Siegwerk maintains supply chain link for food and pharma during Covid lockdown

Siegwerk, the German multinational manufacturer of printing inks, has facilitated uninterrupted supplies of food items, including milk and various pharma products, during the Coronavirus lockdown, with its packaging ink facility and blending centres.

The Cologne-based, €1.1-billion, 180-year-old solutions provider for packaging, labels, and catalogues, has managed to run its India plant at Bhiwadi in Rajasthan during the lockdown, thereby ensuring there is no disruption in the supply chain of packaged food and drugs.

Siegwerk has the world’s largest ink manufacturing facility at one location in Siegburg, Germany, and has a presence in over 100 countries and employs over 5,000 globally.

Ashish Pradhan, President, Siegwerk India and Greater China, said: “The company’s manufacturing facility at Bhiwadi, which is the second largest Siegwerk site, was up and running within three days of the lockout announced by the Government after the Cornavirus pandemic broke out. Siegwerk India had the advantage of learning from our experience in Siegwerk China as I have responsibility for the Siegwerk business in both the countries.”

In an interaction with BusinessLine , Pradhan said, “Siegwerk is part of the packaging supply chain and packaging is important for us to get food and pharma going. Therefore, we were granted permission to restart our operations. Currently, Siegwerk India is operating at around 30 per cent of total staff at a manufacturing facility in Bhiwadi and at the nine blending centres across India, by taking all necessary precautions,” he said.

“Our capacity is 25,000 tonnes of ink per annum at the Bhiwadi facility, which is among our big ones. We built up sufficient raw material inventory since we anticipated the situation and our supply chain partners have also supported us. Siegwerk imports 30-35 per cent of total requirement and also sources locally,” he said.

Expansion plans

“India is an important market for Siegwerk and we will continue to invest here. This year, we are expanding our solvent-based manufacturing capacity at Bhiwadi by 50 per cent. Currently, we have the capacity to manufacture 8,500 tonnes of solvent-based inks annually,” he said.

“We are very bullish about the market post Covid. Some consumer habits will change and we will have social distancing as a norm. People will start staying at home and that will increase the consumption of packaged food, thereby, consuming more packaging and as a result more ink,” he explained.

“At Siegwerk, we are quite confident that packaging and anything related to packaging will increase substantially post the Covid pandemic. Therefore, we are going ahead with expansion and everything as planned. We are not stopping any recruitments. We have announced increments and bonus to our employees, paid salaries on time. We look at Covid as a temporary phase and once the situation stabilises we actually see a strong future for Siegwerk in India,” he said.

“Eighty five per cent what we produce is consumed in India. We export the balance 15 per cent. Overall, we expect markets to go up as consumption of packaging will go up. That includes exports,” he said.

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