PETpla.net Insider 06+07 / 2014

PET news 6 PET planet insider Vol. 15 No. 06+07/14 www.petpla.net Avantium raises €36M investment for bio-based bottles Avantium announced that it has closed a financing round of €36 million ($50 million) from a consortium of strategic players. This consists of Swire Pacific, The Coca-Cola Com- pany, Danone, Alpla and existing shareholders. With this capital raise the new investors affirm their commitment to advancing polyester polyethylene-furanoate (PEF). Proceeds will be used to complete the industrial validation of PEF and finalise the engineering & design of the first commercial scale plant. As part of its strategy to use responsibly sourced plant based materials for PEF production, Avantium will vali- date the use of 2 nd generation feedstock. Follow on investments were made by existing sharehold- ers Sofinnova Partners, Capricorn Venture Partners, ING Corporate Investments, Aescap Venture, Navitas Capital, Aster Capital and De Hoge Dennen Capital. Avantium has focused its efforts on PEF, which is said to be an analogue of PET. PEF could replace PET in typical applications like films, fibres and in particular bottles for the packaging of soft drinks, water, alcoholic beverages, fruit juices food and non-food products. www.avantium.com Intravis 2 nd International User Meeting The requirements of the plastics packaging industry are constantly evolving and the manufacturers need to keep up. The 1 st International User Meeting of Intravis GmbH offered a platform for discussing current and future challenges. The German company dealing in optical test systems for the worldwide plastics packaging industry once again invited cus- tomers, colleagues and interested parties to participate in an exchange in Aachen, Germany. More than 50 visitors from twelve nations addressed the topic “All About Plastics Packaging“. Within the framework of compact presentations and the opportunity for an exchange of know-how, the participants talked about their experiences with Intravis systems and the coming challenges in the markets of the plastics packaging industry. Many of those participating were plant managers and auditors and therefore in relatively close proximity to the product under scrutiny. The topics discussed at the English language User Meetings ranged from “Innovative High Output Sorting and Assembly Solutions for the Caps and Closures Industry” to “In-Mould-Labelling and Barrier Technology”. Quality Manager Alexander Werner of Alpla Werke Alwin Lehner GmbH & Co KG provided some insights into the internal quality manage- ment system which is currently supported by around 500 Intravis systems worldwide. www.intravis.de Haidlmair acquires remainder of Mould & Matic Solutions Haidlmair GmbH is acquiring an additional 50% share in Mould & Matic Solutions GmbH from Greiner Packag- ing International GmbH. This will make it the sole owner of the company. The parties agreed not to disclose any information on the purchase price. Mould & Matic’s core competencies include the manu- facture of machine tools and automation solutions for the packaging industry with expertise in the technologies of thermoforming, injection moulding and blow moulding. www.haidlmair.at More than 40,000 PET collection points in Switzerland PET Recycling Switzerland is now collaborating with the Valora Group in the PET recycling sector. In order to make the disposal of empty PET beverage bottles as easy as possible for the consumer, they can also be handed in at any shop in the broad Swiss kiosk network operated by the Valora Group. The kiosk sales personnel then ensure that, once collected, the bottles collected find their way back into the recycling loop. As a result of the collaboration with the Valora Group, it has been possible to achieve an increase in the density of collection points related to snacking-on-the-go and to create even more convenience for consumers. A total of more than 40,000 voluntary as well as dedicated PET col- lection points are now available for the use of consumers. www.prs.ch www.valora.com New MD at PET Recycling Switzerland As of June 1, 2014 Jean-Claude Würmli (46) took up the position of Managing Director at PET Recycling Swit- zerland, taking over from the previous incumbent, René Herzog, who had held the position for a number of years and who has now retired. Würmli has set himself the goal of making further improvements to the recycling system and preparing the sector for new permutations of recy- clables such as plastic bottles or polyethylene (PE) foils. To do this he is keen to work even more intensively with other partner organisations with a view to enabling eve- ryone concerned to profit from individual strengths and to make use of synergies. Würmli was, for more than ten years, Marketing Direc- tor and Deputy Managing Director at PET Recycling Swit- zerland. Prior to that he had been active in Marketing and Sales within the music and fashion industries. www.petrecycling.ch