Page 46 - Packaging News Magazine Nov-Dec 2018

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PACKAGING INNOVATION
TOKYO PACK www.packagingnews.com.au
November-December 2018
Packaging for tomorrow
Tokyo Pack 2018 saw Japan’s packaging industry working to scale back the nation’s huge food losses, finding ways into international marketplaces as domestic consumption dwindles with the population size and strategies to overcome a labour shortage, all the while trying to do right by the environment. On assignment for PKN, Joanne Hunter delivers Tokyo Pack’s top take-outs.
SPECIAL Tokyo Pack edition marked 50 years of the Asia Packaging Federation (APF) in the city of its birth with an AsiaStar awards ceremony rounded off with traditional Japanese dancing, and a seminar which highlighted Asian issues and the global, creeping metamorphosis of production, dis- tribution and retailing, catalysed by advancing technologies with un- foreseeable possibilities and unpre-
dictable timelines.
Among some special guests was
World Packaging Organisation (WPO) president Pierre Pienaar, of Australia, who joined APF members on visits to packaging giant Toyo Seikan Group and Kirin Beverage Company for a lesson in Japanese beer-making (see picture page 48).
Individual badge-holding visitors and exhibitors totalled 62,488 over the four-day show and peaked at 17,065 on the final day. They includ- ed overall 3,881 overseas visitors, which was 11.4 per cent higher than the previous edition and for the Ja- pan Packaging Institute team of or- ganisers this was proof of a growing international profile it has worked towards for the past two years.
The show’s main theme “Let’s Cre- ate Packaging for All Our Tomorrows” encouraged consideration for the en- vironmental and human impacts of packaging, natural in a country that’s respectful at its heart.
It was timely that a planned review of Japanese plastics waste policy was announced during the show (see side- bar). In truth, Japan has never fallen out of love with paper. In 2017, paper
MAIN: Japan’s packaging industry is looking out for the environmental and human impacts of packaging.
and paper products’ shipment value share was 43.7 per cent and 64.7 per cent by volume, compared to plastics which recorded 27.6 and 19.1 per cent, respectively.
PAPER TRAIL
Australian Paper exhibited as part of Nippon Paper Industries, to gain ex- posure for lines including Super- gold. The strong, stiff sack and bag grade conforms to USFDA and Euro- pean Union food contact for dried, non fatty foods, is PEFC certified and offers lightweighting possibilities.
Nippon Paper has a policy to ex- pand the uses of pulp from recovered waste paper and to convert unused waste paper into new resources. When the Indian state of Kaharashtra banned plastic disposable containers in June 2018, Indian subsidiary Nip-