PETpla.net Insider 06 / 2016

CHINA EDITOUR 11 PET planet insider Vol. 17 No. 06/16 www.petpla.net Thus the Chinese beverage market can only grow organically as living standards improve. The poten- tial is huge. Looking at the official eco- nomic forecasts, growth in the future is likely to be of the order of 5%, a third of the figure for previous years. The bottlers however relied on the usual 15% growth of the economy, and now find themselves with significant overcapacity, which will decrease only slowly over the next few years. For the Chinese bottler growth is now only possible through intense competition rather than by exploiting the potential of new regions. The result is a dynamic market, as is to be found everywhere else in the world. A bit of normality. Particularly hard hit in this con- text are the manufacturers of bot- tling machinery. In China at present the market is all but dead. Sales of machinery from all manufactur- ers can be counted on the fingers of two hands. The market is still in its infancy, so the replacement machine business is not mature enough to be able to deal with the brutal realities of the current situation. In the preform and cap area, the situation is somewhat different. While the multinational OEMs continue with their classic strategy, buying preforms and caps, local brands are producing their own packaging themselves, i.e. preforms, closures, labels etc. Here the machine manufacturers are now trying to win round the group of in-house pro- ducers and converters. To bottlers with- out their own packaging facilities they are proposing their own production, while on the other hand they are build- ing converters, with the idea that the multinationals will buy, and the local bot- tlers will then follow suit. There is a lot of talk about this or that machinery, but market demand is not actually rising. The mould makers have come out best from the situation. Cut-throat competition amongst the bottlers calls for new designs, new caps. New moulds are therefore constantly required. A good example in this context is the light weighting in Coca Cola. In 1996, the 0.5l bottle came on the market, weighing in at 32g, in 2014 a landmark was achieved with 25.5g. For consumers this was just too thin, so Coca Cola increased the weight to today’s 28g. All the other market participants followed suit. Even the least expensive bottle today weighs in at 22g, a significant weight. China is not a lightweight country. A familiar problem in China is the copying of drinks. We have seen a number of interesting solutions to tackle the issue. On premium brand Red Bull, every packaging has its own QR code, and in addition the pack- aging is also marked with UV ink. Converters today supply caps with the individual QR code imprinted on the lid. The big trend at the moment is overcapping. A huge overcap is placed over the 28mm cap, giving it a classy appearance. The bottlers are currently displaying sports caps on their desks. Could this be the trend in the next few years? FILLING MACHINES ARE NOT PRESSURE TESTING MACHINES Is your pressure testing doing what it needs to do? The Agr PPT3000 is the only commercially available system WR IXOO\ VLPXODWH ȴOOLQJ SURFHVV SUHVVXUHV DQG LGHQWLI\ FRQWDLQHU IDLOXUH SRLQWV SULRU WR WKH ȴOOLQJ RSHUDWLRQ CONTACT US TODAY TO LEARN MORE! AGRINTL.COM | +1.724.482.2163 | SALES@AGRINTL.COM Overcapping is a big trend in China