In a changing world, with unexpected roads having opened up due to the pandemic, the packaging sector – for both food and non-food products – proposes its solutions, seeking new opportunities for development.
With health and safety as dominant themes both in the recent past and in the future, the sector presents its newest products at the IPACK-IMA trade show (3-6 May), with a global vision: from the packaging process to the design and study of innovative materials, and from end-of-line labelling all the way to automation and digitalization.
This time the focus is the non-food sector, in particular in the chemical-pharmaceutical industry, in light of its fundamental role during the health emergency and given the forecast for 2022, which predicts the search for new development opportunities, especially in this context.
Whether we’re talking about personal protective equipment, drugs, medical devices, food supplements, vaccines, products for sanitizing environments and the skin, or simply beauty and personal care products, the sector is on the front line and in the spotlight.
The objective is clear: respond to emerging and increasingly present consumption demands, demands that will certainly be dictated by hygiene and health related aspects which are a consequence of the new normal. Without neglecting (though this goes without say and has by now become a mantra of which there’s no doubt) the increasing demand for environmental sustainability and the ever-growing attention which companies in all sectors are dedicating to it.
The competitive battle in the chemical-pharmaceutical sector is fought in different fields, with increasingly efficient and advanced packaging systems and a search for innovative and environmentally friendly materials, inspired or guided by the concept of circular economy. Without overlooking production, encapsulation, packaging, serialization, and quality control technologies, with reference to the second big theme of the moment as well: digitalization and the evolution towards industry 4.0.
And while it’s true that “cross-contamination” is a medical term associated with unpleasant events, it’s also true that in this case it’s enormously valuable and refers to the successful synergy between the consumer goods and the durable goods industries, with major interaction between the various production sectors.
This refers also to cross-industry solutions that apply to all sectors, like end-of-line, palletisation, coding, branding, labelling, and intralogistics systems. A series of exciting challenges, which operators in the industry are ready to accept.
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Edited by: Elisa Crotti