He is the voice of all companies that manufacture packaging machines. As Managing Director of the VDMA, Richard Clemens has a view of the industry and knows its needs and challenges. Listen to our interview with him during interpack in Düsseldorf.
interpack is a trade fair for machine manufacturers in the packaging and processing industry in particular. After a break of six years, it was a great pleasure to meet up in person again and exchange ideas. A familiar face in Düsseldorf was Richard Clemens, Managing Director of VDMA Food Processing and Packaging Machinery. Jan Malte Andresen spoke to him about the challenges and opportunities facing the industry.
Episode 9: „It's a people's business"
Despite the technical possibilities of staying in touch that we have learnt to appreciate during the pandemic, nothing can replace a personal face-to-face conversation. Richard Clemens agrees. He has a clear answer to the question of whether trade fairs like interpack are still needed:
During the pandemic, contact options were often limited to screens. And at the beginning, some people said, "Oh dear, we have this medium, it replaces everything. After a few months, however, they realised that there is no substitute for personal contact. And we are also talking about products that require a lot of explanation and long consultations.
The industry has faced a number of difficulties and continues to do so: customer visits, service and on-site installations are possible again, but problems in the supply chain and with availability persist in some cases. All of this has cost energy and turnover. Nevertheless, Richard Clemens speaks of a „happy industry“. The difficult times have also shown the importance of the industry and of packaging - it protects products and creates hygiene.
The challenge of the EU packaging regulation
Another major topic is, of course, the upcoming legal changes and regulations by the EU. The Packaging Ordinance (PPWR) was much discussed at interpack and is keeping the industry busy. But there may also be opportunities here:
That must be the case. We have to reduce CO2 emissions. We have to reduce packaging waste. And of course we would like to see a slightly different elaboration of this regulation in the details, but in principle we think this is the right approach. And we must also clearly recognise that such regulatory issues are always drivers of innovation.
packaging people, the podcast from packaging journal and interpack will be published from August onwards once a month. It can be accessed via all known podcast portals, such as Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music, Deezer or Google Podcasts and subscribed to. It is also available on the online pages of packaging journal and interpack.