PETpla.net Insider 07+08 / 2015

EDITOUR REPORT 16 PET planet insider Vol. 16 No. 07+08/15 www.petpla.net PET “The company entered the PET market only about ten years ago,” Justo Antonio Yanez Vega tells us, “and this was a decisive step forward for us. PVC as a material for home and body care packaging is being phased out and HDPE is also in decline. The local market e.g. for body care and cosmetics packaging is saturated, what is hap- pening is that glass and other plastics are being substituted with PET. In addition, the larger companies such as Col- gate are increasingly relocating production of the contain- ers abroad. PET has given us the opportunity to pursue the trend towards PET packaging in the home and body care sector and to put more effort into expanding other applica- tions like the foodstuffs sector.” Justo Antonio Yanez Vega continues: “Today, as far as the PET processing side is concerned, 50% is already produced for foodstuffs, fol- lowed by 25% body care and 25% home care. In order to do this, we have of course had to align our production environment for foodstuffs packaging in accordance with specifications, such as the installation of special filters for blowing air and separating PET container production from HDPE and PP processing in an air-conditioning environ- ment. In addition, the laboratory equipment and capacity have been adapted to comply with the Quality Assurance standards for foodstuffs packaging.” Justo Antonio Yanez Vega goes on to talk about machinery: “In the PET machinery sector we are opting more and more for two-stage stretch blow moulding machines for all containers with a neck diameter no larger than 36mm (and will continue to do so in the future). By comparison to the single-stage machines, two-stage are faster and more flexible and at the same time more eco- nomical as regards a number of applications.” Justo Antonio Yanez Vega offers his view of the Span- ish preform market: “A further advantage here is the fact that the Spanish preform market offers the required preforms at a favourable price. Our preform suppliers are Resilux, Appe and Alpla. By contrast, for wide neck containers the use of single-stage machines represents a better option. The reasons for this are the expensive special machines in the two-stage sector, particularly for preform production (large machines with a small capac- ity). This is why we have opted for a Nissei ASB 650 with eight blow moulding stations and neck ring crystallisation. The machine system produces wide neck containers with a neck finish diameter of 90mm. The neck crystallisation also enables us to offer hot fill applications of up to 98°C over a period of 15 minutes.” According to Justo Antonio Yanez Vega wide neck containers are in demand in the foodstuffs industry. “We envisage future market potential in Spain, in particular for PET jars. These wide neck containers already account for 20% of our production of instant coffee, mayon- naise and ketchup.” Market situation in Spain Spanish consumers are highly conservative and stub- born when it comes to the type of packaging to which they have grown accustomed. Hence it takes some time for the consumer to change from PP/PE or glass to PET and then only in conjunction with cheaper prices and/or enhanced benefits. In the case of mayonnaise and ketchup, for exam- ple, the market as regards PET is slowly picking up speed. Beer in PET is not acceptable in Spain. On the other hand, progress is being made as regards wine. Where home and body care are concerned, the change from PE to PET con- tinues apace, for example, the discount chain Mercadona in Spain has swapped all its PE packaging in the body and home care sector for PET. On the other hand, hot fill applications pose more of a problem in Spain because the fill specification for juices and other hot fill applications specifies around 110 to 145°C for up to 20min. Justo Antonio Yanez Vega explains: “This cannot be done with PET. We are able to achieve a stable heat of 98C° over a period of 15min with our equipment and this meets the food industry specifications for (as an example) wide neck jars. Here we envisage major market potential in the future for us.” www.farmaplas.com Supported by: