PETpla.net Insider 04 / 2014

imprint EDITORIAL PUBLISHER Alexander Büchler, Managing Director HEAD OFFICE heidelberg business media GmbH Häusserstr. 36 69115 Heidelberg, Germany phone: +49 6221-65108-0 fax: +49 6221-65108-28 info@hbmedia.net EDITORIAL Doris Fischer : fischer@hbmedia.net Gabriele Kosmehl Michael Maruschke Ruari McCallion Waldemar Schmitke Ilona Trotter Wolfgang von Schroeter Anthony Withers MEDIA CONSULTANTS Martina Hirschmann hirschmann@hbmedia.net Roland Loch loch@hbmedia.net phone: +49 6221-65108-0 fax: +49 6221-65108-28 France, Italy, Spain, UK Elisabeth Maria Köpke phone: +49 6201-878925 fax: +49 6201-878926 koepke@hbmedia.net LAYOUT AND PREPRESS Exprim Kommunikationsdesign Matthias Gaumann | www.exprim.de READER SERVICES Heike Fischer reader@hbmedia.net PRINT Chroma Druck & Verlag GmbH Werkstr. 25 67354 Römerberg Germany WWW www.hbmedia.net | w ww.petpla.net PETplanet insider ISSN 1438-9459 is published 10 times a year. This publication is sent to qualified subscribers (1-year subscription 149 EUR, 2-year subscription 289 EUR, Young professionals’ sub- scription 99 EUR. Magazines will be dispatched to you by airmail). Not to be reproduced in any form without permission from the publisher. Note: The fact that product names may not be identified as trade marks is not an indication that such names are not registered trademarks. 3 PET planet insider Vol. 15 No. 04/14 www.petpla.net dear readers, Closures, closures, closures … We are currently on our travels in Italy with our Editourmobil and already we have held a number of meetings with bottlers, preform producers and suppliers. They are all moaning about the high costs, in particular for electricity and diesel. According to them, they are the highest in the world. The economic crisis is still a thorn in the side of the Italian consumer and the beverages market overall is shrinking year by year. Despite this, every company we visited has managed to find its way through the crisis. The priority topic at every meeting was how to reduce energy and materials. And, probing more deeply, the clo- sure very often emerged as the source of inspiration for significant savings. It is the one-piece closure that, time after time, is ushering in new savings here. The dividing line is sometimes nothing more than the payback period for the changeover. It is only after this that we find the weight factor going down by leaps and bounds. Although annual preform consumption in Italy remains fairly consistent at 10billion, materials usage is falling at a rate of between 5 and 8% a year. The Italian machine manufacturers are also following this trend. For example, Sacmi has again made some definite gains in cycle time thanks to better cooling. Moreover, 80% of the installations supplied are compression systems for single-piece closures. A few years ago things were different. At that time the two-piece closure was the dominant feature. However, this is a trend that is not just in evidence in Italy. On our last tour in the Editourmobil we visited Coca Cola in Brazil. At the time the proportion of two-piece closures was 80%; today the ratio is reversed. Now it is the turn of the one-piece closure to assume the 80% share. Once again it is becoming clear that the trends in closures are exerting pressure on the whole of the PET sector. Yours Alexander Büchler