PETpla.net Insider 10 / 2016

BOTTLING / FILLING 32 PET planet Insider Vol. 17 No. 10/16 www.petpla.net SPONSORS The China Road Show fulfilment of customers’ requirements. Eight of the 17 plants in China are OEM bottling plants only. The com- pany works with all of the well-known national and multinational brands. In China, these include Coca-Cola, Pep- siCo and Danone. The company is currently valued at around US$430m. During my stay in Taichung I got to visit one of the two plants there that bottle solely on an aseptic basis. Long standing business relationships with suppliers such as Sidel and Husky are reflected in the state-of-the-art equip- ment. At this plant, THC bottles tea and coffee products. During my visit a batch of up to 36,000 bottles of asepti- cally bottled water, packaged under the Coca-Cola Group Shuisenhuo brand name, was running on the con- veyor belt. This was a rare sight that I was quite privileged to witness. The Taichung factory’s equip- ment includes a Sidel SBO 20 blower, FMa 70/20, a labelling machine and multi-packing machinery from SMI Italy, for shrink-wrapping and sub- sequent packaging in cartons. The factory produces around 40 differ- ent products, in approximately 180 million cartons each year, in 600ml and 975ml standard bottling sizes. The preforms, which are produced on Husky equipment, feature an 1881 neck finish and weigh 20-37g. For the Taiwanese market the company uses G-line, HyPET 3.0, HyPET 4.0, and HPP Husky machines, which pro- duce 1.6bn of the group’s 10bn total preform output, which are destined for both further processing as co-packers and for straightforward sale. At its second aseptic plant in Taichung the company recently installed a complete Sidel solution, consisting of a Combi Predis FMa Capdis with a blow- moulding, bottling and sealing unit. With its deployment of dry decontami- nation technology, with the preform and seals, this plant is able to achieve an output of up to 40,000bph. When I arrived in the headquar- ters, Julia Tang, Sales Representa- tive, and Joanne Liu, Project Man- ager Trading Department guided me through THC’s World of Information, while we discussed company phi- losophy and (PET) packaging. The real fossils in the marble flooring of the entrance area are supposed to symbolise history, the presentation of a group of flying geese symbolises teamwork, while a large scale, real- life stalactite aims to sharpen one’s sense for small-scale and continuous change and its impact. On the first floor, visitors find the packaging museum and the PET bottle skywalk. The museum is home to fixed exhibits and to 900 informa- tion sheets that provide information about them. A step-by-step history of packaging is displayed on a series of touch screens. This section also features a product showroom, a hall of company awards, an interactive PET game and much more; it is the permanent manifestation of THC’s strategy and “open house” orientation. It would be quite possible to spend a few hours on the first floor – but the second floor features a fully equipped cinema which, in addition to show- ing movies, is used for meetings and presentations. It was there that I was introduced to Keith Dai, whose father founded the company. He assumed the role of company Chairman in 1996. “We serve global players as well as small, local companies. But we do much more than just that. We want to communicate our philosophy and mission in society as a whole,” Dai explains. “It isn’t just about making profits, but ensuring that our work and our service is received positively at the local level and that its phi- losophy is understood. Regardless of the changing technology behind the global manufacturing of drinks, drinks will always be a necessity.” “When we talk about packaging, the environmental perspective should be one of the top topics,” he con- tinues. “In the future, in my opinion,