A busy couple of days at Packaging Innovations
While the team continued delivering high quality print jobs for customers at our Yorkshire print factory this week, Herbert Walkers’ managing director, Mike Lammas, and sales director, Andy Christie, spent a couple of days down in Birmingham for the Packaging Innovations show, where we once again took a stand.
The exhibition aims to showcase the latest trends and technologies in the packaging sector. It is also a great opportunity for us to catch up with customers and make new connections. This year’s event was certainly a success for us in those terms, with many customers dropping by to say hello and lots of new contacts made. Indeed, we were so busy on our own stand that we had little time to explore the rest of the hall at the NEC!
At last year’s Packaging Innovations, all the talk was about supply chain issues, board shortages and capacity, but it was clear at this year’s show that those concerns have been resolved. In fact, because of the difficulties with sourcing product last year, it’s fair to say that both suppliers and customers have bought ahead of need, which has created a little slack in the market. However, the overriding sentiment was one of cautious optimism. With prices for energy and materials now beginning to fall again, there was a sense that the supply chain has been bracing itself for tough times, but that those fears have not materialised. It was clear from the show that there remains a buoyant pipeline for those with a quality track record and an agile approach.
For Herbert Walkers, the exhibition was a busy one across both days of the event, with plenty of footfall on the stand from familiar and new faces alike, and a lot of interest in the samples we had taken down to the show with us. The boxes we have done for premium whisky brands garnered particular interest, showcasing what we do best in terms of high quality, accuracy and multiple finishes. There was also, as always, significant interest in our joined-up-capabilities for end-to-end project delivery and our finishing capabilities, including foils and embossing. Like any exhibition, the proof of success will be in the contacts we nurture after the event and the projects that develop from those relationships. It was certainly good to see so many people returning to a trade show as both exhibitors and delegates, and we’re looking forward to following up on the conversations we had at our stand.
