Thank you Asia CanTech 2024!

The Asia CanTech 2024 team from Bell Publishing & CanTech. (L-R): Neil McRitchie, conference director; Flora McRitchie, event sales & operations; Sarah McRitchie, editorial director; Alex Rivers, editor; Aimee Carnell, events manager; Yea Yau, account manager; Sarah Hills, advertising manager.

What a packed few days it has been at this year’s Asia CanTech in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam!

Monday 21 October saw a busy registration period and setup for our tabletop exhibitors, as well as offering conference speakers the change to run through presentations. This was all followed by a buffet dinner and some rooftop drinks offering beautiful evening cityscape views.

Pimkarn Nancy Eg-karntrong, senior sustainability manager for TBC-Ball Beverage Can Vietnam opened the conference on Tuesday 22 October, setting out the company’s goal highlights toward meeting various sustainability goals, including meeting net zero by 2050, and achieving its intermediate science-based greenhouse gas emission reduction target, as well as 100 per cent renewable electricity, by 2030.

A full conference day followed Nancy’s presentation, and then our tabletops opened again for more networking opportunities. We then did a quick changeover for the gala dinner which kicked off with the 2024 awards, which featured two new categories for 2024, beverage limited edition and design concept – won by Canpack and Isimat, respectively. Our Supreme Winner cup was awarded to Crown Thailand and was accepted by Crown Asia Pacific Holdings’ Tristan Ellison, who has promised to ensure it lands in safe hands with the team there!

Neil McRitchie then took to the stage to honour a close industry friend who retires in May 2024, Jack Knight (currently global business development director for rigid packaging) at INX International Ink Co. Jack received a framed, personalised front cover of CanTech International magazine, featuring some trips down memory lane. We then had dinner, drinks and some of the attendees got involved playing some traditional Vietnamese instruments with the band on stage.

Our last day, Wednesday 23 October, featured a half day of conference, with a keynote from PPG‘s Sylvain Rannou, who gave an overview of the regulatory compliance coming into action globally for food contact coatings. After presentations about inspection, sustainability in production and metal packaging trends, we then had the opportunity for a delicious buffet lunch and one last time round the tabletops.

We’d like to give a massive thank you to all our attendees to the event, as well as to the hotel’s events, catering and technical teams for all their assistance over the past three days.

You’ll be able to find the full review in CanTech December 2024/January 2025.

That’s all for now, but we look forward to seeing you in Bangkok for the 2025 edition of Asia CanTech!