An ever-growing number of Australian companies have identified ProPak Asia as the number one exhibition to showcase their products into the ASEAN Region and 2019 will be no exception.

This year will see 17 Australian companies exhibiting at ProPak Asia, which is the largest contingent to date.

The Australian companies are exhibiting across multiple zones within the show, with the majority located in the Australian Pavilion in the Packaging Zone.

Companies in the Australian Pavilion include first-time exhibitors Australis Engineering, Lifecycles and Lantech Australasia and returning companies such as Rhima Australia, Profile Solutions, the Australian Institute of Packaging (AIP), INOX Australia, Lifecycles, HMPS, Fibre King and APPMA.

Additional Australian Companies located outside of the pavilion include Gold Peg, Moisttech/Maselli Asia Pacific, Metz Australia, Heat & Control and tna.

First-Time Exhibitors: Australis Engineering, Lifecycles and Lantech Asia Pacific

According to Mr Anthony Gustafson, Engineering Director, Australis Engineering, “Following our visit to the 2018 ProPak Asia exhibition, Australis Engineering realised the potential to exhibit our own equipment in 2019. 2019 will mark the first-ever international trade show for our company. Following our scoping study in 2018, we were impressed with the scale and professionalism of ProPak Asia and the strong focus on the food industry,” he said.

“Our decision to exhibit this year was also made easier by our new product development process which has resulted in the recent release of our Hygenius™ washdown conveyor for raw foods such as meat, poultry, seafood, dairy, fruit and vegetables,”

“Hygenius will be a perfect introduction for Australis Engineering into the burgeoning Asian food machinery market and created the ideal entry point for us to exhibit at ProPak Asia in 2019,” Mr Gustafson said.

Hygenius is a step-change in the way conveyors are designed and manufactured for the fresh food market. As members of the European Hygienic Engineering Design Group (EHEDG), Australis have taken the principles of certified, hygienic design and applied them to a food handling conveyor.

Hygenius has been designed to minimise cracks and crevices where food or other product can accumulate and create bacterial growth which risks food safety. By removing material from the conveyor, we have produced a conveyor which is very fast and easy to clean.

One of the most impressive design outcomes of Hygenius is how quickly it can be disassembled and reassembled. Unlike other conveyors that can take up to 40 minutes to prepare for cleaning, the toolless design of Hygenius allows it to be disassembled and reassembled in less than 2 minutes and by people of any skill level.

Lantech Asia Pacific

Mr David Fullerton, Sales Director, Lantech Asia Pacific added that "Our mission is to dramatically reduce the billions of dollars of damage that happens in transit – making sure products get from the factory floor to the retailer’s door in pristine condition.

Lantech are committed to making effective stretch wrapping easy. We do that with our machines, of course, but we also offer our customers extensive knowledge from our years of experience and more than 70,000 successful application installations."

Based on observations of loading dock operations, and examination of many loads - both those that arrived intact and those that failed -Lantech have developed criteria to define an effectively wrapped pallet load.

A safe-to-ship load must be:

• Wrapped with enough containment force everywhere on the load
• Locked to the pallet with a film cable
• Have no long or dragging film tails

“Our same principles of simple automation apply when we design our case erecting, tray erecting, case sealing and lidding machines. Our outstanding design features include Ergonomic blank infeed magazine that is power driven, not gravity fed. Cases are precisely formed and held in position while the flaps are folding.

This makes a square case. Easy and fast tape changing, and blank size changeover and you will find a wealth of resources on our stand in the Australian Pavilion at Propak Thailand 2019,” Mr Fullerton said.

Lifecycles to undertake real-time sustainability assessments on the stand

According to Mr Tim Grant, Director of Lifecycles, ‘2019 will be the first time they have exhibited at ProPak Asia and the team will be demonstrating the PIQET packaging software that is suitable for anyone designing packaging in the ASEAN region.’

The PIQET live demonstrations will also undertake real-time sustainability assessments on any consumer packaging solutions which are brought to the stand. The demonstrations will show visitors the indicative environmental profile of their package and how it compares to alternative packaging. The results will provide a better understanding of what PIQET can do and highlight their packaging’s environmental hotspots.

“PIQET has a global scope and includes data for 6 Asian regions as well as Europe, the Americas and Oceania. With increased focus on packaging sustainability we see a growth in the use of sustainable design tools across the region. As the PIQET live demonstrations will also undertake real-time sustainability assessments on packaging solutions, we welcome everyone to bring their packaging to the stand for review,” Mr Grant said.

“We are really excited to showcase our PIQET packaging software to the ASEAN region as our solution includes the ability to assess impacts of the full packaging supply chain, including all levels of packaging and the logistical impacts from the product supply chain.

PIQET also assesses the impacts of product waste including the manufacturing and disposal of damaged or spoiled products in the supply chain. Lifecycles will also be demonstrating new aspects of the tool including product environmental modelling and organisational reporting.”

Lifecycles consults in packaging and product sustainability in Australia, Asia and Europe and provides customised software solutions and training in the packaging and agri-foods sectors.