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Interview - BS Kampani, Toyo Ink

January 05, 2010 | By the IPP Desk

We have been speaking with several ink companies and their top executives in the last couple of months. Some of these conversations have already been published and uploaded on our websites of Indian Printer & Publisher and Packaging South Asia. Here we present some excerpts from our ongoing series and conversation with BS Kampani, President, Managing Director, Toyo Ink India.

BS Kampani, President, Managing Director, Toyo Ink India

IPP: What is your perspective on flexo growth in India? Do you think that wide web flexo will catch on? How do you see the progress of the narrow web label industry? Do you see the digital growth in India in near future?
BS Kampani: Like Japan and other South East Asian countries, India is gravure dominated as the volumes are large. The [digital] prepress and anilox entry in the flexo is still to catch on in a big way. There is a huge scope for flexo in label and wide format, as the country is very large and has bigger medium and smaller jobs / brands to print. As far as digital printing is concerned, there is no stopping its growth in the small run and personalized jobs commercially.

IPP: What is Toyo’s progress among its print-customers on the environment front? Are they ready for green inks? Are they asking for them or do they fear that there is a price issue in going green? How do you see the environment issues for the print and packaging industry from the ink manufacturers and suppliers perspective?
BS Kampani: It’s a mix and match. If 74 per cent of the Indian printers are using single and 2-colour machines, its very difficult to practice and preach environment. However, Toyo worldwide believes in using Japanese and REACH compliant environment friendly raw materials, which we continue to do even today in India.

IPP: Is there something to environment friendly inks beyond the fact that they are made from vegetable oil? Can you not make them dry better and faster so that energy is saved on the infra-red dryers for sheet fed presses and the gas dryers on commercial heat-set webs?
BS Kampani: Drying speed of sheetfed ink / or drying temperature of heatset ink are dependent on the physical properties of ink thickness film. Making ink thickness film performance (not only drying performance but also colour hue, gloss and rub-resistance) is the theme of the ink maker. Key technologies of vegetable oil based ink are pigment, varnish, additives for rub-resistance. The Toyo Ink group world wide has been developing the pigments which have higher strength, the varnish which has good emulsification property and drying. Higher strength pigment makes ink film thickness lower, and then drying performance better. The varnish and wax which give the film better strength also make drying performance better.

IPP: What, if any, are the human resource challenges that the ink industry faces?
BS Kampani: Being a comparatively small, personalized, service oriented industry globally with very few large players, the opportunities of growth for individuals are limited.