PETpla.net Insider 11+12 / 2017

38 TRADE SHOW REVIEW PET planet Insider Vol. 18 No. 11+12/17 www.petpla.net TRADE SHOW review Well T-handled The company Side, located in Barcelona, Spain, presented the new generation of machine and innovation of its T-handle concept for PET containers. In this system for producing containers with handles, the handle is formed during the blowing process itself. “The big advantage is that there is no need for subsequent modification to the containers”, says Josep Jimenez. The system is suitable for producing bottles of up to 4l in a variety of design options, such as oval, square or round containers, coloured or transparent and opaque with a flex- ible handle position. What they all have in common is that the starting product is a standard preform. “After one year of development, we were able to offer the market a solution to produce handled products using our range of SBM machines with a significant reduction in costs compared to other solutions. Besides the use of standard preforms, the production time is very fast. On a 4-cavity machine, we can produce >4,000bph. And as there is no need for any further changes to the container, labour-intensive post-processing can be omitted”, says Jimenez. When asked for his estimation for this market, he stated: “The beverage market is look- ing for big PET containers with handles, and other industries such as detergents are also registering an increased demand from their customers.” Besides the handle solution, Side was featuring the new generation of its PET blow moulding machinery, the 2006e model, as well as blowing solutions for high- capacity containers up to 50l such as PET kegs. www.sidemachines.com Advanced pad printing technology for bottle closures German printing equipment manufac- turer Tampoprint AG chose the Drinktec trade show to present its “Continuous Circular” system, which it has just reg- istered for a patent. The machine, which has a compact footprint, delivers 360° printing of closures in a continuous process. This latest devel- opment of rotational pad printing can be equipped with several printing modules and used for single- or multi-colour print- ing of cylindrical closures. It can be also used as a combined automation solution with printing on top ends, if required. “The machine prints to the highest accuracy on cylindrical parts such as metal closures for wine bottles and spir- its,” Sales Manager Thilo Reichelt said. “Depending on the type of closure, it can produce up to 15,000 units per hour. In addition to the standard colour range, metallic finishes such as gold and silver can also be printed”, Tampoprint asserts that its machines are easy to operate and offer users the potential for new print designs. www.tampoprint.de Best-ever result at drinktec 2017 With over 76,000 visitors from more than 170 countries, drinktec has chalked up the best-ever result in its 66-year his- tory. The number of visitors rose by 10,000 over the previous event in 2013. In particular at the international level, the trade fair was able to grow attendance again, this time by 12%. The ratio of visitors from outside Germany thus rose to 67%. The number of exhibitors increased to 1,749 from 80 countries. That is mainly attributable to the wine technology trade fair Simei, which was held as part of drinktec for the first time, as well as further growth in the number of exhibitors at drinktec itself. The number of visitors from China was more than 2,000, an increase of 65%. That means China already occupies second spot in the rankings of the top 10 countries of origin for visi- tors - behind Italy, which likewise recorded a sharp increase thanks to Simei: by around 45% to 5,240 visitors. There was also a striking rise in attendance from South America. Simei apparently helped boost the number of visitors from Argentina to 545 (an increase of 165%). 1,100 visitors came from Brazil, a rise of 40%. France, likewise a wine country, came fourth this year with 1,800 visitors. Apart from Italy, China and France, other countries in the top ten were Russia (1,857 visitors), the UK (1,619), the U.S. (1,570), Austria (1,567), Spain (1,254) and the Netherlands (1,221). A few of those exhibitors related to PET can be found in our PETplanet Insider Drinktec review. www.drinktec.com