PETpla.net Insider 05 / 2015

EDITOUR REPORT 16 PET planet insider Vol. 16 No. 05/15 www.petpla.net from PVC to PET. At the time, I was already in contact with SGT France and suggested the idea of building their own location here in Algeria.” The well-known water bottler Ifri was a pioneer in the introduction of PET bottles in Algeria in 1996, located some 300km to the southeast. Major brands Coca-Cola and Pepsi later followed suit in 1999 and 2000. Due to the lack of an on-site preform supplier, Ifri obtained its pre- forms from SGT France until 2000. “After I had discussed everything with SGT France, we got going and started with the construction of the plant here in Algeria in 2001. Back then, the company had two Husky GL300 machines with 48 moulds each. At the start, output was around 180 mil- lion performs per year. In the following years more Husky systems arrived. SGT Algeria today produces on a total of 15 preform machines in Rouiba (1x LX225, 7x GL300, 5x HyPET300, 2x HyPET300 HPP 4.0), and six at the second plant around 300km away in Sétif (5x HyPET300 HPP 4.0, 1x HyPET300 4.0), a total of 2.8 billion units. Thus, in 2013, the company had a market share of 63% in the processing of preforms, only measuring pure converters and without considering fillers who produce their own preforms. Turno- ver amounted to €110m. Exclusive contracts exist with Coca-Cola, Pepsi, Nestlé and Henkel. “We are still away from the peak of our performance,” says Mr Plotnikowa. “At the moment, SGT is running at just about 70% of its capacity, there is still room left for improvement. Our cur- rent PET consumption amounts to 68,000 tons of resin.” SGT obtains the resin from the Middle and Far East. More than 200 different kinds of preform can be found in the company’s portfolio with 19 different neck finishes plus optional barriers available for applications between 125ml to 20l. In particular, SGT offers 80 preform types for water, 60 preform types for CSD, 26 types for both juices and milk products, seven for especially large filling quantities, five for wine and schnapps, ten for edible oils and ten in the household and cleaning products sector. Mr Plotnikowa went on: “One of SGT’s main advan- tages is the joint product development with customers which is beyond our own capacity here. We proactively integrate our clients and implement their ideas and sugges- tions throughout the entire process.” The site in Rouiba comprises of 1850m 2 of floor space and employs 145 members of staff, Sétif occupies 1200m 2 with 50 members of staff. Preform production was expanded with two Husky HyCAP lines in 2003 that currently produce 800 million caps per year. “We regard Algeria as a closed market,” Mr Plotnikowa continued, “We export to Tunisia and Libya, but only in small amounts. Mindful of the political situation, closed borders and civil unrest, our attention is on Algeria. Exports within Africa via road haulage make little sense, are far too unsafe and costly.” When we asked about environmental issues, it is obvi- ous that we touch a nerve with Mr. Plotnikowa. “As the market leader, protecting the environmental is a major issue for us. We are organising ourselves here with other producers in the APAB (association of Algerian drinks man- ufacturers) in order to find ways of conserving resources and building an infrastructure for collection and recycling together. But at the moment, the collecting and separation of various post-consumer waste are the main tasks in order to deal with the pollution of the environment. “Our planning is long-term in nature, as bottle-2-bottle is far too expensive at the moment. Apart from that, we would first need the draft legislation in order to be allowed to use recycled materials in bottle production.” There is also a lot to be done with consumers, as awareness of using recycled materials in new packages has until now been low. According to surveys, consumers showed that they are reluctant to purchase recycled materials in the PET bottles of their choice. And just as we came across many times in our meetings with companies in Tunisia, Algerian legisla- tion is also regulating the use of recycled PET materials exclusively to non-food applications. “Our vision,” Mr. Plotnikowa tells us, “is full commitment to matters of environmental protection and recycling. We are responsible for this as a company and want to promote the issue, as we increasingly must!” www.sgt-pet.com André Plotnikowa, Managing Director f.l.t.r.: Mohamed Yazid Bounoua and André Plotnikowa in front of the HyPET 300