The global pulp and paper market size was valued at $351.53 billion in 2021 and is projected to escalate from $354.39 billion in 2022 to $372.70 billion by 2029. The growth in the industry is attributed to the rise in adoption of paper packaging in FMCG and personal care segments along with the stable growth of e Commerce driving the requirement for labels. Especially in countries like India, the current infrastructural advancement in the paper industry and certain governmental investment in education sector have amplified the growth in the domestic paper market.The ongoing shift to paper packaging across various industries is raising more demand for special coated paper, whereas the textile industry with its continual up-gradation of production technology and experimental printing is necessitating specialty papers of evolved quality that can be instrumental in executing outstanding quality of graphics.
This is where Felix Schoeller India came in to offer a diverse range of heightened quality specialty paper and media for various applications and digital printing technology. The company is a joint venture between the Felix Schoeller Group of Germany and New (India) Imaging Industries. Since its inception in 2018, Felix Schoeller India has earned a name as one of the leading specialty paper manufacturers that has incorporated the expertise of German paper technology in its state-of-the-art converting facility.
The expansion in the domestic market enabled them to build a robust network based on quality manufacturing and trustworthy partnerships, and cater to the specific requirement of the consumers in terms of digital printing. Their product range is specially designed for Inkjet (water-based, solvent, latex and UV), electrophotographic, sublimation and toner printing.
The Beginning of the Journey
Felix Schoeller India was established in 2018 and is a joint venture between the German Felix Schoeller Group and the Indian company - New (India) Imaging Industries. The Felix Schoeller Group was founded in 1895 and is one of the world’s largest manufacturers of speciality paper including photographic paper, sublimation paper, release liners, décor paper, and packaging paper. They were the pioneers in developing photo base paper for companies like Kodak and Fujifilm at a time when photographs still had to be developed with chemicals in a dark room. The Group now has over 3700 employees at 19 locations across 11 countries.
New India Imaging Industries was started by Rajan Vaswani in Mumbai in 1983 as an importer, convertor, and trader of various paper and film products. The value addition that gave it an edge over other traders was the converting facilities which involves slitting, sheeting, and packing of all products in our brands as well as OEM brands. Rajan primarily worked with European companies and introduced and popularized many innovative products for the first time in the Indian market.
Over time, it gained a strong foothold across the country and still has a high market share in multiple segments. New India Imaging started working with Felix Schoeller in 1995 as their exclusive distributor in the country for inkjet photo papers, and hasn’t looked back since. In 2018, after more than 20 years of a very fruitful partnership, they decided to take things to the next level and entered into a Joint Venture which led to the creation of ‘Felix Schoeller India’.
The new company commenced operations on the 1st of April 2019 with a brand-new converting facility and a strong sales and marketing team.
Our combined experience is the reason why we are trusted so deeply by our customers across India as well as our various suppliers and vendors from Germany and around the world. Most members of our production and admin team have been working with us for over 20 years and know exactly what our customers expect from our products. Our Sales and Marketing team is fresh and full of exciting ideas.
This combination delivers stability as well as innovation to our partners. “We always strive to provide innovative and futuristic solutions to the market so that Indian customers can immediately benefit from the latest technology. In addition to providing the products, we know how to leverage the technology depending on our client requirements and show them how they can make the improvement to the system.
Our second point is our relations with our partners across the value chain. We have spent a lot of time and efforts, cultivating relationships with our suppliers and customers over the years. And finally, our facilities and experience allow us to offer a huge degree of customization to our customers in terms of the requirement of product sizes and their private labeling and packaging”, adds Rajan, MD and CEO of Felix Schoeller India.
Cutting-edge Infrastructure
Felix Schoeller India currently has two factories in Navi Mumbai which have state-of-the-art slitting, sheeting, and packing facilities for paper and film. These machines have been procured from India, Germany, and China, and they have ensured that they keep up to date with the latest technology. Our sales office and warehouse in Noida is fully equipped to cater to the demands of the North and East markets so that we can shorten our product lead times as well. The investment in IT services has also given great efficiencies in the overall operation line. The custom ERP system is used to log orders, maintain stocks, plan production, make invoices, and send intimation of delivery to customers. This has helped to link everything together and speed up our entire production chain. This system is even being extended to the accounts department so that data entry duplication is reduced and employees can utilize their time more efficiently. Felix Schoeller India is now focusing on setting up further local manufacturing capabilities to reduce our dependence on imports.
Array of Products
With a state-of-the-art R&D department and customer feedback from across the world, Felix Schoeller India developed products that are suitable for various printing technologies such as Inkjet water-based systems, high speed Inkjet systems, Inkjet solvent, latex & UV systems, sublimation water-based systems, and dry and liquid toner printing. They also produce specialized papers for professional photo and fine art photography, sign & display graphics, with multiple surfaces and shades. Our COMPUCOLOR Color range of photo printing paper has been developed using our decades of knowledge of making traditional silver halide paper for analogue photo printing. The unique curtain coating technology that we use allows to apply very fine and precise coatings, special surface finishes, and add special features such as scratch and dust resistance while retaining the look and feel of paper. Our locally developed glossy papers are extensively used for medical imaging applications. Our S-RACE range of sublimation paper for textile and hard substrate transfer applications is one of the few in the world that uses a sophisticated microporous coating technology that gives it many benefits over the competition. The use of this paper for textile printing can help save ink, energy, wastage, and time.
Another example is our E-PHOTO paper for high-speed photo album and commercial printing applications like brochures, catalogues, coffee table books, and many more. This paper is water and dust resistant, and the coating is designed to not crack even when folded multiple times. This means that you can have the best of both worlds; the look and feel of a high quality photographic paper, and the durability properties of a plastic film. For all these products, we have worked with brands like HP and Konica Minolta at a global level to develop them from scratch.
Felix Schoeller India Has Given Birth To A Range Of Specialty Papers That Cater To Digital Printing, Photographic, Sublimation, Labelling, And Textile Printing Requirements
Future Roadmap
The India paper industry is poised for significant growth in the upcoming years due to increasing demand across segments from labels for E-commerce applications to writingprinting paper for schoolbooks. Foreign companies also now view India as one of their key markets for the future. Rajan further adds, “We have a long-term vision in terms of growth, and we value stability over short term opportunism. We will continue to introduce new products and brands from our global portfolio into the Indian market. Our current converting facilities are well equipped to handle demand from the local as well export markets but we always have the option to expand this further. In addition, we are exploringopportunities for local manufacture of certain products at the moment, depending on the market scope and requirements. We view the surrounding countries as very important markets and have plans to foray into Bangladesh, Nepal and other nearby regions in the very near future“.
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