Operational efficiency key to driving down India’s packaging costs: PepsiCo exec
Kousik Saha said far more time was now being spent on trying to reduce energy costs and process expenditures.
“Reducing packaging can only go to a certain level and then starts to impact less on gross margin for a brand.
“What we haven’t really seen in India until now is how we can make packaging processes more efficient by reducing operational packaging costs to have a larger impact on gross margin.
“That’s the trend we are seeing now and a lot of this will looking at using less energy. I personally believe that this is the biggest opportunity for the industry,” he told the pre-connect congress for Fi India in Delhi.
In terms of packaging trends in India, Saha said the two priorities were convenience and health.
He said more products were now in resealable and reusable packaging, while most beverage brands were going above and beyond regulatory requirements to inform consumers of the calorific content of drinks.
“If I look at the industry five to 10 years back, it was just packing a product and sending it to market. Now it is always focusing on consumer convenience and hygiene,” he added.
