Utility Print Pack’s new plant in Ahmedabad

• Decrease Increase

On a recent visit to Utility Print Pack’s new plant in Ahmedabad, Parshav Jain spent some time with the confident and well spoken Jinesh Mehta, the Executive Director of the company. 25-year-old Jinesh educated at the London College of Communication, spoke about the new plant, the move from Mumbai, and the Utility brand.

• 

The family owned business and was started by Manoj and Mukesh Mehta three decades ago in Mumbai. In 2007, they re-located their plant to the Changodar Industrial Area in Ahmedabad, Gujarat which they call their Dream Plant. The new plant has 1,10,000 square feet built-up area which is ISO 9001:2000 and BRC certified, and another 1,00,000 square feet nearby for storing consumables and corrugation. Jinesh says that Ahmedabad was the location of choice and not because of any economic zones or tax benefits. He added that since the majority of their business is in exports and Gujarat is close to four major ports with its own domestic and international airports. The city has also undergone tremendous infrastructural improvement in recent years.

Utility is exporting to more than 35 countries worldwide and employs more than 200 people, with its marketing and administration office in Mumbai and its new production facilities in Ahmedabad. Utility has an international presence with offices in the US, UK and South Africa. It was recently awarded “The Innovative Packaging Company of the year 2009” by the AIFMP and are also the winners of Worldstar packaging awards from the World Packaging Organisation. In the past Utility has also been an exhibitor at LuxePack Monaco.

Utility is also a part of Global Prestige Pack, which is the first luxury packaging alliance on a global level to develop new opportunities and to provide consistent quality and products for their customers in the global market. Utility caters to the needs of high quality luxury packaging sector and have always been ahead of everyone in terms of bringing technology and new products such as the innovative UV printing and production of plastic cartons in India. Not keen on overly competitive market segments, Utility has concentrated on luxury packaging and exports although they do supply monocartons to their longtime clients.

Utility uses Esko’s Scope3 workflow, a Screen CtP and a Kongsberg samplemaker in prepress. In the printing section they have two Heidelberg CD 102 6-colour plus coater presses one of which is a full UV press, and one Heidelberg CD 74 6-colour plus coater full UV press. In the post-press and finishing section they have complete range of finishing equipment from Bobst, lamination machines and one window patching machine. They have also implemented an in-house ERP system which monitors the production workflow from order generation to production planning, till the final billing stage. For the Ahmedabad unit with its completely modern infrastructure, Utility bought all brand new equipment.

Utility has been achieving double digit growth for the past three years and aims at crossing Rs 200 crore (approximately US$ 43 million) turnover in the next five years. Looking back at their growth even during the recent global economic crunch, Jinesh says that the recession was beneficial as it helped Utility attract international packaging buyers with competitive pricing for high quality and luxury packaging. Speaking of the Indian packaging market, Jinesh feels that the market is erratic and the pricing of consumables is volatile. On the whole, he feels that demand for the luxury packaging segment will continue to grow and has a good potential for the Indian packaging industry. Nevertheless he admits that a little bit of luck in addition to their own hard work has helped the company to achieve such high growth in the past three years.

• Decrease Increase

Ads by Google