Imagine a world with no paper,
boxes, bottles, cups or any form of wrapping. Think of cooking with no vessel
or carrying a loaf of bread with no paper?
Packaging is one of the
aspects of a product that we take for granted yet other than the product itself
it’s the most fundamental element of any
product.
Packaging offers a
product protection from physical damage as well as providing a barrier.
Packaging material offers handling convenience, portion control, product information
even marketing information.
Packaging is vital to
every member of any manufacturing company from the production to the logistics
and distribution department, marketing team right to the sales person and eventually
to you the consumer.
Wilford O. Cross once said that, “Within this thin wafer of bread is caught up symbolically the labour of plough and of sowing, of harvest and threshing, of milling, of packing, of transportation, of financing, of selling and packaging. Man's industrial life is all there.”
Without packaging you wouldn’t enjoy your favourite ice cream cone or devour your pizza from a box.
Packaging comes in various forms dating back to BC, with the use of reed baskets (similar to the one that ferried Moses), wooden boxes as well as vases. Right now, there are many types of packaging material including the infamous and gigantic pollutant; polyethylene bags.
Even recruiters require an applicant to package themselves attractively, whereas personal branding is today’s hype.
It’s for this reason
that organisers of PROPAK Africa
decided to organise in Kenya, the first truly
international platform for suppliers of the industry to promote their products
and services to the international audience.The event will bring together players in the manufacturing, packaging and printing industries.
The
exhibition has attracted over 70
companies from 14 different companies. The event has been on at the
KICC Nairobi since fools’ day till
today.
There will also be talks on market trends and challenges, new technologies as well as value addition of packages.
Anyone interested in understanding the vast field that is packaging is invited. The exhibition will be an opportunity to learn something in the ever interesting and innovative packaging industry.
There is however, one major challenge to our packaging industry. We have become so used to using plastic bags which have ended up polluting our environment. Packaging is important but we need to devise better means of packaging if we want to reach retirement age. This could be the reason why some scientists in America have started making polyethylene bags using corn starch (maize) and citric acid. I would have requested our manufacturers to do the same but let’s face it, will we produce maize to make bags or feed our hungry? That’s a discussion for another day.
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