Dear readers!

Good cop, bad cop – let’s play the neverending game! At first, there was good news recently on the event side: the organizers of interpack reported 143,000 visitors and are extremely satisfied with the event in retrospective, as are the more than 1,500 exhibitors, since a large part of the international audience had already turned up with concrete investment intentions. “Great atmosphere, full stands, good business” - the overall conclusions of the participants sounded like this. The feedback from events such as the EMPACK in Hamburg or the LogiMAT in Stuttgart is similar, where it was even said that “all expectations were exceeded”.

On the other hand, though, there are serious faces on the back of the medal. In its current industry report, the German Printing and Media Association (bvdm) speaks of a “difficult situation for companies in the printing and media industry” and highlights, among other things, the increased energy and raw material prices, the effects of supply bottlenecks for printing paper, the possible increase in insolvencies in the coming years, the development of the order situation and, last but not least, the current inflation development. And the German Plastics Packaging Industry Association (IK) also speaks of a bad mood and weak demand (here with falling raw material prices) – circumstances which already led to production slowdowns and short-time work. So the situation remains mixed.

Have a great read & stay safe!

Your