PETpla.net Insider 04 / 2011

PREFORM PRODUCTION 16 PET planet insider Vol. 12 No. 04/11 www.petpla.net From commodities to custom-made items Ukraine is always worth a visit, in particular for people who are keen to experience at first- hand what is probably THE success story in the PET preform sector. When we visited Dnepropetrovsk in 2003 Uniplast had 12 Husky lines; by 2005 the number had risen to 29. Since then Uniplast has been absorbed into the Retal Group. At the location itself there are now 25 preform lines and 7 cap systems. A total of 196 machines are in service at Retal worldwide. This makes Retal Dnipro the biggest production location in the Group today, with 4.2 billion preforms and a 2.5 billion cap production capability. The worldwide economic crisis hit Ukraine very hard; all sectors went into decline, even the beverages industry. But despite the fact that the team around Yuriy Khmara had known nothing but a growth scenario, it has succeeded in surmounting the downturn too. In the meantime, the crisis seems to have been overcome; the consumption of beverages is back to its former high level. Nevertheless, there have been changes at Retal Dnipro. In the course of our visits over the last decade, Yuriy’s key focus was on the production of commodities which he could sell to virtually anyone in the sector. Now, custom-made preforms are making a significant contribution to turnover. Lightweighting in particu- lar has made this possible for the company. “Millions more preforms from fewer tonnes of material“ is the company’s mission statement. This has not only been the case since the price of PET has been on a relent- less upward trend, - no, for exactly one year now the company has been producing the 1881 neck finish at a rate of around 600 million pieces p/a for its neighbour Biola. They have managed to reduce the weight of the 2-litre CSD bottle from 52 to 37g. For the 0.5l bottle, the preform has been slimmed down from 26 to 15.7g. This has meant that the material used to make 2 old preforms now pro- duces 3 – more caps, less plastic. As is the case everywhere in the world, here in Ukraine too the regional bottler Biola has been much quicker off the mark than established brands like Coca Cola and Pepsi Colas in taking advantage of the Lightweight Bottles. Retal is, how- ever, also in talks with the two Cs with a view to introducing the 1881. Alexander Büchler and Yuriy Khmara: Regardless of preform and colour, Retal Dnipro has developed from being a sup- plier of commodities to a provider of custom-made items. by Alexander Büchler