PETpla.net Insider 12 / 2015

PACKING / PALLETISING 30 PET planet insider Vol. 16 No. 12/15 www.petpla.net The real alternative to glass by Alexander Büchler ‘The real alternative to glass’ is the motto of the converter Gepack in Peoria, AZ USA. Joao Ganhao, General Manager, sees lots of potential for his company in PET containers for the pharmaceuticals sector, wine or spirits. Almost invariably the template is a heavy duty glass container which stands to be replaced by a PET container with a similar look to it. This approach is not actually new as far as the USA is con- cerned, but, in contrast to the competition, they do not offer any HDPE alternatives. Joao Ganhao: “We manufacture pre- mium packaging, so there is no alterna- tive to PET, as far as we are concerned.” And, to help him meet his aspirations for a premium product, Joao Ganhao has bought all his machines for the production operation (which was only set up in 2014) from Europe and Japan. The compres- sors come from Germany, the materials handling system from Italy and the single stage lines from Japan. Gepack US is a subsidiary of Gepack Portugal. In Portugal the company pro- duces premium PET containers to the same high standard. Their expertise in the development of packaging and in the prototyping sector has existed for a number of years, and the American unit is keen to take advantage of it. Joao Ganhao conducted a detailed analysis of the market prior to 2014 and identified the Californian bottlers specifi- cally for the Gepack PET wine bottles. However, California as a location was too expensive for him. Here in Arizona, not far from Phoenix, he has everything he needs including adequate transport capacity to his customers in the direc- tion of California. The background is that California provides 60% of all the fruit and vegetables grown in the USA, and during the harvest season from April to October every square metre of cargo space is fully occupied with farm produce. Such is the amount of fruit and salad being transported from California to the East that there is room for little else, but on the return journey it is a different story. According to Joao Ganhao, as many as five out of six wagons return empty to California, thus increasing availabil- ity, whilst dramatically reducing overall transport costs. This is a key factor for packaging involving stretch blow moulded bottles. However, Gepack’s repertoire in terms of interesting packaging is not restricted purely to replacing glass. Cus- tomers are also coming to slowly appreci- ate the degrees of freedom inherent in the design of the PET bottle. This means that the single serve bottle complete with integrated drinking receptacle is a step in the right direction for the wine market. Currently the floor space given over to production and warehousing is something like 16,000m². But just next door there is already a factory building covering 12,000m² available for further expansion. www.gepackusa.com BERI CAP Technology The plastic closure company committed to your success www.bericap.com Research and Development Mould Technology | Global Presence Capping Technology and Know-How Innovation and Flexibility Neck ring-free PET wine bottles in green. Tour Sponsors: PACKAGING special