PETpla.net Insider 07+08 / 2011

REGIONAL MARKET REPORTS 8 PET planet insider Vol. 12 No. 07+08/11 www.petpla.net Finland New start in 2008 They call it the land of a thousand lakes. It’s also the land of the 3 big bottlers. Between them, they control 80% of the soft drinks market, including the Pepsi and the Cola licences. When the Finnish government abolished the tax on one-way bottles in 2008, all the bottling plants began investing in new PET disposable systems. The most important criterion here is flexibility as this is where up to 50 different products are actu- ally bottled. Since the investments are rela- tively new and the logistics are adapted to suit them, the Finns are running the PCO 28 (1810). Discussions on the 1881 are taking their time to get underway. Regardless of the specific field of analysis, in 2008 the additional tax on one-way drinks containers was abolished with the result that consumers naturally opted for disposa- ble cans and PET bottles. PET refillables disappeared and refillable glass also dropped back dramatically. One glass plant after another was shut down in Finland. At practically the same time, all the bottlers were order- ing stretch blow moulding and filler plants from the manu- facturers. Although the basic preconditions were the same as far as everyone was concerned, the bottlers that we visited ordered different plants from different manufactur- ers. Having said that, all the fillers were satisfied with their decision at the time. Three breweries dominate the market, controlling 80% of the soft drinks market between them, including the Pepsi Cola and Coca Cola licences. In addition to beer (unfortu- nately not in PET) all three also bottle their own brand of soft drinks. They don’t, however, rest on their laurels: in addition to classic sectors like water and CSD they are pro- ducing energy drinks, cider and juices. Each bottling plant will feature at least 50 different products. Finland enjoys a comparatively brief summer, and hence the packaged drinking season is short, some three months. So the bottling plants need to be extremely flexible in producing the various formats required. Two of the major breweries have two production lines, one for formats of up to 1l and the others for formats in excess of 1l. by Alexander Büchler Regional market reports Finland