ALOK’s UvNox additive makes mulch films 40% cheaper

ALOK Masterbatches, India’s leading masterbatch producer, was conferred the coveted ‘Golden Peacock Eco-Innovation Award’ for UVNox Mulch. UVNox Mulch is an indigenously developed additive solution that has made a proven contribution to India’s agriculture economy by increasing the efficiency of agricultural practices by farmers using mulch films.

UvNox Mulch was developed at the state-of-the-art ALOK Technology Incubation Centre (ATIC), which is an innovation center and platform for co-creating solutions with customers for future needs of the industry. Due to its material durability, pesticide- and agrochemical-resistant properties, UvNox Mulch films are significantly more long-lasting in the field, in comparison with conventional mulch films.

According to the government’s Department of Agriculture Cooperation & Farmers Welfare, the use of plastic mulch films can save water usage up to 40-60% and reduce dependency on fertilizers by up to 20-25%. Aligned to the government’s flagship ‘Make in India’ and ‘Doubling Farmer’s Income by 2022’ initiatives, ALOK Masterbatches worked towards developing affordable and sustainable alternatives for the Indian mulch film industry, which was struggling to make durable and low-cost products for Indian farmers.

Speaking about the award, Vikram Bhadauria, managing director, ALOK said, “As we celebrate our 25-year journey this year, we are elated to receive this honor from the Institute of Directors. This award not only reaffirms our innovation excellence in the industry but also motivates us to further collaborate with our customers to make plastics safer, affordable and sustainable.”

The IoD Golden Peacock Award was instituted to recognize and celebrate visionary enterprises across industry segments and are regarded as a benchmark of Corporate Excellence worldwide. The process for determining the top awards and the list of top innovative companies involves a transparent and 3-tier evaluation process, based on internationally recognized criteria. ALOK was selected from over 350+ applications that were submitted this year.

Delhi-headquartered ALOK Masterbatches is India’s leading masterbatch producer, co-creating innovative, reliable and high-quality solutions for the plastics industry. It offers one of the largest additive masterbatch portfolios in the country, with more than 5000 MBs – including calcium carbonate, filler and color masterbatches.

With over 380 employees, a robust distribution network and world-class manufacturing plants, ALOK caters to both the domestic market as well as 30 export markets across the world. With six strategically positioned manufacturing facilities spread across the country, it has an installed capacity of 130,000 MT. The company has a JV in Paraguay – ‘Carmenta’ – providing solutions for construction, agriculture, packaging and other industrial solutions.

The Covid-19 pandemic led to the country-wide lockdown on 25 March 2020. It will be two years tomorrow as I write this. What have we learned in this time? Maybe the meaning of resilience since small companies like us have had to rely on our resources and the forbearance of our employees as we have struggled to produce our trade platforms.

The print and packaging industries have been fortunate, although the commercial printing industry is still to recover. We have learned more about the digital transformation that affects commercial printing and packaging. Ultimately digital will help print grow in a country where we are still far behind in our paper and print consumption and where digital is a leapfrog technology that will only increase the demand for print in the foreseeable future.

Web analytics show that we now have readership in North America and Europe amongst the 90 countries where our five platforms reach. Our traffic which more than doubled in 2020, has at times gone up by another 50% in 2021. And advertising which had fallen to pieces in 2020 and 2021, has started its return since January 2022.

As the economy approaches real growth with unevenness and shortages a given, we are looking forward to the PrintPack India exhibition in Greater Noida. We are again appointed to produce the Show Daily on all five days of the show from 26 to 30 May 2022.

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