India: high-tech cartons for Himachal apples

Reliance Industries has begun supplying waterproof plastic packaging cartons for apples and these are fetching juicy dividends for cultivators in Himachal Pradesh.

"This is the first time plastic bubble guard cartons (are being used) in the world. This year we have just finished marketing around 30,000 cartons produced in collaboration with Wimplast," Sagar Verma, vice president of business development in Reliance Industries, said here.

"Even though these high-tech waterproof 20 kg capacity cartons cost almost double at Rs.70 compared to traditional paper cartons, they add value to the fruit. Farmers who packed their fruit in these cartons fetched at least Rs.110 more per carton in cities," Verma told IANS.

"As compared to traditional paper packaging, these plastic bubble guard cartons are far more attractive, water proof and hygienic and result in minimal fruit loss," he said. Earlier this year, Mumbai-based plastic products company Wimplast put up an Rs.500 million packaging material plant in the industrial town of Baddi, some 120 km from here.

Set up with Italian help, the unit, say company officials, is the third of its kind in the world and the first in Asia. Besides packaging horticulture produce such as apple, plum, cherry, walnut, oranges and pomegranates, the plant plans to produce packaging material for electronic, IT and other white goods.

"Even though we could not market apple cartons in a big way due to certain reasons, by the next harvest we plan to manufacture at least 2.5 million such cartons for farmers, which would meet around 10 percent of the apple produce of the state," said Madhusudan Jangid, chief financial officer, Wimplast.

Along with Himachal, Reliance sold Wimplast cartons in neighbouring Jammu and Kashmir, the other major producer of apples in the country. "Kashmir apple farmers fetched around Rs.600 per 20 kg carton as compared to the traditional packing which fetched Rs.150 less," claimed Verma.

He said the presentation of apples in an attractive and hygienic manner would help farmers in finding a place in the fast emerging competitive "mall culture" in big cities across the country. "Reliance is also tying up with another American firm to bring the latest propylene bottles for packaging of fruit juice in the state."

ITC, another blue chip company, has for the first time made forays into the booming apple industry of the hill state and purchased around 80,000 cartons and sold them at retail outlets in metropolitan centres.

Reliance plans to enter the retail market by buying apples from farmers directly and selling the produce in its own retail outlets in the country.

Source