PETpla.net Insider 05 / 2010

REGIONAL MARKET REPORTS 11 PET planet insider Vol. 11 No. 05/10 www.petpla.net Flour and water Bakhresa Meeting in the headquarters and from here guided by Mr. Said Salim Bakhresa (seen on the right) through his extensive operation. Flour and water were the basis of Mr. Said Salim Awadh Bakhresa’s success story. And although they are so different - one is dry and powdery, the other is wet and runny - when put together they react in a superb way. Bread is made! And if we consider that flour in sacks, water in PET, and bread, all have to be transported, we have almost completely described Mr. Bakhresa’s empire. 30 years ago he started up a small business from nothing, but soon came the first flour mill. Later he established his own transport company, a sack factory and of course a large commercial bakery. A little out- side the mainstream came ice cream and juice factories. Using the same logic that he applied when developing his other businesses, he turned, in 2001, to the business of “packaged water”. The water was initially packaged in 200ml pouches, but the government did not like it, and soon stepped in. The empty pouches were blowing about all over the place and disfiguring the landscape, so they were banned. But Mr. Bakhresa had taken a liking to the water business and in 2006 he installed his first bottle filling line, from Ave, with an output of 10,000 PET bottles per hour (350ml). This line is now fully occupied and so he is installing a second line with an output of 12,000bph, also 350ml. The bottle blower is from Chumpower, the filler is Kosme and the labeller is from Sacmi. The site of the plant is the oldest in the group and a flour mill, a bakery and the 350ml water fill- ing operation are all on the same site. However, there is no room for expansion, and a new site was sought in the local area, where, in 2006, the biggest corn mill in the country was built. It was installed by Bühler with the best technology available. A third of all PET bottles collected in Tanzania arrive at the new Sorema/Erema Bottle-to-Bottle recycling plant (from left to right: Dinesh Cranonkar, Mechanical Engineer, Alexander Büchler, PETplanet, Vinod M. Shetye Process Engineer, and Shadab Alam Electronic Engineer At that time there was also space on the site to meet the rapidly growing demand for water in PET. Filling lines for 0.5, 1.0, 1.5, 3.0 and 6.0l were brought together in the new location. The blowers were supplied by Chumpower. The blown bottles are conveyed to a buffer silo from where they go to the filling lines - mainly Italian manufacture, e.g. Ave. It soon became clear that Mr. Bakhresa could save money by moulding his own preforms and so now there are 6 Nissei ASB preform systems to cover in-house require- ments. The preforms for 0.35l weigh 12g, for 0.5l they weigh 15 and 16g, and for 1l 23 to 26g. All of the bottles are fitted with the same still water cap, which weighs 1.8g. Also new is the Netstal 2000 preform system (with Mr. Arumugam and Alexander Büchler)