The first in a series of interviews with FuturePrint Virtual Summit speakers, we spoke to Francois Martin, Global Marketing Director at Bobst, about the overall impact of COVID-19 on print and packaging, what the post-COVID industry might look like, and how consumer demand will be altered by the pandemic.

Don’t miss Francois’ session, ‘A Vision for the Future of Print & Packaging Production’,  on June 2nd.

Cherck out the full schedule here.

What kind of impact is COVID-19 having on the packaging sector? 

Packaging is linked to consumption, and overall consumption has declined. Food and pharma remain healthy sectors but other sectors like beauty, luxury goods, electronic equipment declined by around 15%. The e-commerce increase does not compensate for the decline in traditional retail. If you look at the automotive and the aerospace sectors – they both used a lot of packages and they have been stopped, and the impact is serious and some will not recover soon.

What kind of long-lasting impact on the sector will it likely have?

The main drivers to emerge from the crisis will be centred on more agility and more sustainability. The entire industry was facing these challenges before the crisis and now they are accelerated. The packaging industry has tremendous opportunities ahead.  The industry has well-established processes but this industry is not digitalized, connected and not so automated. The future of packaging production will be based on 4 key pillars: connecting machines, digitalizing processes and workflows, automating production steps to reduce human interventions and errors, and more sustainability.

How have you responded to the crisis?

The crisis is more than a sanitary crisis.  We have of course deployed all the safety measures required across all countries where we operate. The crisis is impacting our beliefs and it will require many of us, privately and professionally, to rethink some of the values we have been dealing with. We saw major shifts in the past – moving from the middle age to the renaissance and then to the modern times, and then to post-wartime. We are at the edge of a new era that could be called post-COVID.  Today this is too early to say but the one who will do the best will combine economic and humanistic performance.

At Bobst, we are taking this crisis as an opportunity to launch a new vision for packaging production. From the PDF to the final product across. From a mechanical to a digital world, from manufacturing machines to application-centric process solutions along the entire workflow. As you may know, I spent many years at HP and even met Bill Hewlett at the end of the 70s, and he said: the biggest competitive advantage is to do the right thing at the worst time.

Which sectors within the industry do you believe have been most strongly impacted by COVID-19 and why?

If we talk about the packaging industry, the overall impact is moderate – mainly the goods used within airlines and hotels. If we talk about the entire graphic industry, the large format business is dramatically impacted – exhibitions, tradeshows, conventions consuming a lot of large format production are simply shut down.  2020 will be a very bad year for the large format converters.  Some are looking at mask production as an alternative but soon we will have too much offering. Machines and substrates vendors will also face a major showdown and potential consolidations of players.

Commercial printing is also dramatically impacted – the sector was already under pressure not this is breaking – we saw the recent Heidelberg announcements and I personally others announcements to come.

What consumer trends do you think will grow as a result of the crisis?

Consumers will want more safety and more traceability of the goods. They will look more carefully at the impact of their consumption. When you talk about consumers you in reality talk about brand owners. They all made a major commitment to reduce plastic usage by 2025 – to achieve it, they will push for alternatives. They invest millions to find new solutions. Carton is one way to go but for many goods plastic can’t be replaced easily. Plastic is now starting to be reinvented with mono-material plastics with higher recyclability.

Register for the FuturePrint Virtual Summit here.