PETpla.net Insider 10 / 2011

BOTTLE MAKING 23 PET planet insider Vol. 12 No. 10/11  Biggest market is Far East 40% mainly beverages to end users  Second biggest is Europe 25% mainly beverages trend in Europe to specials  To follow North America mainly specials to converters  South America mainly edible oil, detergents  Africa and CIS Applications In Europe wide mouth jars for hot fill,standard jars for cold fill and low production volumes, “difficult to handle” containers in two stage (flat preforms, snap neck finishes) (see photo page 24). China and US produce big vol- umes of jars oval, asymmetricals big volumes of heat set bottles. Major trends in single stage production – the Sipa view The trend for using single stage technology in Europe is for the production of “complex” con- tainers or for strongly marketing driven customers as i.e. Procter & Gamble, Unilever, GSK. These companies are quality orientated. Converters are being pushed into single stage due to potentially better quality/cost ratio. General Manager Enrico Gribaudo states: “Converters are focusing on higher added value sectors, where the packaging is very technical and they can combine their technical expertise with excellent manufac- turing technology. They also need to show flexibility in production whether it is with single stage or two stage technology, depending on the specific scenario.” Sipa employs 1,400 employ- ees globally, of which 35% abroad – a large part in engineering with six manufacturing plants (two in Italy, one each in China, Mexico, Brazil and Romania), 16 branch offices world wide and 22 service centres. Gianfranco Zoppas is the owner and chairman of Zoppas Industries, of which Sipa is a vital part. In a Top Talk with PETplanet in 2005 he said: “I believe that (for PET processing) the best solution is single stage technology.” He subsequently made substantial investment in two stage technologies by developing a machinery platform for preform injection moulding, and adding numerous models to the linear and rotary blow moulding range. His most recent move was to purchase Berchi for filling PET bottles in line. In the same Top Talk interview with PETplanet, Gianfranco Zoppas quoted his sales figures being “approxi- mately €200 millions evenly balanced between one stage and two stage”. As the company is privately owned, current figures do not need to be dis- closed and are not available. Single stage – so we were told – currently represents 25% of sales. Blowers (rotary and linear) appear to be Sipa’s bestsellers. Even without knowing the figures and just from our visit to the Vit- torio Veneto facility, Sipa is clearly