Ayear ago, Italian closuresmanufacturer Pelliconi opened anew manufacturing plant near

Shanghai in China. Pelliconi SuzhouClosures Manufacturing Co Ltdsupplies Carlsberg with Maxi P-26closures, the aluminium ring-pull bottlecaps made on production lines suppliedby Sacmi Imola.

“In this market we will continue toinnovate our processes and products,bringing the Pelliconi know-how on themost famous beverage trademarks andon the tables of Chinese consumers,”says Pelliconi’s chief executive MarcoChecchi in the company’s sustainabilityreport.

“The Chinese project paves the wayto all the possibilities that such a largemarket offers to players focused onquality and sustainability. Wepersonally found out how advanced arethe rules in China concerningenvironment and sustainability: thismade us very happy because it fitsperfectly with our vision. We have greatexpectations from the whole Far Eastand together with our SIMEST partnerwe are already planning a Phase 2 ofthis project, that I hope will comethrough very early.”

The Suzhou plant is a US$12 millioninvestment built with three productionlines capable of making up to 1.6 millioncaps a day giving a yearly capacity of 1.2billion. In 2018, another line atthe 8,000 sqm facility wouldadd capacity of 400m caps ayear.

The closures segment isalso poised to growsignificantly in India wherePelliconi plans to startmaking Maxi P-26 caps inthe second quarter of 2018.

Earlier in 2017, during astate mission of the Italiangovernment to India,Pelliconi signed a co-operationagreement with OrientalContainers Limited, a wholly-ownedsubsidiary of Oricon Enterprise Ltd forjointly developing the closure businessin the country by implementing newbusiness lines in addition to the metaland plastics closures manufactured byOriental Containers Ltd.

Pelliconi has been family owned sinceit was formed in 1939 and producedmetal crowns from the start, usingmulti-die presses from Sacmi. Checchihas worked for the company for around33 years and took over its managementfrom his father-in-law.

The Pelliconi group’s other fourproduction plants are in Italy, at Ozzano

dell’Emilia near Bologna – itsheadquarters – and at Atessa(its largest plant); in the US inOrlando, Florida; and in Cairo,Egypt.

“While Ozzano dates from1959 and is our oldest plant,our major plant is atAtessa in southernItaly, which, withits 28,000 sqm of

covered area, is one of the biggest plantsfor crown manufacture worldwide,” saidChecchi.

“The domestic market of beverages inEgypt is still suffering from the tourismcrisis and the consumption is muchlower than what it was about threeyears ago.

“The eastern African markets,instead, are on a stablegrowth rate. Ethiopia isdriving growth.”

With capacity to makemore than 30 billionclosures a year, Pelliconi’ssales in 2016 were €136million ($162m) with tenpercent growth forecastfor 2017.

Pelliconi serves morethan 600 customersworldwide, includingall leading beveragesector companies

such as Anheuser-Busch InBev,Carlsberg, Castel,Coca-Cola,Danone, Diageo,Heineken, NestléWaters, PepsiCola andSABMiller.

In 2015,Pelliconi and apartner operatingin the hopbusinessestablishedBrewpark Sas, aFrench companywith the aim todevelop sales inthe micro-breweries locatedin the Beneluxarea.

Not only hasPelliconiexpanded itsmanufacturingfootprint to four

PROFILE

Growing sustainably

Italy-based closures manufacturer Pelliconi isexpanding its geographical footprint and productoffer. Mónica Higuera reports

s

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Marco Checchi, chief executive ofPelliconi: planning Phase 2 of itsproject in Asia to manufacture ring-pull closures for bottled beers such as Tuborg

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PROFILE

continents, and its product portfolio inthe closures business for beverages fromcrowns to threaded aluminium caps,pull-ring and screw-on plastic caps, itnow offers PVC-free closures for babyfood.

“We aim to define a new standard inthe baby-food business, a closing systemthat will allow us to approach a worldunexplored to us, complementary butseparate from the beverage business.

“Pelliconi, together with partnersActega and Sacmi, has developed itsSoPure solution that is performing wellin the limited market tests that havebeen carried out to date in Europe.”

The new SoPure closures are said toguarantee a much lower amount ofmigration in foodstuffs, especially infood containing fats, and have a smallerenvironmental impact once they areintroduced in waste managementprocesses.

“The PVC-free technology that we areusing does not contain any plasticisers,and has been demonstrated to yieldextremely low migration in general. It ispremature to name our principalcustomer at present, but we have beenworking extensively together and expecta full commercial release before the end

of the year. Interest has been expressedfrom other major food companies and weexpect to grow our presencesignificantly in this sector in the monthsand years ahead.”

In addition to food closures, Pelliconiis carrying out studies on other productsfor the pharmaceuticals and personalcare sectors.

“We continue to invest resources toensure the best possible balance

between growth, environmentalprotection and responsibility towardsour people, communities and allstakeholders, and we are even moreconvinced that this is the best way tocompete in the market.

“We are convinced that our approachto sustainability in business is the bestchoice to make to continue the successthat has allowed us to become what weare today.”

Ring-pull bottle crowns: a long historyAluminium crowns with ring pullswere first tried on bottles in the1930s. But their penetration into thebottled beers and soft drinks marketshas been slow, mainly because they area premium product that sells at amultiple of the cost of a conventionalcrown.

Pre-scored aluminium crown capswere made in the 1960s in the US byAmerican Flange and later in Europe byWicanders. In 1982 Swedish inventorSven-Ake Magnusson, while at Wicanders,first produced a precursor of the MaxiCrown usingtinplate with a metal ring attached to the shell. Helater developed an improved version with analuminium shell and plastic ring which became

the current standard, Maxi P.Even the latest Maxi P has

been around for more than20 years. It was firstdeveloped by Magnusson in

1989, and is made from 0.21 or0.24mm aluminium with a HDPE

ring pull and a polyethylene sealingring.

Because of the need to scorethe caps and attach the ring pull,the lines are more complex thanconventional crown corkoperations. The aluminium sheets

are lithographed in-house. Thebasic aluminium crowns are created

with more complex tooling to form the tab and thescore and then are delivered to the machineswhich have plastics feeding and forming tooling tomould the ring pull.

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