PETpla.net Insider 11 / 2013

EDITOUR REPORTS 11 PET planet insider Vol. 14 No. 11/13 ing. “Also, we have continued to record consistent growth“. Today the company, with its 130 employees, is working on a 12,000m 2 production area with twelve Husky sys- tems, including two HyPETs, one 300 and one 120t, as well as series XL 300 and LX 300 machinery, equipped with moulds both from Husky and from a local supplier. Thus Andina Empaques produces around 20 different types of preforms from 12g to 127g with a PCO 1881 and a PCO 1810 neck finish, depending on the application and/or further processing. There are three Sidel lines - SBO 10, SBO 6 and SBO 4 - available for the blowing process on the returnable bot- tles. Here an annual capac- ity of 700 million preforms is achieved for the production of disposable bottles and 50 million ready labelled return- able bottles. Refillable bot- tles can be decorated by two methods: “Serigraphy” and “Heat transfer labelling”. A break of up to two weeks per year is allowed for mainte- nance work which is carried out in a 4-shift operation. Customers for preforms and bottles include, in addition to Andina itself, Coca-Cola Femsa and Arca as well as others. 95% of PET products stay in the Argentine market; a small proportion for export to Paraguay accounts for the remainder. One mate- rial supplier, for example, is the bottle-to-bottle recycler Cabelma, which contributes around 20% of recycled PET to virgin PET. In mat- ters relating to the use of recycled PET in the material process, says Caridi, they are also developing methods together with DAK. Their biggest competi- tors in the Argentine preform business are, in addition to small producers, Alpla and Amcor.Since 2011 Coca- Cola‘s plant bottle for 0.5l bottles has also been coming off the line. This year the company is also moving into the closure manufacturing sector. A Sumitomo Demag line with a capacity of 500 million for closures to PCO 1881 UCL Standard has already been purchased and start-up is scheduled for the autumn. Here their competi- tors will be CSI, Sinea, Beri- General Manager Daniel Caridi (right) and Kay Barton in the labelling und printing area at Andina. When printing, the logo is put on the bottle in three layers associated with the differ- ent colours. 360°