PETpla.net Insider 11 / 2020

PREFORM PRODUCTION PETplanet Insider Vol. 21 No. 11/20 www.petpla.net 23 PETcast In our new Road Show podcast, PETplanet meets industry experts from Down Under to Japan and talks with them about their successes, decisions and current developments. Listen to the full conversation at www.bit.ly/2HVwbAd bottlers worldwide to achieve sustain- ability, recycling and ergonomics will result in IMH bottles appearing more and more on international shelves during 2021.” New global bottler distributors will be coming on board from February 2021, with several currently in the pipeline. According to Mr Mellen, Tru Blu Beverages’ sales are expected to increase by 50% in 2021. Tru Blu as the main local customer is involved in nearly all of the soft drink markets with 25 brands, as well as being the country’s largest privately-owned drinks’ producer. Tru Blu has successfully distributed more than 100 million IMH bottles on the Australian drinks’ market since 2018, including several OEM brands for retail chains such as Woolworth Coles, Aldi and IGA. Integrated Plastics use virgin PET material purchased from Reliance Industries in its preform production, while rPET is obtained from the Martogg Group. The licence partner and material manufacturer, Sabic, supplies the Middle East region, while SDB uses local manufacturers in South Korea. “Tru Blu are currently expanding their produc- tion capacity and, with our help, are adding two inline blow moulding machines for IMH hot-filling applications, as well as increasing their annual output to 50 mil- lion bottles. We are also in the process of building new capacity with extra pro- duction space set aside in Sydney for prototyping. We want to open a plant in India with centralised production of IMH preforms for the local market”, said Mr Mellen. The company currently employs around 20 full-time development and produc- tion staff at its Villawood facility and has a current turnover of US$ 5 million. “Fortunately, Australia is coping pretty well with the Covid pandemic compared to other countries”, said Mr Mellen. “This year, we have been focusing increasingly on digital conversation, teamwork and remote management which, while pro- gressing well, are certainly no substi- tute for face-to-face meetings. We are therefore looking forward to hopefully travelling abroad again soon.” www.integratedplastics.com.au