Hungarian packaging designers are among the best in the world

Nagy Miklós
főtitkár
CSAOSZ

Miklós Nagy, secretary general of the Hungarian Association of Packaging and Materials Handling (CSAOSZ) told our magazine that packaging use had increased a little – but less than the 4-percent Hungarian GDP growth rate – in the previous year, representing a value of HUF 600 billion. 2017 brought the opening of a new packaging solutions factory in Békéscsaba. Several major investment projects have been completed recently, which affected all segments of the packaging industry.

The secretary general added that this year the European Parliament had given green light to the Council’s Circular Economy Package, which modifies several EU directives and contains new ones that influence the work of packaging manufacturers. In 2017 the environmental protection product fee brought a HUF 80-billion revenue for the country’s budget, from which only about one quarter was used to cover the costs of recycling – informed Mr Nagy. Another important change in the sector is that late spring the draft of the EU directive to ban single-use plastics came out. This regulation covers 11 plastic products with a short lifespan, such as drink bottles, plastic bags, balloons, cotton buds, plastic cups, plates, knives and forks, etc. All of this means that interest representing organisations have a lot of work to do, plus companies must read, understand and start complying with the new rules, putting them into practice.

Miklós Nagy also spoke to us about the continued dominance of plastic and paper packaging solutions: the combined share of the two packaging types is two thirds. The remaining one third are aluminium, wood and glass solutions. Product manufacturers want packaging companies to create designs from less raw material and with lower costs, while the packaging solutions must meet a growing number of requirements. In the domain of consumer packaging those designs which guarantee a longer shelf life are likely to prevail.

The Hungaropack Hungarian Packaging Competition celebrated its 50th anniversary last year. Competition winners tend to perform well on the international stage too: last year Hungarian companies passed the magical 100 victory threshold in the WorldStar competition, having finished first 103 times at world level so far. Hungarian packaging makers use good raw materials and the designers are exceptionally creative. What is more, there were quite a few transportation packaging designs competing this year which offer lower packaging and transportation costs, combined with increased efficiency. The secretary general hopes that Hungarian designs will be successful in this year’s international competition too.