PETpla.net Insider 05 / 2017

BOTTLING / FILLING PET planet Insider Vol. 18 No. 05/17 www.petpla.net 34 Tour Sponsors: Peruvian concern bottles 300,000bph in Indonesia Big player in CSD by Alexander Büchler AJE, Bekasi, Indonesia, February 14, 2017 We met: Joe Miranda, Maintenance Chief AJE got big with the motto “Think BIGGER”. Now, it operates in 23 countries and is the fourth biggest CSD producer worldwide. We visited the bottling plant in Bekasi in Indonesia. The Peruvian worldwide concern AJE operates six bottling lines for CSD and isotonic beverages in Indo- nesia. We visited maintenance chief Joe Miranda at the plant in Bekasi. It is the first of three AJE plants in Indonesia. It started manufacturing there in 2010. In the plant there is a bottling facility which handles 70,000 bottles per minute and a Sacmi bot- tling machine which handles 35,000 bottles per hour. In the neighbouring plant which is only a few kilometres away, Netstal and Sipa facilities have been manufacturing preforms since 2014 and Sacmi compression lines produce the caps. As the latest acquisition, a hot fill facility is in operation for isotonic beverages. In total, all six bottling facilities together have a capacity of 300,000bph. Home brand Big Cola is bottled in an unusual size of 535ml. Other sizes are 300ml, 425ml, 1.8l und 3.1l. AJE was founded on June 23, 1988, a creation of Kola Real in Peru by the Añaños family. The Peruvian region of Ayacucho was devastated by the Shining Path guerrilla conflict, leading major beverage suppliers to pull out of business there. Noting this gap in the market, the Añaños family started to produce carbonated bever- ages under the “Kola Real” brand, starting with an orange-flavoured drink. They focused their business on selling drinks to segments of the population neglected by the leading brands, which were focused only on consumers with the highest purchas- ing power. Today, AJE is present in over 23 countries in Latin America, Asia and Africa. Annual sales volume amounts to 3.6 billion litres. Globally AJE is the 10 th largest soft drink company in sales volume and the 4 th largest producer of carbonated soft drinks (source: Euromonitor, 2011). And the 3 rd in carbonated drinks in those countries where it operates (source: Canadean Annual Soft Drinks – Wisdom – 2014). AJE has a broad portfolio of prod- ucts, with BIG Cola as its flagship brand. AJE produces carbonated soft drinks, water, juices, isotonic and energy drinks. AJE sells its products directly or through distributors in 23 coun- tries throughout Latin America, Asia and Africa: Bolivia, Brazil, Colom- bia, Costa Rica, Ecuador, Egypt, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Réunion Island, Mexico, Nicaragua, Nigeria, Panama, Peru, Venezuela, India, Indonesia, Thailand and Viet- nam. AJE products are also exported to and distributed in Cambodia, Malaysia, Myanmar and Laos. AJE has 32 manufacturing facilities with 89 bottling lines, 20 injection lines for the production of plastic bottles and 10 cap compression lines installed throughout its operations around the world. www.ajegroup.com Our Editourmobil at AJE Maintenance Chief Joe Miranda AJE in front of a picture of the founders Mr & Mrs Añaños AJE trusts on the SMI packager in the drying line. Go with the flow. South East Asia Road Show