How India’s packaging ecosystem is reimagining growth paths

At the Alila Diwa in Goa, 146 delegates from across India’s packaging machinery ecosystem gathered to listen to the panel discussion session, the final session of day two of the Envision 2025 conference.

With the gala night around the corner, there was a buzz in the room, as well as an alertness sharpened by anticipation. The session, titled ‘Growth enablers’, was anchored by Sanjay Ghoshal, head of packaging at Diageo India, who steered a robust 32-minute conversation with Puru Gupta, co-founder of True Elements; Mahendra Mehta, IPMMI board member and CEO and MD, Parle Global Technologies; Anthony D’Souza, IPMMI board member and Mespack India managing director, and Nikhil Naik, chief growth officer, AD Naik Wealth.

It was, as Ghoshal described, a chance to distil wisdom across industries, from food to finance to fill-seal technology.

This wasn’t a jargon-laced keynote. It was a reality check for the industry. It was about peeling back the layers behind company growth stories, failures that hurt but taught, and the silent motivators that drive founders and CEOs to persist.

Each panellist delivered on this premise, offering packaging entrepreneurs a road map that was both strategic and deeply human.

Defining and managing growth
The opening salvo was clear: “How do you define growth?” Ghoshal’s question struck at the heart of operational ambition and the reality of chaos. For Gupta, growth was “what makes you uncomfortable.” This framing, he argued, is necessary for transformation. When his company plateaued at INR 40 to 60-crore in revenue, it was not the market but internal capability that hit a ceiling. The team realised they had outgrown their existing infrastructure, and it was time to rebuild.

Gupta explained how his team’s decision to automate packaging lines wasn’t just about throughput; it was about delivering consistent quality across 20% more SKUs. In an industry where failure to execute could result in packaging errors or recalls, the margin for error was razor-thin. Gupta shared how downtime costs during their growth phase translated into INR 1.5-crore in preventable losses annually, until they overhauled their production design.

Mehta brought a complementary view; he defined growth not in terms of revenue, but in terms of customer delight and capability building. From a nine-person company to a global player, Mehta credited his company’s growth to one key principle: never assume what worked yesterday will work tomorrow. He urged delegates to move away from five-year master plans and instead create adaptable systems. This strategy helped Parle survive disruptions and still achieve a 10% annual efficiency gain.

D’Souza provided a grounded lens from the capital goods side; he described how being the most premium player often meant resisting market pressure to compromise on quality. The growth came not by lowering prices but by backing performance. A 20% year-on-year (YoY) sales bump was evidence that reliability—specifically 98% uptime on machines—was worth the price tag. He challenged packaging firms to not merely pursue growth, but to define what kind of growth matched their ethos.

Naik, who manages INR 4,000-crore in assets at AD Naik Wealth, linked growth to mindset. “If your plans are not uncomfortable, they aren’t worth doing,” he said. His firm’s decision to move from assets under management (AUM) of INR 800-crore to 4,000-crore over a few years forced uncomfortable investments in people, culture, and systems. For packaging businesses, he advised: invest like you mean it, and make sure your ambition shows up in your processes—not just your pitch decks.

Celebrating success while learning from failure
Ghoshal’s next prompt leaned into vulnerability: “What are your lessons from failure, and how do you celebrate success?”

Mehta opened this chapter with raw honesty, recounting a failed partnership in an Italy-based company “went flopped,” costing INR 10-crore. “Failures are the stepping stone,” he says, noting that Parle’s buyback of a 50% stake sold 20 years ago added INR 30-crore in export revenue. The takeaway: recovery is possible, but only if failure is seen as a stepping stone.

Gupta echoed this philosophy with True Elements’ unique approach, a monthly ritual to publicly celebrate failures. “If you show an empty failure slide, you’re probably not pushing hard enough,” he joked. One such failure was an eco-packaging project that tanked after an INR 50-lakh investment. Instead of scrapping the idea, the team reworked it into a new line that now contributes to 10% of the brand’s margin. It’s become part of their innovation muscle memory.

For D’Souza, the critical failure was market share erosion. “We lost 10% at one point,” he admitted. The bounce back wasn’t immediate, but it was strategic. He refocused the team on ultra-premium, high-performance equipment and retrained the salesforce. It paid off with a sustained 20% increase in machine installs. “Mistakes happen once,” he said. “But if they repeat, they’re no longer mistakes, they’re choices.”

Naik shared a personal story. His school result, where he scored 68% against a class average of 86%. His father told him not to worry and encouraged him to move forward. That lesson in trust shaped his leadership style, which today guides a 92-person firm. “We often hire based on skill, but we must lead based on belief,” he said. And belief, in tough times, can be the difference between folding or forging ahead.

Finding inspiration for sustained growth
As the session edged toward its close, Ghoshal posed the final question with a personal touch: “What inspires you to keep going?” The responses revealed the emotional architecture behind each leader’s success.

Naik’s story came from 2002. Just after his father’s passing, a client named Viswanatha trusted the then-24-year-old with his entire life savings. That singular act of faith fuels Naik even today. Every policy sold, every asset under management, is in service of that trust. His customer-first ethos has led to a 15% client retention bump, adding INR 600-crore in AUM YoY.

For D’Souza, the spark came from his mentor, who pulled him into the packaging industry from a computer engineering background. Since joining Mespack in 2012, D’Souza has not only steered growth but also developed a quiet obsession with quality. “I’ve just begun,” he said, eyes locked on at INR 1,000-crore sales goal. His journey is a reminder that mentors can shape not just careers but entire sectors.

Mehta’s inspiration, as always, loops back to his father. A man who believed in collaborative growth, he instilled in Mehta the value of team-building. “You cannot do anything alone,” Mehta recalled. That belief shaped Parle’s employee development philosophy, where over 200 engineers are trained yearly. The ripple effects are evident in the company’s ability to scale and in its reputation as a talent-centric manufacturer.

Gupta, without explicitly naming a person, pointed to an idea: “Build a company where you don’t need to be there for it to function.” It’s a notion rooted in letting go of control, in trusting teams, and in designing systems that outlive the founder’s day-to-day input. That vision, he said, is what gets him out of bed—and what makes growth feel truly sustainable.

What the moderator left the room with
As the conversation wrapped, Ghoshal offered a few final takeaways. He appreciated how each panellist redefined traditional business wisdom. “You’ve shown us that growth isn’t a straight line. It zigzags through discomfort, discipline, and dreams.” He urged delegates to return home not with just notes, but with action. Ask better questions of their teams, embrace calculated risks, and see failure as a tutor, not a tombstone.

From conversations about INR 5-crore failures to 10% skill gap solutions and 20% AUM jumps, what resonated most was this: real growth requires alignment between purpose, process, and people. In an industry primed to touch INR 8-lakh crore by 2030, such alignment might just be the ultimate enabler.