Closures for Egypt and the entire region
Market leader from Germany in the Middle East
In order to be able to adequately serve the emerging markets in Africa and the Middle East with closures, Bericap started its local representation with production near Cairo 20 years ago, more precisely in a rented property in Abou Rawash. The company remained here for nine years before relocating to owned estate of the art manufacturing facility in an industrial estate around 35 km away in the 6th of October City due to the positive development of the markets and customer situation in the region, where it then purchased land and opened a plant that is now around 20,000 m2 in size. Tarek Sultan has been part of the Bericap success story for 17 years and welcomed us for an interview as part of the Middle East Road Show.
September 10, 2024
We met: Mr Tarek Sultan, Managing Director and Board Member
Photo top: Tarek Sultan (left) and Kay Barton in the Bericap Egypt production hall
We sit together in Mr Sultan’s office. The 57-year-old father of three daughters has a BSc degree in Electrical Engineering and is, as he says, ‘proud to be Bericapian’. “It’s not just a job, I feel a strong emotional connection to the company,” he explained with a smile during the interview.
In his first job in 1989, he worked for the oil exploration company Schlumberger and searched for oil in the North Sea. His career then took him via Procter & Gamble, where he worked for 13 years in Pampers diaper production in the UK, Germany, Argentina, Japan, Poland, Turkey and Saudi Arabia – quite a round trip. “I then came back to Egypt and worked for PepsiCo as Operations Director for three years before becoming GM for Henkel Egypt and finally GM of Bericap in 2007,” says Mr Sultan.
Since 2017, he has also been a Board Member for Bericap Egypt and at the same time Director and Board Member at Bericap East Africa in Nairobi, Kenya, the new production facility of the caps and closures producer, which opened in January 2024 with 4,000 m2 of space and six production lines after being a trading company for eight years.
The plant in Egypt employs 130 people, around 90 of whom work in the production and tech part. 29 different closures and caps are currently in the portfolio here with an annual output of around 4 billion units.
Cold halves from the in-house mould maker Bekomold are used in conjunction with a third party hotrunner systems.
The Bericap closure Hexalite 29/11 UL2 (ultralight version for the neck finish 29/25) is the most popular in terms of volume. During the last year we significantly increased our capacity for this product,” explained Tarek Sultan. “And we still see growing demands in the market.”
Mr Sultan has risen from the executive chair at his desk and enthusiastically goes through the map with us, which hangs on the wall behind the desk and shows the company’s activities in the individual regions. He explained that the export volume used to be 20%, today it is 40%.
The Egyptian products are currently destined for 28 countries in Africa, primarily North and East Africa, and the Middle East. “We also bought a factory in Durban, South Africa, in 2024 and are now producing specifically for that region. We have also a dedicated sales office in Casablanca, Morocco.” Mr Sultan assumes that the new GME 30.40 neck finish will also be increasingly available in the Egyptian market in the near future. “When the time comes, we will be prepared in any case.”
