After the pandemic: catching up with old friends

Mark Smith, Senior Vice-President at Universal Closures, took time out from a very busy and demanding schedule to visit the PETplanet Insider representative office in Salisbury, Wiltshire, England, early in February. It was a pleasure to see him again; his news and views are always of interest and often revelatory.

Universal Closures is based in Tewkesbury, Gloucestershire, in what is known as the West Country of England. The area is not known as an industrial centre but it’s not without industrial connections and legacy, either. Travel around the green pastures of Gloucestershire and it doesn’t take long to come across aerospace, defence and electronics companies – some quite large. Universal Closures itself is not big on headcount but it is huge in influence. Every time you open a Coca-Cola bottle equipped with a PC1881 closure system, for example, you are handling a Universal Closures design. Alpla and USA-headquartered Westfall Technik, which includes Mold Craft Inc and AMA Plastics among its subsidiaries, are also among its clients and it also works closely with Z-Moulds, of Austria. It is probably the leading designer of closure systems in the world.

The last time we met was coming up for two years ago – so 2020 BC (Before Covid). The interruption to activity was not wasted by the Universal Closures team, according to Mark.
“We have a business model that has a strong and regular income from royalties,” he said. “We haven’t been able to pinpoint any particular trend in the global ups and downs over the past two years; sales overall have been pretty constant.” But there have been other things going on, such as the migration from the hitherto pretty universal 1881 closure systems to the new 3040 standard. The switchover and pandemic together may have caused capital investments that would normally have been made in 2020-21 to have been postponed and maybe changed altogether, moving from 1881 to 3040.

We also discussed the ongoing search for lightweighting, the growing reliance on recycled material – in HDPE as well as PET – and innovations in the use of bioplastics for beverages, as well as Universal Closures’ market shift towards a greater balance between beverage packaging and other areas, such as homecare and personal care. As ever, it was a great conversation – something to look forward to!

Yours

Ruari McCallion
Editor-at-Large