Discover 3 Days of Expert-Led Packaging Seminars

Hear from leading packaging and industry experts and gain practical insights into the trends, technologies and challenges shaping packaging in South Africa.

Explore free-to-attend seminars covering sustainability, EPR, recycling and the circular economy, packaging innovation, automation, AI, food packaging, labelling and more, designed to help you improve efficiency, make informed decisions and prepare for the future of packaging

Your Day-by-Day Seminar Schedule

Day 1 | Tuesday 27 OCT | New Products & Innovation

Improve efficiency, reduce waste and protect margins.

 

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  1. Key trends shown by entries in this year’s Gold Pack Awards and Student Gold Pack Awards that may reveal evolving standards, innovations and thinking and of current and future packaging designers
  2. Exploring the disconnect and between sustainability and recyclability and the challenges faced to support circular-economy objectives. A proposed framework combines life cycle assessment (LCA) and rec …
  3. A closer look to the virgin and recycling sectors to see what is happening in the plastics industry and how to interpret the statistics and use it to the benefit of the local plastic stakeholders.
  4. High OEE is a critical measure of success for manufacturing and production organisations. In printing, plastics and packaging, static and contamination can reduce line speeds, quality and product perf …
  5. Using smart production technology can launch products faster, respond to changing consumer demand, and scale sustainably. New and innovative precision weighing and flexible sachet packaging can work t …
  6. Showcasing how collaboration, technology, infrastructure investment, community empowerment and consumer education can work together to create a functioning circular recycling economy using Tetra Pak’s …
  7. The BOBST oneBARRIER program develops industrially viable, recycle-ready, mono-material alternatives to complex and nonrecyclable multi-material flexible packaging

 

Day 2 | Wednesday 28 OCT | Sustainability

Navigate EPR, recyclability, regulation and the circular economy.

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  1. Exploring how trust, collaboration, innovation, investment and stronger value-chain partnerships can move EPR beyond compliance towards a more circular, inclusive and sustainable packaging economy. Th …
  2. Emerging global packaging regulations are reshaping market expectations. What does this mean for SA brand owners, manufacturers, importers and retailers. The strategic reforms needed to ensure that SA …
  3. The very systems that have advanced civilisation have also accelerated resource depletion, waste and the degradation of our planet and modern packaging sits at the heart of this tension. How EPR can h …
  4. The gap between EPR as a compliance and reporting exercise and EPR as coordinated, place-based delivery. Opportunities for making EPR work at municipal level and clearer mechanisms to recognise inform …
  5. Closing the Skills Gap - Practical strategies for attracting, training and retaining talent in plastics manufacturing. Preparing your workforce for automation, digitalisation and the circular economy. …
  6. The current landscape for Extended Producer Responsibility and the National Circular Economy Action Plan. The way forward and the challenges for 2027.
  7. An outline of the recent updates made to FSSC 22000 V7 to include packaging design principles as well as the latest food packaging design case studies from the World Packaging Organisation (WPO).

Day 3 | Thursday 29 OCT | Automation

Explore AI, automation and smarter ways to improve production.

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  1. Presented from eWASA’s perspective, this session explores how South Africa can move beyond EPR compliance toward practical, inclusive circular packaging systems. It covers design for recyclability, th …
  2. The progress and recycling rates achieved for glass to date. The challenges that need the be faced and resolved for the sector.
  3. In an era of Extended Producer Responsibility, packaging professionals must increasingly design not only for performance and cost, but for circularity, recyclability and responsible material stewardsh …
  4. How ethylene-scavenging technology works; current applications within fresh produce; incorporating the technology into different packaging formats. how the technology is used and exploring what we hav …
  5. Five years into South Africa’s mandatory EPR journey, Patricia Pillay reflects on Polyco’s progress from individual projects to an integrated circular economy system. The session explores lessons in p …
  6. AI in manufacturing can feel more theoretical than practical. This session shows how vision-based AI turns previously unmeasurable operational context into actionable insight. While ERP shows what sho …
  7. Regulation of Labelling and Advertising are closely related and restrictions on what can be stated on labels carries over the advertising.  The law on packaging, labelling and advertising is a moving …