A fascinating factoid for entrepreneurs in the world of packaging is that China is now the world’s second-largest packaging market after the US. China’s consumers are now driving demand for a range of goods requiring sophisticated packaging, including luxury items such as cosmetics. This is the backdrop to the huge gathering that was ProPak China 2019, June 19-21, in Shanghai.
Running concurrently with FoodPack China at the Shanghai National Exhibition and Convention Centre, industry leaders gathered to showcase a rich and varied array of advanced products and technology for food processing, packaging, printing and labelling, logistics and storage, packaging materials and containers, as well as robotics and automation solutions. At the display booths, the intense talk was of high productivity, quality control, smart packaging, and Industry 4.0.
In short, ProPak China 2019 (https://www.propakchina.com/cn) was a vibrant confluence of the latest in packaging technology and breakthrough solutions displayed across 240,000 square meters of show space, where more than 100,000 buyers flocked to the premier trade fair in China for the processing and packaging industries.
This mammoth trade expo was a powerful pull for automated packaging specialist Gerhard Schubert GmbH, which is in the process of expanding its China presence. This was a second showing for the Crailsheim, Germany-based family business, which first introduced its highly flexible, robotic packaging machines to a China audience at ProPak 2018.
Techworks Asia handled the interface with the local media at both the 2018 and 2019 shows, building on its own decades of experience in working with the technical press in Asia. For the 2019 event, Techworks organised two group interviews at the Schubert booth, one in the morning and one in the afternoon of 19 June. For both of these two-hour sessions, the client’s Managing Director was the lead speaker, with support from Sales Director and Technical Director. Together, the three Schubert representatives fielded questions from nine journalists from nine leading publications covering the packaging and industrial sectors in China.
Achieving this level of sustained interest and attendance from China’s technology-oriented media, at this hugely important and high-powered expo, was a fitting tribute to the teamwork and collective enterprise at Techworks, including the local-language expertise we can call on at our offices in Hong Kong and Beijing.
The type of advanced robotics-based automation that Schubert offers to the packaging sector is becoming increasingly important for Chinese producers in a range of market segments, including food, pharmaceutical products, and cosmetics. With domestic consumption in China now driving the world’s largest food and beverage (F&B) sector as well as the second-largest for pharmaceuticals, while collectively purchasing 33% of the world’s luxury goods, it was little wonder that the Schubert group interviews at ProPak China were intense, lively and highly interactive – with plenty of poised, professional reporting in the local media sure to follow.
