A candid look into the Asian metal packaging market

Today saw the beginning of the conference schedule at Asia CanTech 2016, which is currently taking place in the Malaysia capital, Kuala Lumpur.

The session began with star attraction Robert Bourque, president of Crown Asia Pacific, presenting on how Crown is helping brands to engage with consumers in the region. Bourque was keen to stress that Asia is a growing market with a growing middle class and this is increasing the demand for metal packaging. The fact that “metal packaging is infinitely recyclable”, according to Bourque, means that the metal packaging market has a story to tell that needs to be utilised.

The Crown Asia Pacific president also focused on how Crown is working on speciality can sizes with younger consumers, as the sleek style has been well received by health conscious consumers. There is also a premium look for speciality, he said and cited Crown’s work with Guinness to celebrate its 50th anniversary in Singapore as an example. There was also an interesting snippet of information, where Bourque quoted from The Nelson Report survey, which showed overwhelmingly that people are prepared to spend more for a product if it has a positive impact on the environment.

The other presentations featured a range of speakers offering their expertise with the likes of CMB’s Andrew Truelove on its new Reformat machinery, which endeavours to reflect the needs of modern day can making.  Mark Mohn from Prime Controls presented an entertaining view of the Internet of Things. He also explained how the Asia market is now 50 per cent of the Internet uses globally, and so the importance for usability within the industry looks more important than ever.

Sensory Analytics were able to showcase to the audience how the company is the exclusive measurement tool for Monster energy drink’s technical centre and Mall and Herlan presented on bottle cans and referenced their monobloc steel can, which was a world first.

The afternoon concluded with the Candid Forum question and answer session with Tony Foo Mun Choong, deputy general manager for Kian Joo’s three-piece can division; Crown’s Kumar Bhosale, regional technical manager of its Asia Pacific division and Tata Steel’s technical director, Simone Vooijs. A number of topics were discussed including innovation, supply chain management and non-BPA coatings. It proved to be an engaging hour and you will be able to see the highlights on our website in the next few days.

I’ll be back tomorrow with the results of the Asia CanTech Awards and a report of Wednesday’s conferences.

Now time for a glass of wine or two!