To submit a news item for inclusion, please contact Suzanne Christiansen at suzanne@bellpublishing.com or Maddy Barron at maddy@bellpublishing.com.

• MCC announces new IML production plant in Brazil
• Delamere unveils new packaging for its Flavoured Milk
• BERICAP expands growth strategy
• Pietro Cassani appointed president & CEO of Sidel
• Epiros reduces plastic and waste brine in new packaging design

The post Roundup: Packaging appeared first on Dairy Industries International.

New production facility in Kenya

Kenya is the driving force of economic growth in East Africa and it plays an essential role in a regional supply context. The new 3,500 m² facility in Nairobi/Kenya makes the localization of the commercial business that has been built up over the last 8 years possible. Especially closures for the lubricant industry and for food and beverage manufacturers are produced there. BERICAP also exports closures manufactured at the Nairobi facility to ten African countries. “The new plant in Kenya is a milestone on BERICAP’s expansion journey in Africa. We are very pleased to have set up a strong team here in such a short timeframe, and our customers appreciate comprehensive local support and reliable product availability,” said Oguz Bursali, Managing Director BERICAP East Africa.

BERICAP in South Africa

BERICAP has recently invested in another plant in Africa and now has also operations in South Africa. The closure business that BERICAP acquired was a division of Nampak, a company with which BERICAP has had a technological partnership since 1998 for the South African market. The production facility in Durban started trading as BERICAP South Africa (PTY) LTD in March 2024.

BERICAP South Africa will be marketing the entire BERICAP closure portfolio, as well as the locally manufactured closures, in South Africa and neighboring countries.

“We are proud to be part of the BERICAP family and look forward to the exciting opportunities ahead. We have a great team that is committed to the business and its success. We will be focusing our efforts on various projects that will help us reach the high operational standards set by BERICAP. The support and training we are receiving from the broader team is incredible and is helping us become fully integrated into the global BERICAP network,” said Derek Coleman, Managing Director BERICAP South Africa.

BERICAP in Peru

Peru is BERICAP’s fourth production site in Latin America and allows good access also to Bolivia, the northern part of Chile and Ecuador – and thus a total of around 60 million consumers. Major companies in Peru have also signalized their interest in having a closure specialist with explicit research and development expertise in the region. This prompted BERICAP to acquire a 5,000 m² production facility in Lima with 50 employees. The BERICAP team in Peru is supported by the teams at BERICAP do Brazil and BERICAP Argentina. “The close collaboration between the various BERICAP teams and sites in South America, together with the pooled strengths and expertise, enable us to deliver added value to our customers as a provider of the best closure solutions and tailored services,” said Aurel Forgaci, Managing Director BERICAP do Brasil.

BERICAP in Vietnam

In September 2023, BERICAP chose Vietnam as another base in the prospering region of Southeast Asia and set up a production site there. This investment is a reflection of the region’s excellent market potential for modern closure solutions in the sectors of beverages and dairy products, food and chemical products. Production commenced in mid-October and the plant has passed all mandatory external audits. “Tamper-evident closure solutions are particularly relevant for manufacturers in the Vietnamese market who are keen to protect themselves against product piracy. BERICAP has the right solutions for these manufacturers, and the fact that they are also easy to use and therefore consumer-friendly explains why they are very much in demand,” said Swee Heng Lee, Managing Director of BERICAP Vietnam. The very positive response to BERICAP Vietnam’s participation in trade fairs such as PROPAK Vietnam confirms the high demand in this market for BERICAP’s solutions.

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The 2022 financial year was economically challenging for everyone: particularly against the backdrop of soaring raw material and energy prices, as well as higher overheads. With more than 4000 employees at 26 production plants serving customers in over 100 countries across the world, Bericap is building on the positive development in 2022 and remains on track for growth in the region of 5% this year. Bericap’s geographic expansion into new growth markets including Southeast Asia, Africa and South America continues, and it is planning to open new production plants in Vietnam and Kenya at the end of 2023.

Switchover to tethered caps

Investments this year and next will serve the further expansion of the product portfolio. One focus is tethered caps, which will be mandatory in Europe from July 2024 onwards on single-use plastic beverage bottles with a capacity of up to three liters. In that respect the Bericap product family is already complete with the ClipAside tethered cap, which can be mass produced for all relevant neck finishes. Intensive support during the switchover process is still very important, and the ClipAside design allows customers to change over their filling lines to tethered caps quickly and easily, while continuing to manufacture closures with the current drop-down slit geometry. Bericap is also extending its sport caps range with the new Biarritz and Mayence models, as well as the premium Monet closure with external tamper ring.

Sustainability for the future

Developing sustainable closure solutions has long been a high priority for Bericap. It is introducing lightweighting concepts in all product categories with new neck finish standards and closure designs – because weight and material reductions improve sustainability. Innovative ‘designed for recycling’ solutions made from same type materials improve recyclability and advance closed-loop material cycles.

“In the closure design process our top priorities are user friendliness, safety and customisability. Our customers appreciate our dependability as a forward-thinking partner committed to delivering best-in-class solutions.

It’s great to have these qualities recognised and to see demand for our advice and solutions rising. We are grateful for the trust our customers place in us and look forward to taking our profound closure expertise into even more markets,” said the Bericap management.

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Long-life products such as UHT milk require packaging that meets optimum aseptic and hygienic standards and protects its contents from external influences for at least the promised shelf-life.

“While closures for fresh milk must be primarily liquid-impermeable because of their short shelf life, in aseptically filled products additional protection against the ingress of microorganisms and impact of light is crucial”, says Christoph Thünemann, group director communication and marketing at Bericap.

For a long time, this greatly restricted the design of the packaging and the differentiation of the products at the point of sale. To achieve maximum opacity, special-colored master-batches that provide a UV barrier should be used. However, these limited the possible color variations.

Bericap has succeeded in developing an optimal UV light barrier solution, which enables the production of screw caps in all colors. The product range encompasses light weight screw caps for 38mm neck and the 33mm neck and provides numerous customised closure solutions to the market.

“Our closure solutions with incorporated oxygen scavenger – O2 reduced headspace bottles – provide maximum quality standards. And based on our vast experience in closure solutions for aseptic filling, we offer the necessary technical customer service, as well”, Thünemann explains.

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