2021 - The European Road Show Capping / Closures

On the cutting edge

1 Jul 20227 Jul 2022 Kay Barton 3816 Views 2 min read

Naturally, mobility plays a key role during our Editours. The routes for our Editourmobil journeys are meticulously arranged so that as many company visits as possible are linked together meaningfully. Beat Rupp has shown us something even more efficient.

Tethered cap slitting
(Photo: Emilia Kosmehl)

As part of the Brückner Group’s Pre-K press conference, the Packsys Global CEO gave PETplanet editor Gabriele Kosmehl an “interview on the go”. On the journey from the Kiefel site in Freilassing, Bavaria, to the Brückner Group head office in Siegsdorf, they examined the structure of the Packsys company.

In 2011, the Swiss company Packsys Global was taken over by the Brückner Group, which also owns Brückner Maschinenbau, Brückner Servtec and Kiefel Technologies. Within the holding, which focuses on strategic issues, the company operates as independently as possible.

For example, in 2020 and 2021, Packsys itself brought further companies on board. With the full integration of former daughter companies Combitool AG, Texa AG and Madag Printing Systems AG, Packsys Global is now more broadly positioned in the field of packaging machinery.

These mergers have also been reflected in new company “swisstainable” headquarters. To bring all the companies under one roof, a new 15,000m2 building has been constructed just 500m from the previous headquarters in Rüti, Switzerland, with residence taken up in October 2021.

F.l.t.r.: Thomas Lefevre (Vice President Business Divisions) and Aitor Henao Soto (Head of Marketing & Communications) show how they also master the tethering of caps with the help of Swiss Army knives. Here they humorously check the tethering suitability of the products on offer at a motorway service station. For mass production, however, they still recommend the Packsys systems.

Rotary slitting and folding machines for plastic caps are designed here alongside complete systems for extruded tubes and laminate tubes, automatic hot stamping solutions and packaging solutions for a wide range of containers. Plastic caps are a particular focus because of the EU directive on tethered caps: from July 2024, a total of 255 billion closures p.a. in the EU must be designed in such a way that they stay attached to single-use containers even under a breakaway force of 25 Newtons. This requires complex cutting geometries that are not only horizontal but also vertical and diagonal and extremely precise.
And naturally, the cuts are “Swiss made” with Swiss knives – just as they should be in a Swiss company.

Yours

Gabriele Kosmehl
Editor