Plenary Session 3 on Innovative Technologies for Foods and Beverages

The packaging industry's next wave of innovation will be driven by intelligent manufacturing, advanced barrier technologies and packaging formats designed specifically for circularity, according to speakers at Plenary Session 3 of Respack. 

The session, chaired by Amit Khemani, group vice chairman of Khemani Group of Industries, brought together technology suppliers, packaging manufacturers and design specialists to discuss emerging solutions for the food and beverage sector.

Presentations from Krones India, Bloom Seal Containers and Ajanta Print Arts highlighted how companies are approaching sustainability and performance challenges from different parts of the packaging value chain.

Krones presents vision for autonomous PET manufacturing

Pradeep Hada, head of sales (India) at Krones India, outlined the company's vision for what he described as the "factory of the future" through its Ingeniq intelligent PET production platform. According to Hada, increasing production speeds, sustainability targets and operational complexity are forcing manufacturers to move beyond traditional automation towards intelligent, self-managing production systems.

"What if the lines could maintain, work and be intelligent themselves?" he asked. The concept centres on AI-driven production lines capable of monitoring process performance, detecting abnormalities and automatically adjusting operating parameters in real time. Hada described Krones' development of what the company calls a "dark factory" — a manufacturing environment where production lines operate with minimal human intervention.

"What we have today is an actual line which runs in the dark," he said. The system uses machine vision, sensors and real-time analytics to monitor every bottle moving through the production process. Equipment can measure bottle variation, optimise settings automatically and identify maintenance requirements before failures occur.

According to Hada, future systems could even be connected to procurement platforms, allowing machines to automatically trigger spare-parts orders when required. The company is already applying these concepts to high-speed PET bottling operations producing up to 100,000 bottles per hour while aiming to minimise waste, downtime and energy consumption.

Bloom Seal focuses on barrier performance

While Krones focused on manufacturing efficiency, Pradeep Kumar Nathalal Sagar, chairman and managing director of Bloom Seal Containers, addressed the challenge of improving barrier performance in rigid plastic packaging.

His presentation centred on fluorinated HDPE containers for chemical packaging and the company's efforts to overcome issues such as permeation, paneling and product degradation. "We like to call it an invisible layer that cannot be seen by the naked eye but it is there and does a phenomenal job," Sagar said while describing the fluorinated surface treatment. According to Sagar, conventional HDPE containers often struggle when used for aggressive chemicals, solvents, fragrances and specialised formulations because product molecules can migrate through the polymer wall over time. To address this, Bloom Seal employs a fluorination process that modifies only the surface layer of the polymer while retaining the container's monolayer structure.

The company claims the technology improves barrier performance without requiring multilayer structures that can complicate recycling. Sagar argued that fluorination offers an alternative to heavier packaging formats such as glass, steel or multilayer plastic structures while maintaining the cost and processing advantages associated with HDPE. "Plastic has proven to be the most economic and versatile choice," he said. The company also highlighted its use of nitrogen-diluted fluorination technology, which it says avoids PFAS generation while remaining suitable for applications ranging from agrochemicals and pharmaceuticals to flavours and food products.

According to Sagar, the technology can reduce plastic consumption, improve product protection and extend shelf life while maintaining recyclability.

Ajanta Print Arts advocates mono-material packaging

The final presentation shifted attention from manufacturing systems and material performance to packaging design. Vikas Khanna, partner at Ajanta Print Arts, argued that sustainability discussions often become overly focused on material substitution while overlooking a more fundamental challenge: packaging complexity. "The problem is how components are combined," Khanna said. He pointed out that many packages contain combinations of paper, PVC, PET, polypropylene, adhesives and decorative elements that make recycling significantly more difficult.

Khanna presented in-mould labelling (IML) as a practical solution for improving recyclability in rigid plastic packaging. In the IML process, pre-printed labels are inserted into the mould before injection moulding takes place. During production, the label fuses directly with the container, creating a single integrated structure. "The label and the container are the same polymer family," Khanna said. "They become one single structure."

According to Khanna, mono-material packaging simplifies recycling because labels do not need to be separated from containers during recovery and reprocessing. "One material, nothing to separate, nothing to strip out," he said. Beyond recyclability, Khanna highlighted benefits including improved shelf appeal, better durability throughout the supply chain and reduced operational complexity by eliminating secondary labelling processes.

He acknowledged that IML requires higher upfront investment in tooling, robotics and automation, but argued that these costs are often recovered through lower labour requirements, reduced material usage and simplified production operations. "The question no longer is whether IML works. The question is, when are you ready to start?" he said.

Conclusion 

Together, the presentations demonstrated that the industry's sustainability transition will depend not on a single breakthrough, but on the combined impact of smarter manufacturing systems, advanced materials and packaging designs built for recycling from the outset.