Hispack is preparing to grow, offering answers tailored to the needs of suppliers, brands and users of packaging solutions. The triennial trade fair organised by Fira de Barcelona today presented its 2021-2024 Strategic Plan to representatives of companies and entities in the sector. In its next two editions, Hispack will focus on increasing the representativeness of companies and exhibition offers, on being more international, and on contributing to accelerating innovation in packaging, process and logistics.

Hispack plans to have more than a thousand direct exhibitors and a net surface area of 50,000 m² by 2024. At the same time, the leading trade fair in Spain for the packaging industry places emphasis on progressively increasing the profile of direct purchasing decision-makers among the visitors, as well as the presence of leading manufacturing brands in food and other consumer and industrial sectors inside and outside Spain.

Diagnosis and prioritisation of challenges
As a starting point, the Strategic Plan describes Hispack's leadership as its main asset, given that it is one of the key events in the packaging sector in Europe as well as the leading trade fair in its speciality in Spain, which throughout its history has created an emotional bond with all the agents in the sector. In addition, the proximity of the business fabric offering materials, technology and machinery, as well as the R&D of the packaging ecosystem make the fair's value proposition even more solid.

The Strategic Plan consists of three fundamental themes: consolidation of the fair, generation of ecosystem, and internationality. In this regard, Hispack will focus on ensuring sustainable organic growth from its leadership in the market; setting up an inter-sectoral hub that will streamline and provide permanent knowledge to the different agents involved in the supply and demand of packaging; and placing Spanish innovation in packaging on the global map.

Hispack's director, Xavier Pascual, stressed the importance of having a clear and defined action plan: "This roadmap will serve to consolidate a growth that projects, through the fair, the strength, crossover and economic importance of the packaging industry and, above all, that aligns the expectations of the offer with the innovation needs of the market.

In this way, Hispack wants to take an active role in facilitating the incubation and implementation of packaging solutions for different demand sectors. Accordingly, Pascual says: "As a leading trade fair, we want to help the packaging industry to achieve its objectives of sustainable growth and development and help many economic sectors to innovate in processes and products thanks to packaging".

Consolidation and organic growth
In order to expand its exhibition offering and surpass the one thousand exhibitor mark, Hispack is committed to organic growth, focusing on segments with high potential such as labelling, coding and marking machinery; automation and digitalisation; logistics, handling and storage; processing machinery; POS and Premium packaging. The sustainability vector, which is increasingly present in this industry, will also gain prominence. At the same time, the offering will be conceived according to the different demand sectors (food and non-food) and a qualitative leap is sought by attracting more leading companies from sectors such as packaging machinery, packaging and end of line, corrugated cardboard, packaging consumables, raw materials, logistics, POS, closures and labels. As far as visitors are concerned, emphasis is placed on quality by looking for managerial profiles and purchasing decision-makers and the ever-increasing presence of manufacturers and customer brands.

Inter-sectoral Hub
Over the next six years, Hispack will also concentrate its efforts on becoming an intersectoral hub capable of streamlining the packaging ecosystem both from the supplier and user sectors of packaging solutions. To this end, it will set up and organise a permanent, offshored programme of multi-sectoral activities with key players. The proposed contents will respond to the challenges of innovation linked to packaging and its application in segments of both the food and beverage industry as well as other consumer or industrial segments.

Towards a global market
In this new stage that Hispack is beginning, internationality will be the key to the success of the proposed strategy. The Fira de Barcelona fair has set itself the objective of increasing the participation of foreign exhibitors by 18%, which should provide a significant increase in visits from clients from other countries. In its action plan, Hispack will establish alliances with countries invited to the show; it will boost its programme of invited buyers to attract professionals from regions of interest for Spanish exports and it will try to attract R&D content and projects around packaging that are drawing the transformation of the sector.

The president of the Hispack organising committee, Jordi Bernabeu, has shown himself to be convinced that the actions proposed in the Strategic Plan and the themes defined will give the expected results and "will mean a quantum leap in terms of business, exports, knowledge of trends and professional relations that will benefit the entire ecosystem created around the country's packaging". At the conclusion of the presentation of this roadmap, held in Mercabarna, Bernabeu recalled that "Hispack's commitment is to always be on the side of the industry that innovates the industries, that is, on the side of packaging".

In its last edition held in 2018, Hispack recorded a growth of 20%, bringing together 823 exhibitors, 25% of them international, and 1,400 brands represented, and occupied 40,000 m2 net exhibition space. It attracted close to 40,000 visitors, 10% of them from foreign markets, and 37% brand manufacturers from different sectors. In terms of size, Hispack is the second largest event in the portfolio of fairs organised by Fira de Barcelona. Its next edition will take place from 19th to 22th October 2021 at the Gran Via venue.

Barcelona, 29^th April 2019