Interpack only comes around once every three years, and when it does, the entire packaging industry shows up. From 7 to 13 May 2026, the halls of Messe Düsseldorf turned into the largest meeting point in our sector, drawing more than 2,800 exhibitors and around 165,000 visitors from over 170 countries across seven full days of demos, conversations and deal-making.

For Newlong, Interpack 2026 was not just another trade fair. It was the public stage for two things we have been building all year: a deepened partnership with Fuji Robotics, and an unusually rare moment when our colleagues from Japan, the United States, Singapore, Taiwan and the Netherlands all stood under the same roof at the same time.

The Newlong x Fuji Robotics stand

The centrepiece of our booth was a live demonstration of the Fuji Robotics palletizing arm, moving heavy paper bags from a conveyor onto a pallet with the kind of precision and consistency that human teams cannot match across a full shift. Visitors stopped, asked the obvious question (yes, the bags really were that heavy), and stayed to talk about what this means for plant operators dealing with labour shortages, safety concerns, and the pressure to scale output.

The story we wanted to tell on the floor was simple: automation in industrial bag handling is no longer a glossy concept. It is a working machine, available now, integrating into existing Newlong lines. The Fuji partnership lets us offer that solution under one roof, with the engineering depth and global service network that our customers expect from Newlong.

Watch the aftermovie

Two minutes of the energy on the floor, in one clip.

Twenty colleagues, four continents, one hall

Beyond the machinery, what made this Interpack different was the people behind it. Almost twenty Newlong team members travelled in from the United States, Japan, Singapore, Taiwan and our home base in the Netherlands to be at the booth together. For a global company that usually collaborates across video calls and time zones, having the whole family in one place was a rare and valuable thing.

Our customers noticed it. Several long-standing partners stopped by specifically to meet the colleagues they had been emailing with for years. Conversations that would normally take a chain of meetings happened in a single coffee at the stand. It is the kind of compression that only a trade fair can deliver, and it is exactly why Interpack remains worth the seven-day commitment every cycle.

Product moments on the floor

Beyond the robotics centrepiece, we showed customers the latest in Newlong-engineered paper bag handling, including the Watts water-activated tape sealer that adds tamper-evident closing to industrial-grade paper bags. It is the kind of detail that only lands when you see and touch the machine.

Interpack 2026 by the numbers

• 7 days (7 to 13 May 2026)
• ~2,800 exhibitors from 60+ countries
• ~165,000 visitors from 170+ countries
• 18 halls at Messe Düsseldorf
• The largest gathering in global packaging machinery, once every three years

What’s next

The conversations started at Interpack are already turning into next steps. Several visitors are now in active discussions about robot palletizing installations on their lines, and the Fuji Robotics partnership is opening doors into segments we had not previously served at this depth. We will share specific updates as projects move from talks to installation, and we are already mapping out how to bring more of what we showed in Düsseldorf into customer plants across Europe in the second half of 2026.

If you visited our stand, thank you for stopping by. If you missed us, the aftermovie above is the next best thing, and our team is always one email or call away. Get in touch if you want to talk about what robotic palletizing or any of our bag-engineering solutions could do for your operation.

See you at the next show.