Exploring perspectives on brand packaging at PrintWeek Awards 2025

Trying to decode what opportunities and challenges lie in packaging from a brands perspective, panellists from various brands confabulated during the PrintWeek Awards 2025, held in The Westin Mumbai Powai Lake, on 13 October

16 Oct 2025 | By Abhay Avadhani

(l-r) Prasad Iyer, director of SIES SOP; Chinmaya Dandekar, general manager, Godrej Consumer Products; Dr Geetal Mahajan, global sustainable packaging lead, Kenvue; and KV Sridhar of Nihilent

The end of the Jury Meet of PrintWeek Awards 2025 witnessed an array of packaging entries and samples in forms of labels, rigid boxes, paper bags, flexible packaging, cartons, leaflets and more. The jury found it hard to distinguish between the samples and decide winners for the five packaging categories.

This called for a confabulation around brand packaging - opportunities and challenges at the PrintWeek Awards 2025. It explored talking points such as tech adoption, digital print, value addition and the innovation in sustainable packaging. The room full of packaging converters and machine manufacturers learned more on these topics from brands’ perspective.

Prasad Iyer, director of SIES SOP chaired the session with; Chinmaya Dandekar, general manager, Godrej Consumer Products; Dr Geetal Mahajan, global sustainable packaging lead, Kenvue; and KV Sridhar, global chief creative officer, Nihilent on the panel.

The section one of the discussion began with a focus on trends in technology and adoption. Talking about trends, Chinmaya Dandekar of Godrej Consumer Products sees a lot of potential in flexo. He shares that the company’s interaction with flexo dates back to 10 years ago, when it launched Godrej Air Pockets in the market. The challenge which had to be overcome was chemical compatibility of the solution.

Secondly, Dandekar says, “The technology got more mature when we blended it with sustainability. We have two big perspectives in terms of plastic reduction and going into recycling. In terms of plastic reduction, the most obvious choice is paperisation.

Dandekar, again sees a lot of potential for flexo in this aspect. He explains, “We have seen that on direct paper printing, the way gravure and flexo respond are different. That’s where flexo has started catering to those requirements in a much better way.”

He adds that just by going mono-material, the material will not become recyclable. “Untill you make a shift from reverse printing to a surface printing, you are not going to able to de-ink. And for de-inking, we see potential with surface printing, again flexo enables easily,” says Dandekar.

Dr Geetal Mahajan from Kenvue responds, “Talking about disruptive technology, I think for any packaging development process, it helps to have a digital simulation. And being a global company, I want to call out one example wherein we have actually used this digital simulation.”

She sheds light on the CX part of packaging. She says that producing a package should be in conjunction with the consumer experience. “OGX, one of our healthcare brands, uses digital simulation wherein they analyse the mass distribution of the package to actually see the squeezability of the bottle and deliver on a better performance to the consumer,” Mahajan adds. This innovation was a 100% recycled HDPE.

She tells the panellists that depending on what brand equity we want to dive into, what kind of quality is required, we tend to deliver that depending on the consumer experience that is supposed to be delivered on.

Talking about technology disruption, KV Sridhar of Nihilent responds, “The biggest disruption I think, needs to happen is to rediscover humanity. The technology is commoditised, everybody has access to everything. Mass customisation is in, with custom printing available for names and birthdays. Even larger FMCG brands are trying to customise things.”


KV Sridhar: Packaging is a walking billboard

According to Sridhar, brands should look at packaging from a perspective of offering a sensorial experience. He says that at one point in time, any packaging would stink for a long time. Now, it’s not the same case anymore. He adds, “CX is everything today. And the disruption must happen considering that human beings are going to consume it at the end of the day. To me every packaging is a walking billboard.”

Later, Prasad Iyer of SIES SOP, discusses trends in the technology, when you see a trend in a market which your competitors are working on, but incorporating the same thing for your brand comes up with challenges such as cost, and finding out the right supplier converter.

Chinmaya Dandekar responds by saying that Godrej Consumer Products is into a business of mass affordability. He shares how the liquor industry gets to spend a lot on packaging for premiumisation. But, he says, digital printing is something that offers to create a small amount of packs at a smaller scale.

Dr Mahajan concurs and says, “We believe in cross-functional collaboration and we do have to look at the end-to-end cost of it, the value proposition that we are going to give the consumer because sometimes, it may not be desired to put in a cost which the consumer may not want to pay for it.” She shares an example of Aveeno pumps which are not recyclable. “We worked closely with our supplier who created a digital twin simulation for us,” says Mahajan.

She tells the audience how suppliers are coming forward to help Kenvue with these digital solutions, and that has helped it launch the recyclable pump which is all plastic.

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