After such a long time apart, the appetite for networking and learning was clear, with Hall 1 at the NEC very busy for large swathes of Wednesday (25 May), when Printweek visited the show, and exhibitors and visitors happy to be back and engaged in business conversations.

Mercian Labels marketing manager Hayley Cashmore said: “It’s been two and a half years since we last did this so it’s obviously about leads ultimately but it’s a brand awareness exercise as well – getting our name out there and raising our profile. We get a lot of interest and footfall usually, and so far, so good.”

Seminars were split across three areas at the show; the Design and Innovation Stage, the Ecopack Stage, and the Empack Technology Stage.

Gathering speakers from major brands including Pret, Ocado, and Nestlé among others, many of the sessions were, unsurprisingly, dedicated in some way or another to the topic of sustainability, which dominated the agenda at the show as it did in 2020.

Cashmore said it was also a key focus for Mercian Labels: “We are featuring sustainability in terms of the products that we’ve bought along, we’re very conscious of it as an organisation and we’ve spent quite a lot of time focusing on [sustainable] products that we’ve introduced to our customers, as well as our label liner recycling service, which has gone really well.

“The big companies see a lot of value in that but it also works for some of the smaller organisations because they can use it in their marketing materials.”

Denmaur Paper Media marketing and sustainability director Danny Doogan was at the show with Delipac, whose plastic-free food and drink packaging products Denmaur exclusively stocks in the UK.

He said it was “all about sustainability, which is immense for our customers” and explained that as plastic packaging is in many cases replaced with paper-based alternatives, there is a lot of innovation happening to enable the new products and materials to offer the same function as plastic.

“Some creativity and some element of design needs to go into it to fulfil the same kind of role.”

As well as more plastic-free packaging than ever before on display across the show’s stands, Doogan said he had also seen a lot of net carbon zero signage at this year’s event.

One of the biggest seminar crowds was for a session on the opening day titled ‘Future Packaging Materials’, highlighting that many visitors were in attendance to scope out what the next few years of the industry might look like.

A light was shone on some of the most inventive new products at the show’s Innovation Showcase area, with highlights including Corra-Screw, a reusable fixing for corrugated packaging from Item Products that enables users to bind and release multiple layers of board, and Geami Wrap ‘n Go, a 100% paper replacement for plastic air bubble packaging from Ranpak.

A raft of other product launches were also on display at the show, with Epson handing the UK show debut to its new C4000e desktop label printer, New Vision Packaging presented a new selection of luxury folding cartons, and labels manufacturer and kit supplier AM Labels introduced its new range of linerless labels.

These replace traditional backing paper and are treated with a silicone release coating on the face of the label stock, replicating conventional backing paper and enabling them to be easily peeled from the label roll. This reduces the amount of waste generated during the printing process.

Brendon Bass, sales and marketing manager at AM Labels, said: “It’s becoming more important with [the focus on] sustainability and being eco-friendly. There’s been a lot of interest in it.”

One of the popular show features was the Ecopack Challenge, which pit a series of innovative packaging concepts against each other in a Dragon’s Den style competition. This was won yesterday by PragmatIC, which spoke about how novel flexible electronics and NFC technology can help to increase recycling rates.

Show organiser Easyfairs was pleased with the reaction to the event. Marketing and community director for the Easyfairs packaging portfolio Josh Brooks told Printweek on Wednesday: “The show has been very busy, and exhibitors are very happy. It’s the first time this show has run in nearly two and a half years so we’re really happy to see the halls buzzing again.

“This is what we work all that time for, and we spent a lot of time rearranging dates and doing all we can to keep in touch with the industry in that time, but fundamentally this is what we do. We’ve had really good numbers come through today and we’ve met a lot of very senior packaging technologists. It’s a huge sense of relief and achievement that we’re now back on site doing what the events industry is here to do, which is connecting people.”

Regarding the sustainability trend, Brooks noted that legislation regulation coming into force including Extended Producer Responsibility, the Plastic Packaging Tax, and the Deposit Return Scheme were all “creating challenges but also massive opportunities and the need for brands to innovate and adapt to respond to these things”.

However, he also highlighted other key trends at the show including e-commerce, the introduction of artificial intelligence, the Internet of Things, and inclusivity in packaging.

The London outing of Packaging Innovations and Luxury Packaging will take place on 21 and 22 September while dates for the next flagship Birmingham show have been confirmed as 14 and 15 February 2023, with the event returning to its traditional slot early in the year.

A new Foodservice Zone is on the floorplan for next year and the show has also had a major rebrand for 2023, with the new “clean, fresh look” designed by agency Butterfly Cannon, which has also worked on a redesign for the London show.

New Packaging Innovations branding