The who’s who of the packaging industry at one of London’s leading packaging events
Unilever, Bulgari, Innocent, ASDA, Superdrug, The Body Shop, Chanel, Heineken, Harrods, Dyson and Mars were just some of the major names at this year’s Packaging Innovations and Luxury Packaging London, as well as leading entrepreneurs Peter Jones from Dragon’s Den and Made in Chelsea’s Francis Boulle. With over 4,300 visitors in attendance over the two days, it was the show’s most successful edition to date, with 180 leading exhibitors and more than 18 hours of educational content.
James Drake-Brockman, divisional director of Easyfairs’ Packaging Portfolio, said, “What a show! Not only did we welcome more visitors and host more suppliers than ever before, but we also successfully introduced our revamped conference format and launched our brand-new partnership with The Pentawards. Visitors clearly recognised that this was the perfect platform to see the latest trends and newest technologies before everyone else, and so came in force.”
New for 2017, The Pentawards Conference brought together the best and brightest from the packaging design industry, covering everything from the best ways to tell a brand’s story and how to deliver innovation through design to the added value possibilities when designing through technology.
Running alongside The Pentawards Conference were four new forums, dedicated to the key packaging markets of beauty, food, drink and luxury, with speakers discussing the latest hot topics, challenges and opportunities. As part of the Food Forum, Ben Carter, UK marketing director at Just Eat, in a call to action, said, “The food service sector needs greater packaging options – ideas to keep chips and pizzas warm and cakes and ice cream cold. We’ve 28,000 restaurants waiting to hear from the packaging industry, grab that opportunity.” additionally, the Drinks Forum was designed to show visitors how to create packaging that can succeed in a crowded market.
As always, innovation is the focal point of the show and this was never clearer than at the Innovation Showcase, which pitted the most innovative products at the show against each other, with visitors voting for their favourite. The bamboo-plastic composite multi-functional wine packaging box display rack from Dongguan Mingfeng Packaging fought off stiff competition to be crowned the most innovative packaging.
The show also hosted over 180 leading suppliers presenting their latest technologies and services to the UK market. Highlights included: Impact Emotion debuting its custom-made metallic cages for perfume bottles; Label Apeel’s new fluorescent pink ink, which glows under UV light; IPL Packaging launching its second-generation Infinity Box and Seufert Transparente Verpackungen unveiling its bio-based PET.
75 per cent of exhibitors rebooked onsite for next year’s show. David Holt, sales director at Item Products, is one exhibitor who will be returning: “This is our first time at the show and we were so impressed with it that we rebooked for 2018 before day one had even finished. Easyfairs’ organisation of the event has been top drawer and the staff have been more than helpful.”
The next Easyfairs packaging event will be Packaging Innovations, Label&Print and Empack 2018, which takes place at Birmingham NEC on February 28 to March 1, 2018.