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Can you provide a little history about Flexible Intermediate Bulk Container (FIBC) ?

FIBCs – flexible and collapsible giant-sized bags meant for carrying up to 2500 kg powdery or granulated material – were first made in late 1950’s in the United States and Europe using heavy-duty PVC-coated nylon or polyester. However, the real growth of FIBCs that are globally used today was seen with the development of high tenacity light-weight polypropylene fabric in late 1960’s to early 70’s which reduced the cost of FIBCs substantially.

The oil crisis of 1970’s necessitated transportation of large quantity of cement from Europe to middle-eastern countries which popularized the use of FIBCs in Europe paving way for its usage for various similar products. In the U.S., the use of FIBC really came into being when the U.S. department of transportation allowed hazardous materials to be transported in FIBCs.

In India, FIBC production was started in 1990’s – mainly for export. Within a span of 25 years, today India is the world’s largest FIBCsupplying- country. While the usage of FIBC in India is in its nascent stage, it is believed that over next decade India would be the world’s largest FIBC-consuming market.

Kindly give us the brief of various products offered by your company? Which sectors and market does your company currently serve ?

Flexituff is a multi-product, multi-market, multi-location company. It has four plants in India and a distribution and marketing subsidiary in the U.K. Through its niche products, Flexituff serves the domain needs of industrial, retail, agro and infrastructure sectors.
With export to over 55 countries, Flexituff enjoys a leadership status with following sectoral offerings :-

Of the total revenue, the export accounts for 55%.

What benefits are there of using FIBCs over similar methods? How competitive is the FIBC market for manufacturers ?

Compared to a conventional rigid drum, an FIBC is not only fully customizable and economical option but being flexible in lighter weight it also offers a significant freight cost advantage and space-saving as it can be collapsed and folded post use.
As FIBC is a tailor-made, critical and fail-safe product expected to perform safely 100% of the times, thankfully, besides price, there is a premium to Quality Certifications, Integrated Manufacturing, R&D and innovations. While overall market remains very competitive, niche practices and global scale operations still allow for building competitive advantages.

How do you see the prospects of geosynthetics industry, your new area of operations and how does your company plan to tape these opportunities ?

The use of geosynthetics is an established solution in all infrastructure-related solutions across the globe. In India, till now, the use of geosynthetics was very low, however, it is now fast catching up. We have doubled the turnover of this segment in FY2016 and propose to further double it this year over FY2016. Thus, we see a very high growth of Flexituff in this sector. In the next 2 to 3 years this sector may be the highest contributor to the topline and the bottomline of the company.

What do you and your organization hope to achieve in the next 5 years ?

Having positioned itself as a leading global FIBC player, Flexituff is now betting big on India’s infrastructural growth by focusing on offering proprietary geo-synthetics solutions for Ganga river cleaning / coastal bank protection / river-training, flood control and landslide protection. Flexituff is foraying into offering end-to-end solutions, undertaking supply and commissioning projects in India and neighbouring countries.