MILAN, May 17 (Class Editori) — Marco Checchi, CEO of Ozzano Emilia-based Pelliconi, is not giving up on China, instead he is doubling production. Five years after Pelliconi Suzhou —in the Jiangsu Province, not far from Shanghai— inaugurated the first plant to produce tear-off caps with a 11-million-euro investment, the company has been planning for the past year an expansion strategy that includes further investments of 13 million dollars.
In the Pelliconi Changzhou Metal Packaging Technology Co., Ltd. Marco Checchi estimates to bring the production value year-on-year to 15.5 million dollars, after three years from the actual start of the production.
The goal will be made possible by a new production unit dedicated to smart packaging of caps with many advanced functions that is expected to start this year with two newly designed lines aimed at lowering consumption and highly automated, thanks to an agreement with the Changzhou National High-tech District (CND) established in 1992, one of China's most competitive technology hubs.
"Caps are necessary all over the world and we produce more than 32 billion of them every year," Checchi explained. With a view to globalization without any kind of borders, Marco Checchi has launched two more challenges: a new plant in Brazil and a new unit in Ozzano to produce PVC-free SoPure caps, designed to innovatively close glass containers for baby food.
Pelliconi, with a turnover of 190 million euros —over 90% of which generated in foreign markets— and with 600 employees, will establish by the end of the year, despite the pandemic, war and high energy prices, a new production unit in Brazil, after the US, Egypt and China, with about 40 employees and two production lines. It will be its seventh plant, a new page in a story began in 1939 with the first crown caps.
The path to development also passes through Silicon Valley where Pelliconi opened a research center, an "Innovation Antenna" as Marco Checchi calls it, inside the Mind the Bridge Innovation Center in San Francisco.
It is the natural development of the R&D department launched in 2017, an interdisciplinary team dedicated to responding to increasingly specific customer requests and anticipating market needs by developing new ideas and projects.
Thanks to this "lab", new products, processes and services were born, such as the Flower Cap and the digital printing service on P-Ink caps, awarded with the gold medal at the Cans of the Year Awards 2021, in the category "Ends, Caps & Closures", also because it allows to customize not only the bottle closure but also the label (again with digital printing). In 2019, the team also expanded into the Pelliconi Suzhou office in China and is now working at full speed in Silicon Valley as well.
Landing in Silicon Valley is not Pelliconi's first step into the US: in 2010, the company opened the Pelliconi Florida plant in Orlando. Initially focused on producing plastic capsules for two Nestlé Waters bottling plants in Florida and 26mm crown caps, now production is focused on 28mm and 38mm plastic caps for mineral water and carbonated soft drinks. Due to positive market trends and new volumes required, Pelliconi is planning a plant upgrade, still in Florida.
Pelliconi's interest in emerging trends is directed at both product and process innovations: from materials to manufacturing, from waste management to sustainability and carbon footprint. All this takes place within an ecosystem of partners (suppliers, research centers, engineering companies, startups, scaleups, universities) in order to access specific, innovative know-how.
The next stage sees turnover at 250 million euros. Also, it may not be this year, but a stock market listing remains on the horizon in order to make the decisive leap toward what Marco Checchi calls "the bigger size".
(Source:Class Editori)
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