Organized every other year, the Paris All4Pack show gathers the global packaging industry in major business areas, including Beauty. It covers all trades in this sector and offers visitors an opportunity to discover solutions in multiple disciplines. “Our decision to organize the show on a more transversal basis, taking into account the whole packaging chain, actually proved much relevant. It provides an answer to a prevailing trend for exhibitors, who increasingly develop their businesses upstream or downstream their initial offering. On the other hand, it meets visitors’ needs,” explains Véronique Sestrières, the show’s Director.
The 2018 event is designed as a reflection of the sector through various highlights.
Adapting to the sector’s changes
To put the event in relation to the most recent developments in the packaging sector and best convey user expectations through its content, for several years, All4Pack has gathered a committee of twelve experts, all professionals from major global groups in different business areas, including Beauty, with Philippe Bonningue, Global Director of Sustainable Packaging & Development of L’Oréal, and Guillaume Lebert, R&D Director of Sustainable Development Europe of P&G.
Speeding up business
This year, All4Pack will reinforce the matchmaking activity launched in 2016 to refine a proposal adapted to prime manufacturer expectations. Visitors will submit their requests on a dedicated platform, and then exhibitors will answer based on their expertise. “The business meetings we organized last year got 80% positive feedback, so we decided to go farther,” explains the Director. This year, in the same vein, the Top Buyers Club will offer VIP service and treatment for broad projects identified beforehand.
In addition, among the 1,300 exhibitors, visitors will discover about 15 start-ups in a new dedicated area: Startups Lab. “We wished to put transversal solutions and services into a new, laid-back perspective,” adds Véronique Sestrières.
Creativity, innovation and inspiration
The new Creative Lounge area has the “best of the best” in store, with a selection of original new launches spotted by Creapills, the medium of creative ideas and marketing innovation and partner of the event, but also a dozen of innovations showcased by the exhibitors, a selection of products illustrated by SIAL Innovation in the food industry, as well as the winners of different international packaging competitions.
The “Pack the Future - The Sustainable Plastic Packaging Award” will be presented as plastic packaging is largely being questioned in all areas. This competition highlights the sector’s manufacturers for their innovative and sustainable packaging solutions.
The Expert Committee will also attribute the Innovation Awards to the show’s most innovative solutions.
Lastly, environmental issues are among the major themes of the All4Pack Live conference agenda, which will also cover broader subjects in packaging and intralogistics (recycling, additive manufacturing, cybersecurity, serialization…)
The future into perspective
Ultimately, as a means to exemplify the sector, All4Pack will provide a prospective vision of packaging with the results of a study entitled “Packaging ready for its revolution”. Conducted in partnership with EPDA, the European Brand & Packaging Association, the study of 23 global designers and 8,000 European consumers was focused on several major challenges that will drive packaging into reinventing itself.
These challenges include population ageing: 42% of European consumers think the packaging legibility is not adequate, and 47% believe improvements in the opening and sealing of packaging is an issue to be taken into account. Another challenge lies in natural resource depletion, about which most respondents are in favour of a ban on non-recyclable packaging (40%) and overpackaging (47%), and on the implementation of financial rewards for returning used packaging. Thirdly, 34% of the people surveyed view the development of artificial intelligence as a source of economic advantages, in particular that of limiting waste by warning consumers about expiry dates.
These clear expectations emphasize the importance of the perfect functionality of packaging and its ability to cleanly disappear after use.
“Within this context of expected changes, All4Pack is an excellent indicator of today’s and tomorrow’s expectations and solutions,” concludes Véronique Sestrières.
