PETpla.net Insider 09 / 2016

BOTTLE MAKING 21 PET planet insider Vol. 17 No. 09/16 www.petpla.net SPONSORS Suntory’s technology now follows market demand “heavier weight” bottle making The China Road Show June 1, 2016, Huiyuan Suntory (Shanghai) Beverage, Shanghai We met: Hioki Munetaka, Beverage Technology & Quality Assurance Department Director and Atsuhiko Iida Brand Division, Director The Japanese beverage company Suntory, with its total turnover of almost US$23bn, is one of the ten largest food manufacturers in the world. Some of its most famous brands are Yemon (green tea), Orangina and Jim Beam. In China, Suntory has been run- ning its own production since 1984. Initially, the company started brew- ing beer. In 1995, a joint venture for hot-filled beverages such as tea was set up. In 1996, a second brewery followed in Shanghai. In 2003, the company bought itself out of the joint venture, then again formed strategic alliances with new partners in 2015. In recent years, China has moved in a completely new direction. Together with its local partner Huiyuan, the Japanese re-set the market. Suntory made a decision that they would not have their own plants, all production go to contracted factories (OEM). Since then Santory has been focusing on product development and brand management. The beer activities were sold to Tsingtao. At the intersection between pro- duction at Huiyuan and Suntory sits Hioki Munetaka, Beverage Technol- ogy & Quality Assurance Department Director. He ensures that the 250 million PET bottles are all of the best quality. Suntory is committed to Japa- nese principles, such as safety and quality. This cannot be achieved with discount brands, and so all products by Suntory are pitched at a reason- able mid-price point. Clocking in at over 20 years, hot-filled tea has been running the longest. The product is now entering its second generation on the Chinese market. This is unusual, as the Chinese market moves very fast and is prone to change, Atsuhiko Iida, Director of the Brand Division, explains. A new line of flavoured water market is primarily a market where packaged beverages are consumed on the go. Sports caps are still not on Alex’s radar. With a final price of about CNY 5 (EUR 0.67), it is difficult to turn the added value of sports caps into turnover. In China, Alex is seeing another trend in e-commerce. They order whole cases (24 bottles) on the internet for delivery direct to their homes for their convenience. The price per bottle then goes below the retail price. Neither Hioki nor Alex is keen to forecast trends in China over the coming five years. The market there is too fast-paced. The only thing that is certain is that that they will con- tinue to research, develop, and bring new flavours to market there, always under the watchful Japanese premise of safety and quality. www.suntoryfoods-china.com brand that was launched three years ago took off in a big way which has become a new category in the market. 30% of the products are running on hot-fill machines, 60% on aseptic and 10% in cans. In respect of the weight of hot-fill bottles, Hioki has been working on weight reduction. In 2012, he was able to go from 26.5g to 23.5g by design optimisation. In the last year, with a new neck finish, he was able to reduce it to 21.3g. He has also been devoting considerable effort over the years to aseptic bottles. In 2014, he got the weight down to 16.8g, in 2015 to 14.8g, and then Marketing issued a cautionary note: Chinese consumers associate soft bottles with cheapness, so the weight was increased again. For Hioki, this was the first time in his career that he was able to properly put on weight. Currently in China, the Suntory aseptic bottle is being produced at 22.04g, and even that is slightly heavier than the hot-fill bottle. Despite the high weight, savings are made at the base of the bottles via Husky’s Ecobase design. In Japan and everywhere else, Suntory is con- tinuing to fill lightweight bottles. At Toyo Seikan in Shanghai, the aseptic products are bottled profit- ably by machines developed by Toyo Seikan in collaboration with Lehui, a Chinese filler manufacturer. The pre- forms and closures are also produced at Toyo Seikan. Apart from 0.5l, small packaging sizes of about 350ml are also important, because the Chinese F.l.t.r.: Atsuhiko lida, Alexander Büchler and Hioki Munetaka