PETpla.net Insider 03 / 2021

BOTTLE MAKING 25 PETplanet Insider Vol. 22 No. 03/21 www.petpla.net Interview with Daiichikako Company Ltd. May 18, 2020 We met: Mr Toshifumi Konishi, Chairman and Mr Tadafumi Konishi, Executive Director PET bottles and containers for food and cosmetics by Kay Barton During the eighth century, the city of Nara, around 45 minutes by car east of Osaka, was the capital of Japan. Nara and its surrounding area are a popular tourist destination. Among the beautifully preserved shrines, places of worship and palace ruins, some of which are Unesco World Heritage Sites, lies the famous Nara park with its free-roaming Sika deer and Yoshino cherry trees which are a magnet for visitors when the cherry blossom is in full bloom. This is where the two manufacturing plants owned by Mr Toshifumi Konishi, Chairman of Daiichikako, produce plastic bottles and caps for food and cosmetic items. The company exports some of its products to the USA, China and Thailand. Daiichikako began processing PET around 15 years ago at a time when a new trend was emerging in the cosmetics industry to switch from glass to plastic containers. Toshifumi Konishi as a veteran innovator was instrumental in shaping this change. He has been a company member since 1965 when it was still a Sekisui Chemical supplier for the manufac- ture of every-day products, such as household items and parts for them. In 1971, Mr Konishi decided to focus on the processing of pure plastics and set up a new business which he still runs today. The company moved to its cur- rent location near the River Saho 33 years ago when the area was devel- oped into a business park. This is where Daiichikako now manufactures bottles, containers and closures for cosmetics, spices and sauces, as well as cleaning agents and hygiene prod- ucts. Its product range includes 2,000 different types of direct blow-moulded containers, 900 stretch blow-moulded containers for cosmetics, four for spices and approximately 30 for sani- tary items like sanitisers, mouthwash etc.. For the cosmetics sector the company can manufacture about 50 closure types and has four standard models for spice containers. Daiichikako also produces PE and PP bottles. The PET sector and asso- ciated PE caps account for around 40% of total production capacity. “PET bottles and containers are transported and channelled via larger processors and companies to various Japanese brand-name firms through major moulding manufactur- ers and container trading compa- nies.”, explains Executive Director, Mr Tadafumi Konishi. “We produce 25 million PET containers, from 10ml to 500ml, and 6 million caps each year. The 160ml Tonkatsu sauce bottle is our best seller. We produce 53 mil- lion plastic bottles a year and process around 1,000 and 40 t of PE and PP respectively. Our material comes from local suppliers, namely Asahi Kasei, Kuraray, Japan Polyethylene, Japan Polypro and Prime Polymer, as well as Thai Indorama and Taiwanese Shinko Synthetic Fibre. Twenty-four million PET bottles remain on the local market, with around one million des- tined for the international market.”. Mr Konishi further explains “In our PET department we use blow moulding and stretch blow mould- ing machines from Tahara, the MSE series, and Nissei ASB models such as ASB-70DPH, ASB-12N or PF6-2B. We manufacture caps on equip- ment from the NEX series of Nissei Plastic Industry, the Si series of Toyo Kikai Metal and SE series of Sumi- tomo Heavy Industries. Our pro- duction plant comprises an area of 11,000m 2 . Our whole facility takes up an area of 18,773m 2 and employs 230 people. Daiichikako sees the medium- sized OEM bottle manufacturers as its main competitors. The company’s turnover is currently just under US$ 28 million. “Investing in the visual inspection sector is our next project”, says Mr Konishi. “We are also consid- ering entering the market with our own brand of cosmetics and disinfectants in due course”, he added. www.daiichikako.com Tour Sponsors: Executive Director Tadafumi Konishi explaining his business activities PET bottle for cosmetics 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