next table and tries making conversation with them, only to mispronounce the word ‘pizza’ as pijja’. The trio have a laugh while correcting his pronunciation. The next scene shows three police constables having a meal by the roadside while on duty. As a superior walks past, they get up and salute to him. While getting back to their meal, one of them signals that the officer is in another league. But the man walks back to their surprise, and they get up again to salute. The superior picks up a roti from one of the boxes, and has a bite of the food. He leaves with a smile on his face and signals to the constables to sit and enjoy their meal. Next up. a lady tries to get her son to eat a bite of a roti at a playground. Seeing another kid looking on, she divides the roti into half and signals to the kid to take it. A voice over explains that when we extend a hand to share food, bonds get forged. It introduces itself as a brand that has added flavor to these new bonds over many years. The film returns to the three young men eating pizza in the canteen. One of them asks their colleague eating a roti with a vegetable for a bit. The man gleefully offers his food, but asks them whether his ‘hindi medium lunch box’ will work for them. They all share a laugh before sharing the table, and the food on it.

Samrat Atta signs off the message: ‘Swad, jyo laaye saath’ (Taste that brings you together).

Suresh Parakh, managing pirector, Parakh Agro, said, “Food brings people together not only at home but also at our schools, colleges, workplaces and most public areas one can think of in India. Communicating this broad yet unique thought was a challenge as it had never been done in this category. However, the script presented to us by Grey, instantly helped us gain confidence in this thought. Furthermore the TVC artistically directed by Manoj Tapadia made us believe this campaign will help Samrat touch hearts around the country just as it touched ours. We have increased our distribution network across various States in northern and southern India and this TVC will enable us to effectively reach out to our diversified consumers across the country.”

Dheeraj Sinha, chief strategy officer, Grey South and South East Asia, said, “Culturally, food is the greatest binder of people. The ritual of breaking bread together is prominent in all faiths. Muslims have the ritual of breaking fast together during Ramadaan. Similarly, in northern India we have the concept of Sanjha Chulha, which means community cooking. These rituals of breaking bread together have been designed to keep communities intact. With growing fractions in our society today, it’s only pertinent that we remind ourselves of the importance of communities living together. It just so happens that bread and atta (flour) sits at the heart of this. This is an attempt by the brand to rekindle and celebrate the symbolic act of breaking bread and building connections.”

Sandipan Bhattacharya, CCO, Grey group India, said, “We did not want the communication to be typical of what the category has been doing for so long. We purposely avoided the ‘home space’ and mother’s feeding their families. The brief allowed us to look at ordinary situations and how through a simple gesture, these self-made walls could come crumbling down.”

Vineet Singh, VP – client services, Grey group India, added, “It is great to work on a brand that has the courage to break away from the routine. Our aim was to show that the humble roti binds people together – it is the common thread that links rich and poor, families, communities and strangers alike – comes alive through this TVC.”

PVG’s flexo ink lab is inaugurated

The Printing Engineering Department at PVG’s College of Engineering and Technology, Pune (PVG’s COET) set up an ink lab in the printing engineering department. This project was in partnership with Siegwerk India in association with Parakh Agro.

Commenting on the project during his inaugural address, Ashish Pradhan, CEO, Siegwerk India said “This project is a very significant development for the college and the industry as a whole, as we are attempting to create knowledge sharing through best resources from the industry. The collaboration between an ink manufacturer, a printer and the academia to bring in cutting edge technology to the Indian printing industry is unique. Globally, the flexographic printing ink market is projected to hit USD 11 Billion by 2024 (Global Market Insights Inc) – Our partnership today, therefore, is extremely significant as it is paving the way for the Indian printing ink industry to be a part of the global growth story.”

The lab is the initiative of the college’s 32-year old printing engineering department and the first lab that Siegwerk, a 180-year-old leading manufacturer of printing inks, has helped set up in an Indian college. The Printing Engineering Department is equipped with the Kyowa Surface Tensiometer DY300 which will help in understanding the interaction between substrate and ink. The role of Siegwerk India to this project will be the contribution of the equipment, industry best practices and knowledge transfer by its experts through sessions for the students. The Ink lab will help facilitate and benefit students to get a hands-on experience of dealing with ink technology.

The constant challenge of flexographic printing is not only to match rotogravure in terms of graphic quality and resolution but also to meet commercial expectations of printers and brand owners. This printing lab will help Siegwerk, Parakh Agro and the institute to jointly work on this aspect and evolve a scientific and practical solution to this conundrum.

PVG’s COET is the driving force behind graduating 60 print specialists every year. So far, the college has produced more than 1600 print specialists over the last 27 years.

This initiative will set to be a two-pronged enabler that will look at training students on live projects, understand substrate-ink interaction for problem solving and reach out to the current existing workforce from the industry to enhance and improve their existing skills by inviting them to use the ink lab.

Dr Akshay Joshi, Professor, Printing Engineering Department, PVG’s College of Engineering and Technology, Pune, India “We are extremely glad to be able to partner with Siegwerk and upgrade our existing infrastructure as well as bring in relevant additions to our existing syllabus. With this development we are confident of equipping our students with the latest ongoing in the industry and hence prepare them as ready-made resources for on ground requirements.”

Research Project Highlight

Vinay Nalawade and Harshal Parakh highlighted the future scope of flexography industry in India and the importance of association with the Institute for carrying out research projects for the betterment of academia and future engineers. Vinay Nalawade spoke about the outcome of the project being carried out by Dr Akshay Joshi and his team of seven students along with Parakh Flexipacks and Siegwerk. This should reduce the overall manufacturing cost of flexo printing on PE laminate. Parakh Flexipacks supported the project with pre-press, CI flexo press and converting facilities. Siegwerk was instrumental in donating Kyowa Surface Tensiometer DY300 to the Institute that proved to be pivotal for understanding ink-substrate interaction.

The surface tensiometer was demonstrated to the guests in the ink lab and the project report was handed over to Siegwerk and Parakh Flexipacks.

Akshay Joshi, research coordinator, stated that such live projects with industry shall help to upgrade the syllabus and existing infrastructure in the department; thereby create a better trained product for the industry. The working of Contact Angle Meter, Mottle measurement, Image Analyzer and Missing Dots analyzer was demonstrated to the guests during the visit to the gravure and flexo lab.

Fast, highly configured Bobst F&K 10-color flexo under installation

Parakh Agro Indurtries’ Plastics and Flexible Packaging Division just outside Pune is gearing up for a huge expansion in its flexible packaging capacity with the installation of a new FAN 10-color CI Reim press and additional ancillary and converting equipment.
Parakh’s Plastics and Flexible Packaging Division in Pune it next to one of the company’s several food processing and sorting pia. Located in Western and Northern India.

Parakh Agro.s Flexible Packaging Plant

When Prakash Parakh opted out of the joint venture with Cargill and went back to processing of wheat and dals, he built another flexible packaging plant, in Pune, close to his ultra-modern toor dal (lentil) polishing plant, all over again, in 2006. This plant invested in a 5-layer W&H Varex line and a wide web CI flexo, also from W&H. Nordmecanica solvent-less lamination and SP ultraflex slitting machines and a few pouching machines helped them to service the food and consumer products requirement.

DuPont Packaging Awards take a global, mission-driven stance

Entries are due February 2 for this year’s DuPont Awards for Packaging Innovation competition, and the judging criteria reflect the program’s continued evolution in light of increasing globalization and issues such as food insecurity and food waste.

In particular, the program defines “innovation” not solely from a Western perspective, but through a holistic, global lens, DuPont’s Yasmin Siddiqi told FoodProductionDaily.

“This is a key reason that we engage judges from across the globe, from both developing and developed regions and from different industries,” she said. “The breadth and diversity of perspectives among the judges enables them to thoroughly assess which entries are game-changing innovations within the context of their target market.”

A good example of that point is food packaging, she said.

“Packaging can extend shelf life so products that are resource intensive to produce, such as meat products, are not wasted,” Siddiqi pointed out. “Ideally, we would want to reduce packaging and reduce product waste, but in some cases we may need to add more packaging to prevent waste.”

“So we replaced sustainability with responsibility. Now we ask, ‘Are you impacting the greater good with this package?’”

User experience

Another criterion that has been modified is that of user experience. “This year we want to ensure that the product has the appropriate innovation for the intended market,” she said

“We’ll ask, ‘Is it new to that country? Did it require the development of infrastructure to support it? What impact has it had on consumers in that country?’”

“This helped ensure that nutritious milk can be received in cities and in remote areas across the country,”
“That’s a huge challenge in India, where nearly three quarters of the milk supply is collected in an ‘unorganized’ fashion. This packaging solution helped lower the risk of buying contaminated or adulterated milk.”

In 2013, judges gave the Diamond Award — the competition’s top honor — to a packaging solution called AidPod.

“AidPod is a self-contained anti-diarrheal kit that tucks in between bottles in Coca-Cola crates to ensure that life-saving medicine is delivered cost-effectively to remote sub-Saharan villages in Africa,” Siddiqi explained.

“That solution was developed for ColaLife, an independent non-profit organization that leverages the Coca-Cola Company (TCCC) distribution network. The design company, pi global, designed the package so that it can be used as a single, measured dose mixing and drinking vessel.”

This Samrat Atta ad is more than superb!!

We as Indians love food. Our emotions are attached with it. We love everything which is associated with food especially the home made.

Few years back we didn’t have branded atta. But now if you go to any shopping mart you will see people buying branded atta because the companies have raised the standards and quality of atta which we use to make Roti’s. So far we had been hearing about ads of MNC’s in fashion, soft drinks and some of other products only. But now pure Indian products have also started giving tough competition.

If you watch this new Samrat Atta you will simply fall in love. There are many reasons’. It’s not just an ad, its story telling. In one ad you will be able to see multiple stories at same time that too in just few seconds. Superb work by the ad agency.

Parakh Agro’s mega project status proves hard-earned

Claims of MP Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan to offer “single table clearance” (meaning clearance by one designated official) to industrial investment proposals do not appear to jell with reality.

The proposal of Pune-based Parakh Agro Industries Ltd, which is setting up roller atta (wheat flour) and besan (gram flour) mills with an investment of Rs 47 crore in Pithampur, has reportedly been awarded “mega project” status by the MP government, after hanging in the balance for a year. Meanwhile, the company has started production.

The department of industry has not made it clear whether the company has been awarded concessions it had asked for.

The Apex Committee on Investment Promotion, which discussed the Parakh proposal in its meeting held earlier this month, has not finalised it even after 15 days of the meeting.

The company had also wanted to be given exemption from stamp duty, to be levied after the proposed expansion.

It also asked for a bank guarantee of Rs 19.80 crore against an area of 5 acres given to the company at concessional rates, and investment promotion assistance for a period of 15 years instead of 10 years.

Further, the company wants exemption from mandi tax because raw materials will be processed as in the case of companies operating in food parks.

However, the MP government has reportedly offered few sops to the firm. “Atta (wheat flour) and besan do not fall under processed food, and as a result companies will not be offered those sops offered to companies operating in food parks,” a government source said.

It would get exemption from electricity duty for five years against the company’s demand of 10 years, added the source.

Parakh Agro has started commercial production. “The first phase of the project has been completed and commercial production started in June this year,” said the source, adding that the MP Trade and Facilitation Corporation would co-operate with the company in obtaining further licences and going through formalities.

However, the state government is unlikely to give exemption from mandi tax and stamp duty.