Successful première of Indian trade fair quartet

The combination of several trade fairs – the interpack alliance events pacprocess India, IndiaPack and FoodPex India and the parallel trade fair drink technology India, held by Messe München – can look back to a much acclaimed première in New Delhi. Companies responded well to the concept of trade fairs supplementing one another from the packaging sector and the processing industry (interpack alliance trade fairs) together with the areas of beverage technology, dairy and liquid food (drink technology India, held by Messe Munich). There was also a good response to the new venue, New Delhi, alongside the main venue, Mumbai. In all, from 26 to 28 October, 212 exhibitors occupied around 11,000 square metres of exhibition space and attracted 9,699 trade visitors to the Pragati Maidan Exhibition Centre. In addition. 600 delegates visited the simultaneous International Summit for the Packaging Industry (ISPI), held by the Indian Institute of Packaging (IIP). This year’s conference, which was completely booked out, ran under a motto intended to reflect the significance of the packaging industry for economic growth in India: “Packaging – the Growth Driver”.

“Our aim is to continually expand the leading role of our events for the Indian industry. Membership of the interpack alliance is considered to be a special seal of approval and therefore as something that warrants a clear increase in quality. The première of this new constellation of trade fairs showed that this approach was accepted extremely well,” says Bernd Jablonowski, Global Portfolio Director Messe Düsseldorf.

Under its partnership with the IIP, Messe Düsseldorf and its Indian subsidiary handled the strategy, planning and implementation of pacprocess India, IndiaPack and FoodPex India and also the national and international marketing of those trade fairs.  

While pacprocess India was a new event in 2017, IndiaPack and the ISPI Conference were considered to be well established on the Indian market. Many exhibitors were full of praise about the partnership between Messe Düsseldorf and the IIP and were also very satisfied with the outcome of the trade fair. It apparently exceeded their expectations. This was also the conclusion reached by Rakesh Sharma from Apoorva Valves, an Indian distributor serving a range of international companies: “It was a very good show, which we really enjoyed. Lots of visitors came to see our technical products from Germany, the US and other parts of the world.”

Moreover, there was positive feedback on New Delhi as a venue: “We are very happy that Messe Düsseldorf gave us an opportunity to showcase our technologies which we want to bring to India. I am also happy that you have started a show in New Delhi as there are not many big shows,” says Kapil Sharma, Norden/Citus Kalix (coesia companies), Business Head Tube Filling & Cartoning India & SAARC Region.

pacprocess India, IndiaPack and FoodPex India are held once a year in combination with drink technology India (run by Messe München). Being held under a single roof, the four trade fairs map the thematic areas of packaging and related processes (PacProcess India), packaging materials and equipment as well as machinery and technology for the production of packaging equipment (IndiaPack), food and confectionery processing and packaging (FoodPex India) and also beverage technology, dairy and liquid food and the related packaging industry (drink technology India). Moreover, these trade fairs have a leading role in the region. Following New Delhi in 2017, next year’s venue in autumn will be Mumbai. Every other year this urban hub on the Arabian Sea is a fixture for the trade fair quartet, while the venue varies between other Indian regions in the intervening years.

In 2018, following a recent cooperation agreement between the interpack alliance and the Italian mechanical engineering association UCIMA, the latter will give its support for the marketing of Messe Düsseldorf’s Indian event by attracting visitors and organising an Italian joint stand. National pavilions at this year’s trade fair quartet came from Germany, China and Taiwan. In addition, there were also international brands from Italy, Turkey, the United States, Belgium, Slovenia and Switzerland.