PETpla.net Insider 01+02 / 2010

REGIONAL MARKET REPORTS 12 PET planet insider Vol. 11 No. 01+02/10 www.petpla.net side Germany through acquisition. “Times of crisis also offer opportunities. If we see such an opportunity we will grab it!” That was their response to the idea of possible acquisition. PET-Verpackungen sees its future opportunities aris- ing more in semi-industrial products replacing HDPE bottles and large containers up to 20l than only in niche applications within the wine bottle sector like for airlines. Uniplast Uniplast, with about 300 preform plants around Europe must be one of the biggest converters in the region. The story of their success began in the Ukraine where we have previously visited Yuri Khmara, who is still the chief executive of the group, at the plant in Dne- propetrovsk in the days when he had just a handful of machines to his name. (see issue 11+12, 2003 and issue 8, 2005). The rapid expansion of Uniplast has not only covered the other Eastern European states but also now includes Germany, where the group has been established for some months. At the end of 2007, with a truckload of preforms being shipped to Germany every working day, the time was obviously right for the company to set up its own opera- tion in the country. Uniplast took over the bankrupt pre- form manufacturer Ecopack in Merseburg, together with their three Netstal systems. After only 6 weeks the team on site had production up and running. They increased the plant’s capacity with the purchase of two Husky Hypet 400 systems, and a third Husky is due for delivery about now. “We have effectively tre- bled the capacity of the plant which we took over here in Merseburg in just over a year,” commented the manag- ing director Mr. Müller. “In the production bay we planned places for 12 preform systems, so we have plenty of room for expansion. We bring with us the know-how of preform production from the Ukraine and in the Ukraine they ben- efit from our organisational structure”. Sales in Germany is still carried out via the Uniplast office in Berlin. The material comes from the group’s own F.l.t.r: Alexander Büchler, Oliver Wiegand, CEO, PET Verpack- ungen, and Hubert Rebhan, Sales Manager PET Verpackungen F.l.t.r.: Alexander Büchler Ivo Müller, Plant Manager, and Bertolt Kämpfer, Technical Manager, Uniplast Merseburg tion of standard preforms for the beverage industry and one-way bottles. In recent years the preform sector hasn’t grown so much because big bottlers have increasingly moved to moulding their own preforms in-house. The speciality sector however grew much stronger and the company became market leader in Germany for multilayer preforms. Their major customers for multilayer preforms include the juice and beer industry as well as the CSD and mineral water bottlers who appreciate the tailor-made barrier properties of the preforms in order to enter new segments. The wide range of available preforms totalling more than 70 different designs as well as the expertise and know-how to offer an optimal solution for each bottle makes PET-Verpackungen one of the major suppliers for the filling industry in Europe. One of the strength of this PET expert is the use of recycled PET. The company has its own blending facility where they mix virgin resin and recycled PET according to the customer’s requirement e.g. for PETcycle preforms they use up to 50% recycled resin. For price-sensitive customers the percentage may vary depending on the price, availability and quality of R-PET. Even flakes can be used in various mixing proportions. To extend their product range, in 2005 the company nstalled Nissei single stage and Sipa stretch blow moulding machines. PET-Verpackungen was very pleased with the versatility and quick changeover times of the linear machines and are now able to supply customers with blown bottles - especially those filling companies who do not operate their own blowing machines. As the bottle business is growing further, last year the company expanded the production area by 2;500 m 2 in order to build a stronger base to satisfy the continuous needs of this sector. Today they run 15 injection moulding machines from Husky, Kortec and Netstal, produc- ing 2 billion monolayer and 300 million multilayer preforms. The warehouse has a capacity for storing 140 million pre- forms, making sure that enough preforms are available on short notice even in the peak season. PET-Verpackungen has moved from only being a supplier of standard preforms to a supplier of speciality and customized preforms as well as PET containers. Although the majority of the sales are currently generated in Germany, the owners Oliver and Nikolaus Wiegand do not exclude the possibility of expanding their sales area out-