PETpla.net Insider 11 / 2015

BOTTLE MAKING 20 PET planet insider Vol. 16 No. 11/15 www.petpla.net Tour Sponsors: A perspective on the Coca-Cola preform and bottle manufacturer in the USA by Kay Barton June 17, 2015 - We met: Mr Eric Scott, COO and Mr Mike Cox, General Manager Houston, Texas, is where the, chronologically-speak- ing, second factory of five, belonging to the Western Container Corporation, exclusive suppliers of pre- forms and bottles to the Coca-Cola network in the USA, is located. Here at the Houston location we have an appointment with Mike Cox, local General Manager, as well as with Eric Scott, the COO from the Head Office in Sugar Land, like- wise in Texas. Western Container was set up in 1979 by independent bottlers from the Texas region in response to an increasing demand for a centralised sales office for plastic bottles. It was against this background that the first factory emerged in Big Springs, Texas, in which the first PET bottles, at that time still in the 2l size category, were produced as far back as 1980. The second plant in Houston was built in 1984. Other plants followed later - Hattiesburg, Mississippi in 1998, Tolleson, Arizona in 2002 and 2006 in Fife, Washington. 86% of the shares in Western Container are held by Coca-Cola Refreshments, the remain- der are distributed among independ- ent Coca-Cola bottlers. Eric Scott has been there since 2005 and explains: “At the end of the 1970s, before Western Container, Coca-Cola was supplied with bottles by companies such as Johnson Con- trols, Amcor and Constar, to name but a few examples. The main reasons for the emergence of Western Container were issues related to freight. The transport costs, for example, were quite high and so the bottlers decided to manufacture their own bottles on a centralised basis.” Today Western Container’s net sales amount to something like US$380 million and the company produces quite substantial volumes. Taking into account all its locations, the company is currently supplying 3.4 billion bottles and 2.6 billion preforms to the Coca-Cola system. Of all the locations, the Houston site with an area of 23,200m 2 , is the largest bottle producer within the group of compa- nies with an output of around 1 billion bottles and 600 million preforms annu- ally. The company employs a total of 480 people across all sites. Western Container achieves these volumes using 36 injection moulding machines with 96, 128, 144 and 192 cavities. There are four machines available for the last size mentioned. According to Eric Scott, Western Container utilises a mix made up of various types of Husky systems and Netstal PET-Line 6000 systems. Here at the Houston facility, there is a Husky G-Line and a Husky IND- 600 in operation injection mould- ing preforms. On the blow moulding machine side there is a total of 20 systems from KHS and Sidel across Western Container Corporation avail- able, each with from 16 to 34 cavities. In Houston there are two Sidel SBO- 34s and one SBO-30. “Our products are all sold in the southern and west- ern parts of the USA,” says Mike Cox. “Today a definite trend is develop- ing towards more and more bottlers manufacturing bottles themselves. As a result, Western Container is anxious to expand its preform sector further in the long term.” We ask the experts about trends on the beverages side. “We think that the market for water will continue to register a boom for some time yet. Current growth rates are around 10% annually and there is still no end in sight,” declares Eric Scott. www.westerncontainercoke.com F.r.t.l.: Mike Cox, Eric Scott and Kay Barton