Technology is strongest product segment at Brau Beviale

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German beverage machinery production maintained its leading role in the world market during the financial and economic crisis and has grown appreciably again in 2010 and in the course of this year so far. At Brau Beviale – from 9–11 November 2011 in the Exhibition Centre Nuremberg – this innovative sector forms the core of the technology product segment with about one-third of the total of 1,300 exhibitors. Together with the product segments of beverage raw materials, logistics and marketing, the world's most important capital goods exhibition for the beverage industry this year expects 32,000 trade visitors.

The Fachverband Nahrungsmittelmaschinen und Verpackungsmaschinen im Verband Deutscher Maschinen- und Anlagenbau (VDMA – the German Food Processing and Packaging Machinery Association) estimates that the world market for packaging machinery, including beverage packaging machinery, recovered from 20.7 to some 24 billion euros last year. Germany holds the largest share of this volume with a good 20 %, ahead of Italy, Japan, the USA and China. The People's Republic of China was also the major export country for German packaging machinery last year.

Orders received for packaging machinery also carried on rising in the first quarter of 2011. The VDMA association therefore expects about 11 % more sales for the whole of 2011.

The production volume of packaging machinery in 2010 increased by 7.4 % to 4.75 billion euros. The beverage packaging machinery segment contributed a disproportionately large share of this with almost 15 % more. The production volume here rose to 1.55 billion euros. In the beverage production machinery segment, which is strongly marked by large projects including new brewhouse buildings, the production volume of 334 million euros in 2010 remained about the same as the previous year's level. Overall, the beverage machinery segment comprising essentially around 100 manufacturers with 14, 000 employees achieved a production volume of some 1.9 billion euros in the past year. This figure does not include machinery for plastic containers, such as stretch blow moulding machines. These are assigned to plastic machinery for statistical purposes. As PET is the most widely used material in the world for drink containers and beverage machinery components like fittings and pumps are also statistically accounted for elsewhere, beverage machinery sales are probably about twice as high as shown by the pure statistics.

The German beverage machinery sector also sees good prospects for growth in the future. Contributing factors here are the increase in the world population, the growing prosperity in heavily populated regions and the strong product differentiation in saturated markets. The sector supports this growth in bottled drinks with plants that possess both ecological and economic qualities. Energy efficiency has been on the list of priorities here for years. The most recent example are stretch blow moulding machines that need a quarter less energy and blast air. Modern energy management can save up to 20 % primary energy in energy-intensive wort production. In terms of the material used for the dominating PET containers, featherweights of six or seven grams per bottle are meanwhile possible.

New in 2011: The two leading exhibitions for the beverage industry, drinktec in Munich and Brau Beviale, are cooperating in the PET segment. The background to the cooperation is the exceptionally fast innovation cycle in this field. PETpoint, the PET segment of drinktec, is therefore also present at Brau Beviale in Nürnberg starting in 2011 – with raw materials, preform manufacture, stretch blow-moulding technology, filling systems, closure production, labelling, recycling and accessories.

A spectacular Brau Beviale promotion tour is being organized by the magazine PETplanet Insider to actively drum up visitors for the exhibition and naturally advertise the packaging material PET. The trip takes in key markets in Eastern Europe, which are currently excelling with steady economic growth of approx. 4 % (www.ost-ausschuss.de). The expedition vehicle bearing bold letters urging "Go to Brau Beviale" will start out from the Exhibition Centre Nuremberg on its journey to the East on 3 October with two members of the editorial staff on board. Their trip takes them through Austria, Slovenia, Croatia, Serbia, Bulgaria, Turkey, Armenia, Azerbaijan(yes, a meeting with the Eurovision Song Contest winners is planned!), Romania and Hungary, and back to Nürnberg again in time for the start of the exhibition. During the trip they will visit, interview and photograph major PET bottlers and collect typical PET bottles from the various countries for subsequently presenting at the exhibition. What the two experience on their tour will be documented online from the 3 October (www.petpla.net). What awaits them afterwards at Brau Beviale – after a hearty reception and a good shower – will be experts from all over Europe interested in PET! The vehicle will be parked at the heart of the exhibition. Those who would like to know more can get information in the adventurous survival flair at the public viewing. Sitting on camping seats, they can review the tour as a slide show with a tour diary and admire the highly international PET bottle collection from the countries visited on the shelves opposite.

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