A tour detour to Cyprus
Each time you embark on an Editour, you end up in countries, or at least part of them, where you never thought you would be when the tour was originally planned. The European Road Show has been running successfully since autumn 2021 and at the end of November, we received a special request from the single-stage machine manufacturer Cypet, asking whether we could write a report on Cyprus. Okay, admittedly this was a bit difficult to do with the Editourmobil but travelling by plane was now an option and the easing of entry restrictions in many parts of the world made this the right time to pay a visit.
So, on 28 February, armed with information about the tour and a lovely roll-up banner, I flew to the Mediterranean island of Cyprus. Arriving in the afternoon in Lanarca city, I picked up a rental car and drove to my hotel in the little seaside town of Ayia Napa about 60 km away – the island’s ultimate party venue. As it was currently off-season and, of course, I had known this in advance, Ayia Napa was completely deserted as nothing happens here before April and May. Why Ayia Napa? Well, one of my three appointments was coming up and I find the idea of a hotel in invariably quiet surroundings by the sea and very close to a motorway much more to my liking than staying in a standard city hotel. Furthermore, accommodation is very much at a premium during the close season.
Nearly all the hotels, pubs and restaurants in the more touristy corners of Cyprus are closed, with only a few offering rooms or food. But that suits me fine. If you have ever watched videos on YouTube about Ayia Napa nightlife in which hordes of drunken teenagers make their way through the town’s picturesque streets from one venue to another, then you will probably know what I mean. Arriving at the almost deserted hotel and unpacked, I deal with some urgent business before hunger sets in and I enjoy a steak in a fairly new and charming restaurant within walking distance of the hotel. I am their only guest and they have a fireplace (yes, it is still very cold here especially during the evening).
I set off the following morning with my first port of call being Megaplast in the industrial area of Frenaros around 15 km away. Here I meet the company founder Yiannis Kone who is standing next to a Nissei ASB machine. He tells me that at very short notice his staff have been unable to report for work due to Covid, so he is operating the machine himself, producing and packaging bottles.
Megaplast is a small plastics processor that caters to the local market with 90% of all containers staying in Cyprus. The business specialises in producing a wide range of bottles and containers for the pharmaceutical, beverage, food and chemical industries, as well as manufacturing items such as PET cans for food products that come off the production line here on a Cypet K16 machine fitted in 2018. In addition to PET, HDPE, LDPE and PP are processed on 13 injection and blow moulding machines, with the end result used in product fillers, for example, for hotels, supermarkets and hospitals.
After the tour of the plant, we continue our journey near the capital Nicosia, about 70 km to the west. Here, Constantinos and Michalis Sideris, heads of the machine manufacturing company Cypet Technologies, a producer of single-stage ISBM machines for PET, are waiting for me. The family-run business has been manufacturing PET equipment since 2014 serving a global clientele that depends on flexible container dimensions as well as large and non-standard sizes. The machines are mainly used in the food sector and in beverage and non-food packaging production which are currently in operation on five continents. Cypet also has a subsidiary plant in India. In the basement of the production hall, a machine produces PET bottles for water dispensers both to demonstrate regularly operating equipment for interested visitors and in supplying bottles to a local water bottle filler as a business sideline.
It is already late afternoon as I make my way back to the hotel. For dinner, I have chosen a restaurant down by the harbour in Ayia Napa which specialises in seafood and is known among other things for its fresh oysters.
It is Wednesday and I still have a potential appointment with a Cypriot water bottler. Then I hear the person is unavailable so decide to postpone a possible interview for the time being. As with Megaplast earlier and as I found at Cypet Technologies, last-minute changes are unfortunately the order of the day due to a wave of 2,000 daily Covid infections in a population of just 1.2 million. The weather is miserable with rain adding to the cold so I quickly convert the hotel room into my private office before heading back home the following day.
Stay safe and make peace, not war.
Yours
Kay Barton
Editor
