Jaiwant Bery, Promoter of Barflex Polyfilms, shares insights on the company’s innovative strategies, growth trajectory, and future-ready packaging solutions. Explore their role in shaping the flexible packaging landscape in India and beyond.
Tune in to the entire conversation below:
Stacy Pereira Coutinho: From edible oils to grains, the packaging for your daily household products is done by this company, Barflex Polyfilms, whose IPO is coming soon. I have with me Jaiwant Bery
Promoter at Barflex Polyfilms, the promoter of the company. Thank you so much for joining us.
We’re speaking to you around the 20th year of establishment. Tell us a bit about how the last two decades have shaped up for you and from when you began till today.
Jaiwant Bery: Yeah, I’ll in fact go a little further back.
Basically, I did my MBA in 1983 from IIM Bangalore, and then I worked in the UK for two years in marketing of basically hand tools. And then when I came back to India in 1987, we decided to a family business, we decided to get into flexible packaging. And at that time we invested in the five layer blown film technology, which was a pioneering effort in India.
And we developed the concept of packing cooking oil, edible oil in pouches. Until then, the edible oil was packed in tins and bottles, which was the more expensive mode of packaging edible oil. And this was the first in the world.
And we did it with a joint effort with Dalda, which was the leading brand of edible oil in India at that time. And then, so that company was Hitkari, which was our family company, which was my in-laws. And I ran that company from 1987 to 2005.
In 2005, there was a division in the family business. So I moved out and in 2005, I set up Barflex Polyfilms. And since me and the key people in Hitkari had moved out, then the Hitkari packaging business more or less closed down a year and a half later in 2007.
And when we were in Hitkari, we were basically manufacturing co-extruded films, which was targeted at liquid packaging, mainly edible oil and milk. And in India, in flexible packaging, the liquids constitute maybe about 25-30 percent of the total market, 70-75 percent plus are actually packaging of dry products. So when I started Barflex Polyfilms in 2005, we decided that we should also focus on the bigger potential area in flexible packaging.
So we set up the new factory in Bhaddi, Himachal Pradesh to manufacture co-extruded films, a business which we already knew and understood. Then we added on laminates, a lot of the products you can see behind me at the moment. And we also started manufacturing PVC shrink labels, which was catering to the beverage industry.
This is basically a product which is used as an alternate label to paper labels for bottles and jars. So our objective was that we should be able, we should be a company which offers the complete portfolio to consumers in India for flexible packaging, which would be co-exfilms, laminates and PVC shrink labels. So that has been the experience so far.
From 2005, we started with this. Then we did some expansion in 2010-11. And now in 2024, rather 2025, we are going in for a sizable expansion.
Our current capacity is 500 tons per month. And we are looking to add on an additional 1300 tons per month, which should be operational by quarter one of 2005, 2025-26.
Stacy Pereira Coutinho: So from Hitkari to bringing up Barflex from the very beginning, how has this journey been for you personally and the challenges that you faced?
Jaiwant Bery: Well, the challenges were that when I left the Hitkari venture and had to set up this company, I had very limited resources available with me.
And within those limited resources, I had to generate a sizable capacity. And target was more than what we were doing in Hitkari. Fortunately for me, you know, the production, the production head, Mr. Pandey, he was associated with me, working with me as a team from 1988 onwards.
And he, along with his key production people, also decided to move and join me rather than stay on in Hitkari. So that was an immense help in being able to set up and commercialize our business in Barflex very quickly. What happened was that at that time, most people in India were buying equipment, packaging equipment from Europe.
And since I had limited constraints available, I decided to survey the Chinese market because, you know, I believe that China is basically catering to a global market on a much larger scale than India. So I visited China and I found that their equipments were almost 20 to 25 percent the price of European equipments. And they were catering to a much larger global market, more quality conscious market like the US, Europe, Australia and Japan.
And surprisingly, none of them were using any European made equipment. All the equipment was Chinese made. So we decided to take that route.
And in 2005, we were the first company in India to import. Printing machines from China, and that’s that enabled me to able to set up a much higher capacity with the limited resources available at that time and able to offer many more products than would have been possible had we taken the normal route of using Chinese machines. So basically, we started from there and we were able to regain a lot of the business, rather almost all the business which we had in NITKARI, because of my personal relationships with the key accounts.
Since and we kept it as a very tight company, managed company with a minimum amount of overheads and were able to achieve about 100 percent capacity utilization within the first 12 months of going commercial.
Stacy Pereira Coutinho: One could consider your company as a proxy to how the FMCG pharmaceutical cosmetics and such other sectors are doing in India. So let us understand from you, how is it actually doing? What is your view of the industry?
Jaiwant Bery: Well, the FMCG sector is all growing. I don’t have the specific data on how, let’s say, the commodities business is doing, the processed food, the confectionery industry is doing. But I would say our industry, which is catering to this wide spectrum of end users, our industry is growing at probably 20, 25 percent CAGR every year. It’s I mean, there is the precise data is not available, but we all believe it is growing at that pace.
And going forward, there can be an immense potential also for exports. The reason being is that India is potentially the lowest cost producer of flexible packaging in the world. And our competition would be basically China.
And like in Europe, for example, in Europe and the US, the GP margins in producing flexible packaging would be 50 percent upwards, whereas in India, the norm would be about 30 percent, even down to 25 percent. So there is an immense potential to export from here. And the advantage we could have over the Chinese competitors would be is our proximity to the European markets and our ability to communicate with them more fluently in English and understand their way of working, where we believe the Chinese do have some limitations.
They, of course, operate on a much larger scale and they do sizable exports already. But I think in the years going forward, India has a chance to Indian exporters would have a chance to grow the business. And there are a number of people in India who are already doing sizable exports at the moment to the African countries, Middle East and to the European and to the American and Canadian markets.
So it is I mean, although the Indian market will grow at about 25 percent plus, as we expect, but going forward, there would be a market for there would be an opportunity for exports to at least Europe and parts of the US and Canada.
Stacy Pereira Coutinho: You are also catering to a wide range of industries. Where is it that you see the most potential and how has e-commerce furthered your business for you?
Jaiwant Bery: E-commerce has definitely expanded the market considerably because earlier flexible packaging was being used as a primary form of packaging for packing the food product, the FMCG product.
Now, with e-commerce coming, there is a demand which is almost doubled, which is whatever is sold through the e-commerce platform, because now there is an outer packaging also. So, I mean, if if suppose earlier one kg of plastic was being consumed to package atta, now you need almost two kg because there is an outer pack also. So the demand has gone up dramatically.
There is there is at the moment we don’t do any business in e-commerce. We will target this business from post expansion from March 25 onwards. Now, the e-commerce market, when it started, the business started is only using plastic packaging.
Then due to environmental considerations, some companies have thought of doing paper packaging, for instance, like Amazon. Quite a bit of the business has shifted to paper. So there are some suppliers who supply polyethylene based packaging and some supply paper based packaging to the e-commerce industry.
In our IPO expansion plan, we plan to offer both the products. For instance, we already manufacture the polyethylene films on our three year blown film plants. We have the printing technology and we have now ordered the bag making machines.
So we will be able to give a finished plastic product by March 25. And simultaneously, we are also investing in the paper bag making machines. And it is our belief that we don’t want to position ourselves as a PE bag supplier or as a paper bag supplier.
We are going to position ourselves as a supplier to the e-commerce industry. We will offer both the PE bags as well as the paper bags and let the customer decide. I mean, like, for instance, today, Amazon and other such companies like Flipkart, they have both the paper option as well as the polyethylene option for various considerations best known to them.
So we would like to offer both the products and let the customer decide what’s best for them and thereby hopefully get maximum wallet share of such business from such clients.
Stacy Pereira Coutinho: You’ve also maintained excellent relations with Hitkari and that has been great even for Barflex. But there is, of course, competition in this whole business. Tell us also about how you’ve gone on to acquire new customers.
Jaiwant Bery: Yeah, so what we do is, you see, our industry is extremely competitive and there are lots of suppliers. It’s my belief that to have a hold in this industry and to maintain it, you must primarily focus on quality and delivery on time.
That is what most people want. Whatever flexible packaging products we or our competitors supply, we normally constitute only one to two percent of the customer’s final product cost. Now, price is always an issue in the Indian market.
It’s a very price sensitive market. But according to me, quality and on time delivery is far more important because if there is a price differential delta of maybe three to five percent on a total cost input of one or two percent, it’s quite meaningless. I mean, the customer will always put pressure on price.
But eventually, quality and on time delivery is most important. We have so far focused more on the tier two clients who have smaller requirements per SKU because we feel we get a better margin from such clients and the client retention is almost 100 percent. In fact, our client retention success rate over the past 20 years is well above 95 percent.
We would very rarely lose a client after having acquired one. Now to acquire new clients, the strategy we adopt is basically we believe in being positioning ourselves as industry specific packaging suppliers. For instance, we cater to the dairy industry.
Now in the dairy industry, we offer a product range which we believe is. The biggest any flexible packaging company would offer, for example, we offer a three layer wax film for packaging pasteurized milk. Which has a limited shelf life of three to five days, then we will by March offer a seven layer high barrier film which is used for packaging of UHT milk.
Now the market is going to migrate. I mean, globally, most of the market is only UHT milk. In India, due to price considerations, it is pasteurized milk.
But with more disposable income being available with consumers in India, they are shifting their preferences towards UHT milk. And for UHT milk, you require a shelf life of three to six months. So you can either use a tetra pack or you can use a seven layer pouch.
A tetra pack would cost about six rupees a litre. A UHT seven layer pouch would cost about a rupee a litre. So eventually the winner would be the seven layer pouch.
So we supply them the three layer film for pasteurized milk, seven layer for the UHT milk. Then we supply them the five layer film for packaging of dairy fats, which is ghee. Then we make vacuum pouches, which is supplied for paneer and cheese.
We supply PVC shrink labels, which is used for flavored milks. And we do laminates, which is supplied for dairy whiteners and milk powder. So as a company, we have a complete portfolio catering to the entire requirements which a potential dairy industry would ever have.
So what we do normally is we generally would not participate in a packaging exhibition. Instead, we go to the customer oriented exhibitions. So we would participate, I mean, exhibit our products at a dairy exhibition or at a grain exhibition or at an edible oil exhibition, because we find that almost everybody who attends these conferences or these exhibitions are our potential clients.
And that gives us an avenue to project ourselves as a supplier of a complete range of products which they may require. And hopefully, since we get to see one vendor supplying a complete range, they would look to buy from us. And then over the time, we would increase our wallet share with them.
So that is basically how we go about acquiring new clients. So basically like customization. Our industry is 100 percent customization.
There is there is I would say only maybe two or three percent of the total sales in our industry is off the shelf product, which basically caters to very small consumers, very small processors, you know, who cannot afford to pay for customized printing of a brand. So I mean, just someone, you know, who’s packing some confectionery product or organic product and requires very, very small quantities with a no fixed time span. So they buy off the shelf, unprinted pouches.
So that is a very, very limited market. Basically, our entire market is customized.
Stacy Pereira Coutinho: I see exports are a very small portion of your revenue right now. Just about two percent. Any plans of increasing that? And also I see a difference in the margin between your domestic and export sales. Can you elaborate a little bit on that?
Jaiwant Bery: Yes.S o the export market presently, basically we are exporting vacuum bags for packaging of processed cashew. These are bulk bags and, you know, 25 pound and 50 pound capacity. And this is the reason we are exporting.
This is because of our lower cost of production as compared to a European manufacturer. Now, going forward for us to expand the export market, I feel that the laminates which are currently or the shrink labels are being exported from India are mainly going to markets in Africa and Middle East and which are also price sensitive markets. To earn higher margins, one will have to target the European and American markets.
So over there, I feel one has to have a local presence there because there’s a lot of interaction in those markets are far more sophisticated. Their requirements are more complex. So we will have to have a local presence there, which we currently don’t have.
But yes, in the forthcoming year, we should look to have some kind of representation, local representation there to cater to their requirements. And also to really make good profits, you have to have a deeper understanding of the packaging machines and the packaging processes. For instance, in the end use of a seven layer film is for controlled atmosphere packaging, which in Europe or the US markets would be used for packaging processed meat products like bacon, sausages or dairy products like cheese.
Now, just supplying packaging material is not enough. You have to have a deep understanding of the packaging machines and the packaging process itself, because the final shelf life and the stability of the product will depend on all three factors, the packaging material, the machines and the packaging process itself. So I feel we still need some time to get a complete grip on this, to have a full understanding of this process.
And hopefully over the next year or two, we could explore those market opportunities. But until then, I think to grow exports, we will have to focus on the African and Middle East markets and countries like Sri Lanka, which has a ready market for our products.
Stacy Pereira Coutinho: Of course, right now your focus is on capacity expansion, which you mentioned earlier as well.You have a production capacity of close to 6000 metric tons per annum. Smaller, you would say, compared to the bigger ones out there. Your IPO funds will, I presume, be used for this kind of expansion. What sort of capacity are you looking to add on and any timelines that you could share?
Jaiwant Bery: So basically, we are going to up the capacity, current capacity, from 500 tons per month to 1800 tons per month. What we are adding on is basically from, we right now have capacities in three layer and five layer co-extrusion, barrier co-extrusion. So we will be adding on a seven layer barrier co-extrusion film, which will target at the newer specifications by the edible oil industry and UHT milk and vacuum packaging, potentially also for export markets.
Then we will be adding on extrusion laminates, which we don’t have the machine right now. That basically caters to the snack food market and the confectionery market. We will be adding on a complete line of what we call WPP laminated bags.
This caters to the cereals market, the cement, agrochemicals. Now, the reason for doing this is that we already have a presence in the cereal markets where we supply laminated pouches for packaging of cereals like pulses, atta and rice. Currently, we are supplying these packs in the range of 500 grams to 10 kgs, 500 grams, 1 kg, 5 kg, 10 kg.
Now, most of these processors, only about 25% of their packaging is in the smaller consumer packs. 75% or more is in the bulk packs, which is 25 and 50 kg packs. So this WPP bag, which we plan to make laminated bag, is targeted at the bulk packaging of 25 and 50 kg.
Even cement is 25 kg, pesticides, fertilizers. They are all in the 25 and 50 kg category. So these, having got inroads into the cereal market, we have got consumers, customers there, we feel that we will offer them this additional product, which is their much bigger consumption item.
So that is the rationale of investing in that segment. And lastly, we will be adding on the business of e-commerce bags, which will be both in polyethylene and a little later in paper. Most of the machines have already been ordered.
They will be arriving at our factories in February and March, and we should be in commercial production in quarter one, twenty five, twenty six.
Stacy Pereira Coutinho: You source all your raw materials from a single vendor. How do you hedge yourself from potential disruptions in the business of that vendor?
Jaiwant Bery: Yeah, so we actually don’t, we don’t actually source our raw materials from one vendor.
I’ll just break it up. The major raw material we use is something called metalicin, which is a speciality polyethylene. Now, this is, we source it from three vendors.
One is Dow Chemicals and one is Exxon Chemicals. And there is an Indian manufacturer, which is Gail Gas Authority of India. So we have three vendors for that.
The other major raw material we use is LDPE and LLDPE, which is we mostly buy from Reliance because of their consistency in quality and availability, but also we buy imported material or material from other manufacturers in India like IOL and Haldia. So this being a commodity plastics, we basically will buy wherever we get a better discounted price. So we are not really dependent on one single vendor like Reliance.
The polyester films, the other major item we use are polyester films, which there are, I mean, though we mostly buy from a company in Noida, Duflex, because of its proximity to our factory, but there is an option to buy from almost 10 to 15 other manufacturers in India. So we just buy it as a matter of convenience. But otherwise, there are 10 other manufacturers in India making polyester film and all have the same price.
So there is no price differential. It’s just a matter of convenience that we buy from the vendor who is located close to us. Printing inks also, there are several vendors, but basically we buy from two because of their superior quality.
So as such, we are not really dependent on any single source. But we have found that in our industry, although we are basically a part of a petrochemical industry, in the past few years, the prices have really not been determined so much by movement in crude prices. It’s been more affected by the demand and supply situation.
For instance, ever since COVID broke in 2019 onwards, there has been a slowdown in the European and American markets and more recently in the Chinese markets. So since there has been a global decline for plastic raw materials and simultaneously in this period, Indian manufacturing of plastics in India, the capacities have actually expanded. The overall prices of plastic raw materials have softened.
And we see that this trend is going to continue for at least for a few years yet. So we don’t see any significant price pressure on our raw materials. And availability is going to be good even in years to come.
I mean, today I think India is probably one of the fastest growing markets for consumption of plastics. Although, I mean, China is the biggest, but growth wise, India is one of the fastest growing ones. And there is enough material available and prices are also favorable now and going forward in the medium term.
Stacy Pereira Coutinho: Sustainability is a big keyword in the packaging industry. Any products that cater to this particular factor or that you’ve developed or are developing to cater to this?
Jaiwant Bery: So in sustainability, basically, I would say there are two aspects to it. You know, there’s been there’s been talk of, you know, controlling the amount of single use plastics, which is actually wrong, because in India today we have the best recycling industry in the whole world.
And almost everything in flexible packaging is recyclable. There is practically nothing which cannot be recycled. In fact, pet bottles today, 95 percent of pet bottles in India are recycled, which is the highest recycling rate in the world.
So I think there the government and the public focus has to be more on disposability, because if people are able to dispose the plastics correctly, then almost all of it can be recycled. So that is one aspect of it. The second aspect of it is that, OK, the market may not change and people will continue to litter the spaces and throw plastics all over the place.
So what next can we do? So we are working on options which are easily more disposable or eventually biodegradable. So as a first step, we have developed a poly poly laminate. Basically, most of the laminates currently in the market are polyester and polyethylene based laminates, polyester and polyethylene being two different plastic families.
It is perceived as not being very recyclable. So in today’s context, it is recyclable. So we have worked on laminates which are based on polyethylene and polyethylene.
Basically, from the same family of plastics, we currently supply this to Godrej and they pack their mattresses in this. And going forward, once we have more capacity, we will be working on more such laminates. There is this polyethylene, polyethylene laminate.
Then there is a product called an MPPE, which is a oriented polyethylene, which has a high gloss like polyester. So that’s next post expansion. That is the next product we will develop.
And we are also we have initiated dialogue with a UK company called Evopack, which has developed a hybrid. It’s not really a plastic. It’s it’s more sort of organic product, which is to replace plastics.
And this is completely degradable, which if left, I mean, if someone disposes the pack in a span of a year or so, six months or a year, it will completely degrade. So it’s very much in the initial stages. And we are going to shortly initiate trials in India with their product.
And if that goes well, then we will in future import, initially import the product, print and supply it and then initiate dialogues with them, whether we can manufacture the. The hybrid plastic, I would call it in India itself. So but it’s very much in the initial stages.
In the meantime, we are focusing on the options of poly poly laminates to replace the other plastic laminates now. As such, there is nothing which will degrade immediately. I mean, even biodegradable films will take a year plus to disintegrate completely, or there are products like water soluble films, which are which can be used for carry bags or garbage bags.
Now, these are very expensive options. So they have been basically adopted in some European countries and in Japan where the consumers have a much higher disposable income and far more consciousness about the environment. India, unfortunately.
We are still not so conscious of the environment and the disposable incomes are limited compared to the Japanese and the European market, so it will take time for such products. These products are available and we can manufacture them, but for them to be commercialized will take time because I mean, the consumers have to be willing to pay the extra amount for using these products which are biodegradable and they are available. These are basically they are basically plastic replacements made from cornstarch.
Stacy Pereira Coutinho: Could you also tell us about the key people helping you execute your vision within the management team and what role do they play in helping you achieve the company’s goals?
Jaiwant Bery: Yeah, so basically as I mentioned earlier, my factory head and now director of the company is Mr. Pandey. He’s been associated with us since 1988 and when we moved on from Ipkari and started Barflex in 2005, he immediately joined me and since then we’ve been having an association for 36 years. And his key production team also moved along with him.
Now in our business, the most important thing is production of a quality product and on-time delivery. So I would say in our industry, the most important key element in the management has to be the production people. So fortunately, I have got this team which I’ve been associated with between 20 to 37 years and they are managing everything on a remote control basis.
And the other aspect is the marketing. Now marketing, most of the clients have been our historic clients. Like I mentioned, we hardly have any, we have almost 95 plus percent customer attention.
So most of the clients are serviced by me or by Mr. Pandey who manages the show from the factory. I’m based at the head office in Delhi. And then we have sales executives working with us who do the follow-up and servicing of the clients on a day-to-day basis.
But most of the relationships have been developed by me and Mr. Pandey and production is managed by his team who has been with us since a long time. But going forward, as we are going to go in for a 3x expansion of our business, we will be inducting at appropriate time, more marketing people, mid-level marketing people who will then independently handle these accounts. Because, I mean, you will not be able to, on my own, manage so many multiple accounts.
So we will expand on that, but at an appropriate time, not till the capacity has expanded.