Here’s How A Young Entrepreneur From Noida Made One Of India’s Biggest Paper Bag Business – Adeera Packaging

CXOToday has engaged in an exclusive interview with Mr Sushant Gaur , Founder at Adeera Packaging

Kindly brief us about the company, its specialization and the services that your company offers.

Started in 2019, Adeera Packaging is one of India’s largest manufacturers of sustainable packaging. We replace around 20 plastic bags per second with environment-friendly packaging and save 17,000 trees per month from being chopped by using recycled or agro-waste-based paper to make bags.We provide daily deliveries, fast turnaround times of 5-25 days and we also provide solutions through customization of bags to our customers.

Adeera Packaging was formed as a manufacturing company, but over the years we have realised that our value lies in the service that we provide our buyers. We deliver our product to over 30,000 pincodes in India.

Adeera Packaging’s purpose is to make the planet a better place for future generations which we want to achieve by creating a global presence to democratize supplies of environment-friendly packaging.

How the Paper packaging industry has witnessed a significant boost throughout the pandemic.

The pandemic boosted home delivery orders by a sizable amount. Grocery, QSR and pharma deliveries all saw an uptick leading to a boost to the paper packaging industry. Also, hygiene habits improved from before where touch-less deliveries became a norm. This also spread awareness about the requirement of paper packaging for every delivery.

How do you see the company and the industry in the future ahead? 

With the banning of Single Use Plastics being implemented in many nations the future of paper packaging is very bright. An increase in the recycling of Paper has led to a sustainable and environment-friendly alternative for SUPs in Paper. We see our industry growing at least 35% YoY globally if it is to replace the hole left by SUPs.

How has your business evolved over the years? 

We have grown at 100% CAGR since inception and as the business has grown we have expanded our managerial bandwidth by inviting co-founders into the company. We are now looking at global markets with aggression rather than uncertainty and are moving to quicken our pace of growth. We have also implemented systems to handle our growth, although truth be told, those systems need constant updation.

What challenges did you face while starting Adeera Packaging?

Recruiting high-quality sales talent in a manufacturing startup is difficult. After our transition from Urja in 2019, our first requirement was to build a great team. It is easier to sell the vision of a conventional startup to a potential hire than that of an MSME unit. Access to capital was also very difficult compared to what our US, Chinese and Vietnamese counterparts had access to. Banks in India don’t lend on ideas, not even on execution but only on collaterals.

Tell us about Urja packaging and why you have changed it to Adeera and when?

Urja Packaging was a proprietorship and in order to add founders, we had to convert it to a private limited company. Urja Packaging Pvt Ltd was already a pre-existing name so we decided to change the name to Adeera, which means strength or strong.

Your success mantra of becoming an entrepreneur?

Unwavering hard work, 18-hour days are meaningless if done once in a while. Consistency and focus are the building blocks of an entrepreneur but constant learning is what builds the floors on top. Team building and management

Tell us about your hobbies?

I enjoy consuming online business content on which I spend around 2 hours daily.