PETpla.net Insider 01+02 / 2011

REGIONAL MARKET REPORTS 10 PET planet insider Vol. 12 No. 01+02/11 www.petpla.net beverages, here the savings amount to 2g per bottle! Or our DoubleSeal 33mm cap which can replace the tradi- tional 38mm cap: here we have cut each bottle down by 2.6g of PP and PET. We have also recorded a comparable achievement in the case of edible oil where we have been able to save up to 2.6g with the new 26/21 neck standard replacing the traditional 29/21 neck finish. Overall we have been able to reduce the CO 2 emissions by 15% within the last 3 years through such light weighting of 20% of our clo- sures produced in France. PETplanet: France is the development centre for water caps and sports drinks caps, especially sports caps. Mr Vallée: As already discussed previously, France is a very dynamic country where caps are concerned, with very demanding customers in mineral and spring waters, national and international. Danone and Nestlé Waters also have their international R&D centres for water in France. These are some of the reasons why we have opted to develop caps for waters, and especially sports caps, here in France, with developments that are generally tested in France, then spread across the Bericap organization of 21 sites in 19 countries. PETplanet: Can you give us an idea of how the system works? You get an order from your affiliated companies to develop a particular type of cap? Or do you approach your colleagues with your new ideas? Mr Vallée: Our development activities start with the assessment of the closures needed by our sales people in close contact with the market, generally by our Market Coordinators based in Europe, but who are in daily contact with sales people from all our global affiliates. When the development project is approved, the closure involved is then developed in one of our four R&D centres, for exam- ple at Bericap France. The closure is fine tuned on a pilot line in France. The initial production run is generally begun in France before being moved to the Bericap factory that is in better situation - economically, technically or logisti- cally - to supply the customers involved to their complete satisfaction. PETplanet: Many thanks for talking to us. ple, is where our new lightweight HexaLite 29/25 comes in, together with its light weight hinged sports cap Thumb’up 29/25. In third place are the JETs - J uice, E nergy drinks. T ea and sports drinks – with screw and sports caps. PETplanet: To what extent does your home market of France differ from other markets? Mr Vallée: Here in France we have a large number of highly diverse neck finishes - the 28 series; 29/25; 30/25; 34/35, the 38 series as well as the 48 series, the upshot of which is that we produce the individual caps in relatively smaller quantities than in countries where 28 mm domi- nates the market. Whereas in Germany you may find 3 or 4 lines running adjacent to one another and producing the same cap, here in France the same caps are seldom run simultaneously on 2 or more lines. Naturally, this presents us with a logistical challenge. In addition there is the fact that, in France, the closures are embossed rather than printed to reduced hazards related to solvent migration and the closure design changes relatively quickly. PETplanet: So does this mean that you write off the moulds considerably faster than is the case in Germany? Mr Vallée: Of course, it requires more frequent invest- ments in new moulds, increases our depreciations and makes the individual cap more expensive as it would be if the caps were all of same diameters, with same design for ten or twenty years; but if the market wants it, we can produce it. PETplanet: So, on average, what is the service life of a mould? Mr Vallée: Difficult to give an overall figure. We have moulds that run for 5 years and even more than 10 years without any modifications except regular maintenance and refurbishment; on the other hand, on some customised closures like sports caps or dispensing closures, we may have moulds that would not last more than the duration of a 3-years contract because of improvements required by the customers at the end of the contract. In this case we expect that the mould price is depreciated during the dura- tion of the contract. PETplanet: When you talk about ’improvements’ what you really mean is savings in materials? Mr Vallée: Not just savings in materials. It can also include functionalities for better comfort and safety to final consumers. Although there is no getting away from the fact that this is definitely an area we focus on, where Bericap has taken a lot of light weighting initiatives. If you have a look at the environmental performance evaluation for a cap made on an industrial site like the Longvic factory of Bericap, you will find that in France 80% of the CO 2 gener- ated is attributable to the material and very little to energy as it comes mainly from nuclear power stations. And this is the same for the production of bottles. This means that the most efficient way to reduce the carbon footprint of packaged beverages is to work on the geometry of the bottle necks and of the caps. Light weighted neck and cap geometries are a MUST today. Have a look at our devel- opment work from the PCO 28 to the DoubleSeal Super- Shorty 28mm for carbonated drinks and you will notice we can save between 2 and 3g in material in relation to the closure and the neck of the bottle. Or our HexaLite for flat Bericap France: Bericap France is the second largest company of the Bericap Group, N°1 in France for plastic closures for the food and beverages sector. It employs 300 production staff at two factories. Vittel is a purely production location; Longvic, near Dijon, the second plant, relocated in 2007 on a brand new world class manufacturing site is also the head office of Bericap in France and home to the R&D department. It fea- tures a total of 130 injection moulding machines from 70 to 350t which are used to produce 10 billion cap components for a total of 7 billion caps each year. In conjunction with this the company processes 20,000t of material. The R&D Centre concentrates on caps for mineral waters, juices, sports drinks and syrups.