imprint EDITORIAL PUBLISHER Alexander Büchler, Managing Director HEAD OFFICE heidelberg business media GmbH Hubweg 15 74939 Zuzenhausen, Germany phone: +49 6221-65108-0 [email protected] EDITORIAL Kay Barton Heike Fischer Gabriele Kosmehl Michael Maruschke Ruari McCallion Anthony Withers Editorial & WikiPETia. info [email protected] MEDIA CONSULTANTS Martina Hirschmann [email protected] Johann Lange-Brock [email protected] phone: +49 6221-65108-0 LAYOUT AND PREPRESS EXPRIM Werbeagentur Matthias Gaumann www.exprim.de READER SERVICES [email protected] PRINT Chroma Druck Eine Unternehmung der Limberg-Druck GmbH Danziger Platz 6 67059 Ludwigshafen, Germany WWW www.hbmedia.net | www.petpla.net PETplanet Insider ISSN 1438-9459 is published 10 times a year. This publication is sent to qualified subscribers (1-year subscription 149 EUR, 2-year subscription 289 EUR, Young professionals’ subscription 99 EUR. Magazines will be dispatched to you by airmail). Not to be reproduced in any form without permission from the publisher. Note: The fact that product names may not be identified as trademarks is not an indication that such names are not registered trademarks. 3 PETplanet Insider Vol. 26 No. 05/25 www.petpla.net Our Gulf tour is coming to an end, and in this issue you can read our last on-site stories. It was a very interesting tour for me, as we visited an above-average number of processors. This is the only way to get a really good feel for the local market and a lot of background knowledge about the equipment and raw materials used. To summarise, the Gulf region is a very strong water market that has so far been supplied by many smaller local bottlers. However, we are finding more and more high volume bottlers in the region which are squeezing out the smaller ones. These large local bottlers boast the latest stretch blow moulding and filling technology. They have also brought some of the preform and cap production in-house. The markets are saturated, and no-one expects demand for bottled water to increase significantly. Nevertheless, the large local suppliers have excess capacity that cannot be accommodated in the local market. As a result, there is a fierce price war at the point of sale for the consumer’s favour. Another strategy to deal with overcapacity is for bottlers to export to neighbouring countries. Dubai and the African states are particularly popular export countries. However, the markets there are also reaching saturation point. There are no new drinks on the horizon that could boost consumption and thus reduce local overcapacity, and consumers are focussing on still water. And, according to the bottlers, the consumer dislikes bottles made with rPET - the grey shimmer of rPET bottles carries the aura of unclean packaging. Attempts to encourage bottleto-bottle recycling are therefore the exception rather than the rule. Things are different in Europe, where our sustainability tour has now started with many sustainability projects - and not just B-to-B. Enjoy the current issue and look forward to the next one. Yours, Alexander Büchler Dear readers,
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