PETpla.net Insider 01+02 / 2018

BOTTLE MAKING 18 PET planet Insider Vol. 19 No. 01+02/18 www.petpla.net A reunion with a booming company by Kay Barton It is more than eight years since we last spoke with Imco Food Pack; the opportunity to do so again was very welcome. The family-owned company is part of the Imco Group, which also includes Combipack (for (LD)PE extrusion tubes); Imco Label; and Imco Pack, which is active in PP and (HD)PE packaging of non-food products. Sixty percent of its conversion work is in processing of PET, with the balance (40%) being PP. During our previous visit, in 2009, the company had placed its trust in high-quality equipment for sustainable growth (see PETplanet Insider 09/2009). At that time, the forecast by company manager Krieng- sak Panrattanamongkol - the son of founder Vibul Panrattanamongkol - was for growth of around 10% for the 2009 financial year. He confirmed to us that the company’s overall growth has remained pretty constant, at between 8-10% through all the years to this day. Imco Food Pack Co., Ltd., June 21, 2017 We met: Mr Kriengsak Panrattanamongkol, Managing Director Mr Thanakrit Kongkorawit, QMR & QR Manager drive from central Bangkok, towards Rayong. Mr Panrattanamongkol and QMR & QR Manager Mr Kongkorawit welcomed us to the meeting room. The photos from then and now reveal very little change in the appearance of the company’s director. “Imco has been going for a long time; the company was officially registered as a business in Thai- land back in 1967”, says Mr Pan- rattanamongkol. “My father started with extrusion, an important part of our business, and one that still exists today. 2003 saw the start of our Imco Food Pack business. We began with PP thin-wall products before moving into PET, three years later.” Today, Imco produces 30-40 million preforms, 40 million closures and 20 million bottles a month. Ninety percent of the PET stays in Thailand, leaving around 10% for export. The majority of the PET bot- tles are used for water and aseptic packaging. “The market here has moved strongly away from hot-fill”, says Mr Panrattanamongkol. The machines have partly been expanded and some new ones have been added. Its three Husky HyPET systems have been upgraded from 48 to 72 cavities; two more HPP4 4.0 machines, each with 96 cavities, have been added, along with a Sipa PPS 300. An Intravis Prewatcher has been installed for product testing. Imco’s bottle portfo- lio ranges from 13.5g to 37.5g, with PCO 1881, PCO 1810, 29/25, 30/25 or 38mm neckfinishes, as well as crystallised. Four Sidel systems - an SBO 8, SBO 10, SBO14 and SBO 16 - and two Sipa SFL linear blowing lines are to be found in the blowing area. The bottles range from 280ml to 1.5l. Imco uses Sacmi compres- sion lines and a Netstal Elion for the production of the closures. There is also a Nissei ASB 8-cavity machine and four Netstal Synergy 5000 units for the PP thin-walled cups, and a Synergy 3500. Tour Sponsors: Managing Director Kriengsak Panrattanamongkol at Imco’s entrance area In the PET segment alone, Imco recorded a 10% annual increase, and has expanded its previous machinery park and activities in order to cope with demand. It now has a total of five locations, which are mostly located around Bangkok plus some in-house production facilities at bottlers. In 2016 it opened a new plant in Indo- nesia for the production of HDPE- extruded packaging. Imco Food Pack is located in the Bangpakong district, about an hour’s