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Fachpack Trade Show - A Positive Outlook In A Deteriorating Environment

Photo: Sonja Angerer

By Sonja Angerer

Fachpack celebrated its 40th birthday at Nuremberg trade show centre from September 24th to 26th,. But after years and years of growth, the industry is facing less positive outlook into the future.

When Fachpack trade show opened its doors on September 24th, 2019, the spacious Nuremberg trade show centre extended a warm welcome to the almost 1,600 exhibitors. Which was, after 2018s 1,644, a substantial down, but still more than 2016, when 1,542 exhibitors presented their goods and services. At about 44.000 visitors, the number of guests remained at 2018 level. Fachpack will skip 2020, as always, as every three years Interpack is held at Dusseldorf, some 480 kilometres to the North-West. Despite competition in packaging-related trade shows being fierce in Central Europe, Fachpack is a self-proclaimed „leading European trade fair for packaging, processes and technology”.

This year, “Europe´s largest label and package printing trade”, bi-annual Labelexpo Europe in Brussels with 600 exhibitors, was held from September 24th to 27th, co-incidentally celebrating its 40. iteration. A few exhibitors therefore seemed to have opted for a smaller booth at Nuremberg, reserving big news for Brussels, or post-phoning them entirely for a bigger splash at Interpack or Drupa, both in 2020.

But it is not only the competition from another trade show, that made this year´s situation a bit less festive than many might have hoped for. After almost a decade of growth, Germany economy is widely believed to slip into a recession. The German mechanical engineering sector, including world-renowned print ad packaging machinery, has already hit been hit hard by the numerous trade war situations in the last 18 months. Also, the Friday For Future (FFF) movement is particularly strong in Germany, bringing back discussions about the sustainability of packaging. Already, in the 1980s and 1990s, another environmental movement had demanded changes in packaging industry, that later lead to today´s elaborate and costly, but highly controversial German recycling system.

Environmental Issues and FFF

Against this background, it seems a very appropriate choice to highlight “Environmentally friendly packaging” on the show. Special emphasize was put on paper-based packaging solutions. In their advertising right at the main entrance of the venue, Mondi seems to have condensed it quite congenially into the slogan “Paper where possible, plastic when needed.” “We have established a main theme for Fachpack for the first time because we want to show that the packaging industry is tackling this challenge and that our exhibitors can offer numerous innovative solutions and new approaches for environmentally friendly packaging,” explains Cornelia Fehlner, Director of Fachpack. 727 of exhibitors have this issue on their agenda and are showcasing packaging materials, machines or processes that make packaging environmentally friendly.

The trade fair theme was also be explored in 51 of the total 120 presentations, covering topics like design for recycling, the closed-loop economy or bio-based plastics. The speakers came from companies like the zerowaste platform Loop, PepsiCo or Procter & Gamble. Whereas the Packbox Forum in Hall 7 concentrated primarily on issues like packaging, packaging printing and processing, the Techbox Forum in Hall 4 was devoted to packaging technology and logistics. A new feature this year was the Open Workshop Area in Hall 8, where a series of daily workshops was held in which participants had just two and a half hours to brainstorm ideas and concepts for environmentally friendly packaging.

Eight Is For Digital

In hall 8 a space dedicated to “environmentally friendly premium packaging” was curated by Bayern Design. Hall 8 also was the place there most of the companies (also) active in the digital printing markets had made up their booths. Epson, however, had voted for hall 4, showcasing label proofing equipment SureColor SC-S80600 und SureColor P7000V as well as ColorWorks label printer for both small scale and industrial size 4C label production.

Most prominent exhibitors from the digital printing industry in hall 8 were certainly Swissqprint und Zünd. Working together quite closely in real life, their booths were located side by side to showcase an all-digital packaging print and production workflow including automated feeding and stacking, and even collaborative robots. “We are going to see much more automation and integrated work-flows in the digital printing industry”, said Daniel Bischof, Marketing & Communications at Zünd Systemtechnik AG. “That will not necessarily mean a wide-scale loss of jobs. The operator will be less concerned with repetitive, non-value-adding activities, which robots will take over.”

The booth of the The Corrugated Packaging & Display Printing segment in conjunction with Durst Professional Services (DPS) was quite small, as the group took the opportunity to present its comprehensive Software Ecosystem with Workflow and Smart Shop Solutions. All Durst software can be extended modularly and managed via a web-based user interface. Markus Gleissner, Business Manager Eastern Europe, Asia and Africa at Durst Phototechnik Group, is sure that creating an integrated Eco-system of hard and software as well as service is essential for printer manufactures, but also for their customers. Therefore, a workshop on September 24th presented customer and integration projects.

“Sustainability is a hot topic in today’s packaging industry and a key asset in Mimaki’s strategy,” said Hisashi Takeuchi, CEO of Mimaki Deutschland GmbH. “Visitors at our booth can experience first-hand how the use of Mimaki’s UV and UV-LED inkjet technologies and packaging solutions can make creative ideas a reality, whilst significantly decreasing the environmental impact of the production process. Championing environmentally-friendly packaging production and driving sustainable innovation in the industry is our goal at FachPack 2019.” The company showcased a range of hardware and software solutions as well as applications at a booth with their local partner Ernst Mendel GmbH.

Packaging Industry Facing Fundamental Changes

The Packaging Industry has been struggling to tackle the analogue-to-digital conversion in printing technology for years. Collaboration between the “new” digital equipment manufactures and “oldschool” analogue printing technology seems to finally become the new standard, with the newly founded Koenig & Bauer Durst GmbH 50/50 joint venture, made public late last year, a prominent example.

The new focus will be digital finishing, as well as, finally, a tighter integration of digital store fronts, production and logistics. Mayor competitors like EFI and HP have been launching Eco Systems around their machinery. With their decades-old IT expertise and workforce, they might have an advantage over Durst, which came relatively late to the game. While process integration and automatization seems to be a basic necessity for the industry, it remains to be seen if print service providers will feel comfortable to step into “walled gardens” of specific eco systems or will opt for more open platforms and solutions.

If a significant number of developed country´s customers and legislators, inspired by FFF, will indeed demand a system change to a more environmentally friendly and / or recycling economy, the packaging industry however might face its biggest challenge yet.

About the author:

Sonja Angerer is a trade journalist to the digital printing, promotional gifts and sign making industry. She was editor in chief to German trade magazine Large Format until January 2019, and is now Head of Content at mypromo.com, as well a contributor to mayor European websites and trade magazines.

Photo: Roland Schmid

All other photos in this article: Sonja Angerer

Polish version was published in November 2019 issue of "Świat DRUKU".

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