PETpla.net Insider 12 / 2013

CAPPING / CLOSURES 31 PET planet insider Vol. 14 No. 12/13 www.petpla.net The market is clearly segmented:  In two-piece closures such as for CSD – high volume/low margin. Characteristic: very competitive;  in speciality closures such as sports caps, flip caps, complex contour closures. Characteristic: low volume;  in one-piece closures such as for water and, more recently, also for CSD. Characteristic: high volume. A few years ago the distribution of two-piece closures was around 85%, one-piece closures 15%. Today the distribution is completely reversed: now it is 15% for two-piece closures and 85% for one-piece closures. For all types – two-piece, special- ity and one-piece closures – the same primary requirements on the part of the market apply:for higher or highest quality, for minimum energy consump- tion, for minimum materials usage. Practically all participants in the market acknowledge these require- ments, have developed/formulated suit- able strategies and have introduced the measures needed to further their aims. Processing There are two recognised proce- dures – compression moulding and injection moulding. Both processes are highly efficient in terms of output and productivity.  Processing of two-piece closures – almost exclusively reserved for compression moulding.  Processing of speciality caps – exclusively for injection moulding.  Processing of one-piece closure – with injection and compression moulding in fierce competition, with injection moulding gradually gain- ing in competitivity. The converter’s decision in favour of one or the other process is based on factual and economic considera- tions depending on the design of cap, but there is often also an emotional response developed over the years by tradition and actual experience. Clo- sures are manufactured either by spe- cialist converters (approx. 60%), who then supply the bottlers and/or are produced by the bottlers themselves, for their own use, and are thus known as Integrated Bottlers (approx. 40%). Market data The data are extracted from research companies specialising in the analysis of the beverages sector and are cross-checked with our inter- nal data after consultation at K 2013. Thus we are able to conclude:  Global volume of plastic closures for PET bottle applications in 2012 = approx. 480 billion;  of this volume, approx. 40% was for mineral water applications, approx. 30% for CSD applications, approx. 30% for JNSDIT (juices, nectars, still drinks, isotonics and teas) – with growth potential in water and JNSDIT;  approx. closure market distribution: 19% North America, 17% South America, 18% Western Europe, 8% Eastern Europe, 3% Africa, 5% Middle East, 30% Asia;  Approx. 260 billion caps and clo- sures are compression moulded, i.e. 55%;  220 billion caps & closures are injection moulded, i.e. just below 45%;  the share of compression and injection moulding varies in differ- ent markets. In Asia, especially China, compression predominates with almost 80%, with injection at only 20%. By contrast, in Europe 80% is in injection moulding and only 20% compression. Machinery Compression moulding is domi- nated by one single machine supplier. The entire compression moulding system including peripheral equip- ment (quality control, slitting, cap assembly, etc) comes from Sacmi of Italy, who have supplied 1,300 compression moulding machines since the beginning of 1994. The hi-tech injection moulding sector is split between a number of specialist suppliers of equipment: moulds, hot runner and injection machinery as well as peripheral equipment (auto- mation, quality control, etc.) – from Europe, Canada and US. The bigger and prominent suppliers of injection moulding machines also offer com- plete systems. Apart from one prominent excep- tion – Husky had expressed a prefer- ence to service their customers by means of conference events at their international branches – the full com- plement of engineers in the fields of components, machinery and sys- tems for manufacturing closures was represented at K 2013. The majority featured exhibits on generously pro- portioned stand areas, presented with some ostentation by highly motivated teams from their engineering and sales departments of the individual companies. We asked everyone the same questions, namely about the product and state of the art technology, about innovation and unique selling points, about trends and a sustained stra- tegy for handling these trends. The answers given to us were obtained in the course of individual interviews. We have adopted an abbreviated format for reporting on the meetings. The picture that emerged overall was one of a vital, very much alive sector. (The sequence of reports is random, being based on the chrono- logical sequence of the meetings. The technical information, in particular the unique selling points (USPs) that we have adopted into the reports without making any comments or criticisms, represent the opinions and statements of our interviewees). Sacmi We met: Vezio Bernardi, Beverage General Manager Caps production, Italian style, at the Sacmi booth at K 2013 It is a very surprising phenomenon on this caps & closures market that one manufacturer (namely Sacmi from Italy) is maintaining a share of 55% with