PETpla.net Insider 07+08 / 2013

EDITOUR REPORTS 14 PET planet insider Vol. 14 No. 07+08/13 www.petpla.net Poland is the happy recipient of excellent water flow- ing directly from the Carpathian Mountains which sepa- rate Poland from the Czech Republic and Slovakia. Which explains precisely why so many breweries and water bottlers have established themselves in the region. And of course where there are bottlers, can preform producers be far behind? In the ten years since Poland joined the EU, the country has prospered. Nevertheless sales of packaged bever- ages have been stagnating for a number of years. Preform production is currently running at some 5bn per year, yet companies are continuing to expand their capacities. Alpla reckons there is a 30% or so overcapacity in the preform sector. Even last year, when the Ukraine co-hosted Euro 2012, there was no additional demand for PET packaging. The strategy of those involved in the market varies from company to company. Alpla lost its top dog status with its standard portfolio of specialities and recycling; preform producer Hanex by contrast tried to hedge its bets with innovative closure design and film manufacture. Meanwhile preform manufacturer Oldi, a subsidiary of UAB in Lithu- ania is adopting a much more relaxed stance and is even contemplating investing in new capacity. Poland A stagnating market with too much capacity In the final stage of our tour of Eastern Europe, we cross Poland from the Ukraine, skirting the Car- pathian mountains, and then heading south of Warsaw before making our way back to Germany. by Alexander Büchler Waldemar Schmitke September 11, 2012 Alpla, Zywiec We met: Stanislaw Biernat Plant Manager Stanislaw Biernat (Plant Manager, left)) and Waldemar Schmitke (right) Nuremberg Nizhny Novgorod Kazan Perm Yekaterinburg Chelyabinsk Yaroslavskaya Moscow Ufa Samara Saratov Volgograd Rostov-on-Don Dnipropetrovsk Kiev Warsaw Novgorod Saint Petersburg Gatchina Fryazino Kamenka Lipetsk Zaporishsha Mykolaiv Kharkiv Chernihiv Kalinovka Lübeck