PETpla.net Insider 01+02 / 2020

BOTTLING / FILLING PET planet Insider Vol. 21 No. 01+02/20 www.petpla.net 22 From mineral water to 60 different preform designs by Michael Maruschke Tour Sponsors: Aditya Dugar (left) with Michael Maruschke at the Editourmobil May, 2019 We met: Mr Aditya Dugar, Managing Director When Ruptex was founded by Aditya Dugar’s father in 1998, as a bottler for mineral water, its preform production capacity amounted to 20 tonnes per month, with blowing and filling output of 60 bottles per minute. His father encouraged Aditya, from his early schooldays, to come to the company in his free time to learn all the aspects of business – and he did so. He formally joined company in 2007. Today, Ruptex is in good shape, making healthy profits with a focus on preform production; mineral water is not part of the operation any more. Aditya considers it a difficult business with small margins and difficult to operate in, without a well-established brand. He looks after Sales and Purchasing and another relative manages production. Today, the company has an annual capacity of 8,000 tonnes. Preforms are produced in Bhiwadi, Rajasthan, approximately two and a half hours’ drive from New Delhi. It produces about 60 different designs, ranging from 7 g to 300 g, on seven Toshiba and five Ferromatik injec- tion moulding machines. At the heart of preform manufacture is a Husky H-PET machine with a 40 cavity- mould; it was the first machine of its kind in India, when purchased back in 2016. Focus on regional brands and 10% rule of thumb Today, the company’s product range includes preforms for CSD (50%); water (20%); jars (20%); and edible oil (10%). Its customer base is comprised mainly of smaller, regional brands. For Aditya it is important that he can communicate directly with the owner of a company and build up good relationships. He feels more comfortable looking after several smaller customers than a few big players. As a rule of thumb, he does not want to sell more than 10% of capacity to one single customer, as a precaution. Raw material is mainly supplied by Reliance, the market leader, and some is imported from China. He mentioned that Reliance recently introduced a kind of flat rate for its PET raw materials: all customers pay the same price per tonne, regardless of quantity. Other PET raw material suppliers in India have followed this pricing model. Aditya has a positive outlook for the years ahead for the PET and preform market in India. Because of its flexibility as an unbureaucratic, smaller company, Ruptex is in a very good position to follow new trends, explore new niches and implement new developments, rapidly. He is thinking of expanding into caps and investing in a dedicated injection moulding machine, specifically for this purpose. He openly admits that the company began cap production several years ago, but it was chal- lenging. However, time marches on and the market has changed; he sees a good opportunity to enter this segment. www.ruptex.com Aditya Dugar at his desk