Manesar, Haryana | July 2026
Kumar Printers Pvt. Ltd., one of India's most established B2B packaging manufacturers, has secured the Innovative Printer of the Year award in the Paper, Paperboard and Corrugated category at the PrintWeek Awards 2025, the 15th edition of India's most prestigious print and packaging industry honours. The award, presented at The Westin Mumbai Powai Lake on 13 October 2025, marks the second consecutive year that Kumar Printers has won in this category, having also claimed the same award at PrintWeek Awards 2024, where the company was recognised as a joint winner alongside Jayna Packaging and Screen Art Enterprises.
The back-to-back wins place Kumar Printers in a small group of companies that have demonstrated sustained innovation across consecutive award cycles, a distinction that reflects not a single exceptional job but a consistent standard of engineering and creative capability across the company's full range of rigid box, folding carton, corrugated box, blister card, and insert and outsert product lines.
The Work That Won: Pedal Box Packaging for Vmaz Autotech
The entry that earned Kumar Printers the 2025 PrintWeek Award was the Pedal Box Packaging developed for Vmaz Autotech, a project that the jury described as "a triumph of engineering and craft."
The brief was to create an automotive packaging solution that turned the unboxing moment into a deliberate brand experience. The result was a three-shell sliding rigid box designed to open with a controlled, ten-second reveal, engineered to generate suspense and drama rather than simply delivering a product. The construction involved layered inserts built for both structural stability and tactile richness. Materials used included 2mm Kappa board, 220 gsm and 300 gsm folding box board, black EVA foam, velvet cloth, and metPET substrate, each selected to balance rigidity with the refined sensory quality expected of luxury automotive packaging.
Pre-press was handled through Esko workflow tools including ArtiosCAD and ArtPro+. The printing ran on Kumar Printers' Heidelberg Speedmaster CX 104 seven-colour press with UV coater. Precision grooving, foam finishing, and careful weight distribution were all critical to achieving the controlled slow-opening mechanism. The jury's verdict acknowledged that Kumar Printers had successfully elevated a functional packaging format into a premium brand, setting a new standard for automotive rigid box packaging in India.
A Track Record Built Over Decades, Not a Single Season
The PrintWeek back-to-back wins are the most recent milestone in a recognition history that spans the length of Kumar Printers' six decades of operation. The company has previously received the National Award for Excellence in Printing (NAEP), organised by the All India Federation of Master Printers (AIFMP) and the only printing award in India supported by the Government of India through the Ministry of Commerce and Industry. The NAEP is among the most rigorously judged industry honours in the country, with an independent jury drawn from print buyers, brand owners, and packaging designers evaluating entries across quality, innovation, and technical execution.
Kumar Printers has also been shortlisted across multiple categories at PrintWeek India, including the Packaging Converter of the Year (Pharma) category at the 2024 edition, alongside a shortlisting in the Innovative Printer of the Year category that same year, reflecting the breadth of its capabilities across both pharmaceutical folding carton production and premium packaging innovation.
Beyond formal awards, the company holds a distinct set of industry firsts that represent a different kind of recognition, one earned through technology leadership rather than competition entries.
Industry Firsts That Defined a Generation of Packaging Standards
The installation of the Heidelberg Speedmaster CX 104 at Kumar Printers in 2022 was the first of its kind in Northern India. The press, a seven-colour offset machine with UV coating capability, runs at 15,000 sheets per hour and is equipped with AI-assisted Prinect Image Control 4, which spectrally scans every printed sheet and corrects colour deviations in real time. Kumar Printers signed the deal with Heidelberg at Printpack 2022, and Samir Patkar of Heidelberg India noted at the time that the North Indian market was developing rapidly as a packaging and publication market, and the CX 104 was a press perfectly suited for these applications.
This was not the first time Kumar Printers had led the industry in technology adoption. Kumar Printers was the second company in India to use a spectrophotometer and the first printing company in the country to use ink formulation software, a milestone that dates to 1995 and predates widespread colour management adoption by the Indian packaging industry by years. These were not incremental upgrades. They were decisions made ahead of market necessity, by a leadership team that understood that consistent colour quality at scale was going to become a non-negotiable standard for global brands, and invested accordingly.
What Drives the Recognition
"Awards matter to us because they represent an external validation of the standards we hold ourselves to internally," said Sandeep Bhargava, Managing Director, Kumar Printers Pvt. Ltd. "Winning the PrintWeek Innovative Printer of the Year two years in a row is something we are genuinely proud of. But the work that earned those awards, the Pedal Box for Vmaz Autotech, the Glenfiddich Limited Edition, the Gurkha and Guns whisky carton, the Venus Snap rigid box, these are projects where our team solved real engineering problems that others could not. That is what we are most proud of. The awards follow the work, not the other way around."
Certifications That Substantiate the Recognition
The awards Kumar Printers has received are underpinned by a certification portfolio that gives global procurement teams the documented compliance they require. The company holds ISO 9001:2015 for quality management systems, ISO 14001:2015 for environmental management, and ISO 45001:2018 for occupational health and safety. It is certified under BRC IOP Grade 6 through the British Retail Consortium, holds GMI G7 Master Colorspace certification for colour consistency across print runs, and maintains FSC Chain of Custody certification, ensuring full traceability for all paper and paperboard sourced through its supply chain. The company is also Sedex audited for ethical supply chain compliance.
These certifications are not background credentials. They are the operational infrastructure that makes it possible for Kumar Printers to deliver premium printing and finishing quality consistently, at the volumes and to the standards required by multinational clients including Nestlé, Gillette, Procter and Gamble, Duracell, Colgate, Adidas, Volkswagen, Sun Pharma, Dr. Reddy's, Glenfiddich, Grant's, and Britannia.
A Complete B2B Packaging and Printing Solution Partner
The awards and technology milestones reflect a company that has built its capabilities systematically across all five product lines it operates. Kumar Printers produces rigid boxes for luxury spirits, personal care, automotive, and gift packaging. Its folding carton manufacturing serves pharmaceutical, FMCG, garment, and alcove clients at scale, with GMI-certified colour accuracy on every run. Its corrugated box capability addresses secondary and transit packaging for the automobile and electronics sectors. Blister cards for healthcare and personal care brands, and precision-folded inserts and outserts for the pharmaceutical sector, complete the product portfolio.
Across all five lines, the same premium printing and finishing techniques are available: hot foil stamping, spot UV, raised UV embossing, 3D embossing, soft-touch lamination, gravure printing, gloss and matte UV contrast, metallic inks, textured coatings, and cast-and-cure processes. The Vmaz Autotech Pedal Box that won the 2025 PrintWeek award drew on multiple processes simultaneously, which is precisely the kind of multi-technique, multi-material execution that Kumar Printers has been building the capability to deliver for the past two decades.
As a regional partner of the Global Packaging Alliance, a consortium of independent packaging manufacturers across eight countries including Brazil, Mexico, USA, China, and Korea, Kumar Printers also brings globally aligned production standards to its India-based manufacturing and serves export clients in the UK, USA, UAE, and Saudi Arabia.
Looking Ahead
The PrintWeek India Awards 2026 call for entries has already been announced, and Kumar Printers continues to invest in both technology and talent to maintain the innovation standards that have earned it consecutive recognition. The company's product development team is actively working on new structural and material innovations across its rigid box, folding carton, and corrugated box lines, with a particular focus on sustainable material substitutions that reduce both environmental impact and packaging cost for its clients.
For brands looking for a B2B packaging and printing solution partner whose capabilities are independently verified by industry peers, certifying bodies, and global clients alike, Kumar Printers is available to discuss requirements and provide free costing across all product lines.
To discuss a packaging brief or request a no-obligation consultation, contact Kumar Printers at [email protected] or visit www.kumarprinters.com
About Kumar Printers Pvt. Ltd.
Kumar Printers Pvt. Ltd. is one of India's leading B2B packaging manufacturers, with over 60 years of experience delivering paperboard packaging solutions to the pharmaceutical, FMCG, alcobev, automobile, garment, and personal care industries. Operating two manufacturing facilities in Manesar, Haryana and Indore, Madhya Pradesh, the company converts more than 12,000 tons of paper and paperboard annually across five product lines: rigid box, folding carton, corrugated box, blister cards, and inserts and outserts. A two-time consecutive winner of the PrintWeek Innovative Printer of the Year award (2024 and 2025) and a recipient of the National Award for Excellence in Printing, Kumar Printers is certified under ISO 9001:2015, ISO 14001:2015, ISO 45001:2018, BRC IOP Grade 6, FSC COC, GMI, and Sedex. The company serves global brands including Nestlé, Gillette, P&G, Duracell, Colgate, Adidas, Volkswagen, Sun Pharma, and Dr. Reddy's, and exports to the UK, USA, UAE, and Saudi Arabia.
Media Contact
Kumar Printers Pvt. Ltd.
Plot No. 24, Sector V, IMT Manesar, Gurgaon, Haryana 122050, India
Email: [email protected]
Website: www.kumarprinters.com
Sources and References
PrintWeek India — Kumar Printers wins Innovative Printer of the Year 2025: printweek.in/news/printweek-awards-2025-kumar-printers-wins-innovative-printer-of-the-year-paper-paperboard-corrugated-61179
PrintWeek India — PrintWeek Awards 2024 Winners List: printweek.in/news/printweek-awards-2024-winners-revealed-parksons-wins-top-honour-59424
PrintWeek India — Heidelberg signs CX 104 deal with Kumar Printers, first in North India (May 2022): printweek.in/news/heidelberg-signs-cx-104-deal-with-kumar-printers-first-in-north-india-56196
Heidelberg India Official Press Release — Kumar Printers installs Speedmaster CX 104: heidelberg.com/in/en/about_us/news/press_release_14592.jsp
Print and Publishing — Heidelberg has always been a reliable name: print-publishing.com/11118/heidelberg-has-always-been-a-reliable-name
Kumar Printers Official Website: www.kumarprinters.com