Perstorp at K-Fair the world's largest plastic exhibition
The plastic trade fair K 2016 took place in Düsseldorf on October 19-26, and we were there! David Engberg, Product Manager for Akestra™, shares some reflections from the fair.
What is your impression coming back from this huge event?
I’ve heard this was the most visited K-Fair ever. Personally, I’ve never been there before but it was indeed really busy with the entire plastic industry gathered. Approx. 40.000 visitors per day they said.
What did Perstorp have to show at K-Fair?
My main interest for coming to the fair was of course to talk about Akestra™ but Perstorp as a company had much more to show and offer. We had the Pevalen™ OEKO-TEX® certification that we recently received that drew a lot of attention. OEKO-TEX® certification means that Pevalen™ now can be used in consumer clothes and textiles such as raincoats.We also had our amazing winners from the Open Innovation Challenge on site, the Kenyan brothers Kashyap and Chintan Gohel. For the brothers this was a part of their grand prize when winning our competition. They seemed very happy with the experience of being there, not least since they got to participate at the Design Chain conference that was held in conjunction with K-Fair.
You had a lot of discussions regarding Akestra™ what was the outcome of those?
It is clear that there has been an increased interest in Akestra™ after receiving food compliance in Europe. Everyone we spoke to was impressed with the unique properties of Akestra™. Akestra™ clearly fills a need on the market for hot fill, transparent food packaging.
What feedback from visitors did you receive on our other products?
There is a strong trend for sustainability and biodegradable plastics. There was an obvious interest among our visitors for the use of Capa™ for Bioplastics. The challenge before has been to produce high performing and biodegradable plastic bags. With Capa™ for Bioplastics, this is no longer a problem. We have the solution. Since we consume as many plastic items as we do it’s clear that the world would benefit from them being biodegradable.
Jesper Fahlén, Åsa Björklund and David Engberg with Mitsubishi Gas Chmical. Akstra™is launched in cooperation with Mitsubishi Gas Chemical (MGC) and brought to Europe by Perstorp.
Winners of our Open Innovation Challenge - Kashyap and Chintan Gohel.