Sidel to present advanced solutions at Gulfood Manufacturing

Taking place from 29-31 October at the Dubai World Trade Centre, Gulfood Manufacturing is the Middle East’s biggest food and beverage processing industry event gathering suppliers from 60 countries. Visitors to the Sidel booth (B1-4, in Hall 1) will discover the company’s latest introductions for beverage, food, home and personal care players in the region, with a special focus on technology innovation, digitalisation and line performance over time. 

The Middle East, Africa and India (MEA&I) region represents a dynamic marketplace: a 6.5% Compound Annual Growth Rate (CAGR), equivalent to an additional 35 billion units, is expected across all beverage categories by 2021. This development, accompanied by a rise in PET bottling across the entire region, will also be driven by Expo 2020, taking place in the UAE next year. While beverage sales volumes are largely dominated by bottled water, carbonated soft drinks (CSD) and liquid dairy products (LDP), the water segment in particular is set to grow in Africa and India within the next two years. There, due to steady efforts to make water more accessible and affordable, the bottled water consumption is forecast to increase by ten litres per capita between 2018 and 2021.¹  

As with drinks, PET as a packaging material for food, home and personal care products is also set to grow throughout the Middle Eastern, African and Indian markets. Namely, home care products, such as liquid detergents in PET, which have long been limited by the need for large bottle formats and handles, are expected to show a 4.2% CAGR by 2021. Personal care product packaging reflects a similar trend: the most significant switch towards PET is anticipated for the conditioner segment, with a 4.8% CAGR (2018-2021).² In India, meanwhile, edible oils value sales are expected to record a CAGR of 14% to reach a staggering INR 3.1 trillion (about USD43.4 billion) in 2023.³

Enabling customers’ success 

At booth B1-4, in Hall 1, visitors will have the opportunity to design their own bottle with Sidel’s IdentiKit, starting the bottle’s journey right at the beginning. This software helps customers shorten lead times to introduce new products, bringing them onto the shelves faster, and thus providing the flexibility needed with today’s fast-changing consumer demands. In addition, visitors will experience Sidel’s complete line capabilities. By working with a full solution partner, producers may use the opportunity to gain access to a thorough understanding of the entire supply chain from current market trends and changing consumer tastes to the challenges of liquid product distribution and local regulations for their respective markets. “At this year’s show, our offering for water and sensitive drinks bottlers will be in focus. We’ll demonstrate how Sidel Super Combi – integrating preform feeding, blowing, labelling, filling/capping and cap feeding in one single smart solution – is able to offer great productivity and quality benefits for customers active in the water industry, like Niagara Bottling LLC in the US. Talking about liquid dairy products, as well as juices, isotonics, teas, and all sensitive beverages, our unique FDA-approved Sidel Aseptic Combi Predis TM , with its dry preform sterilisation technology, will be another highlight. This solution really fits the market needs of food safety, flexibility, ease of operations and sustainability perfectly,” says Harbinder Kathuria, Vice President Sales Beverages MEA&I at Sidel.

Other Sidel highlights at the show this year will be the latest additions to the filling portfolio for can and glass – EvoFILL Can and EvoFILL Glass, expanding the advantages offered by the Sidel Matrix™ platform beyond PET. Furthermore, visitors may learn about the tremendous benefits created at a leading Nigerian co-packer by Sidel Actis™, the proven bottle plasma coating technology, currently accounting for more than five billion bottles produced across CSD, beer, juices, tea and coffee. This technology allows manufacturers to extend the shelf life of a PET bottle by up to five times while offering significant lightweighting opportunities.

Giulio Bellanti, Sales Director Food, Home and Personal Care MEA&I at Sidel, adds, “On a global scale we are noticing that PET has been increasingly adopted as the packaging material of preference in the home and personal care markets. This holds especially true for the bath and shower, hair care, laundry and surface care categories, but also for the food market – namely across sauce, dressing, condiments and edible oils. The latter are packaged in PET in nearly 75% of cases across Asia, Oceania and Africa.⁴ This segment is also where we have successfully collaborated with B.L. Agro Industries Ltd. in India, where we have installed two complete lines for edible oil to meet the rising demand in the market. Our offering for those industries will also be part of our display at Gulfood Manufacturing. We’ll pay close attention to our innovative and agile End-of-Line portfolio, showcasing also our latest packing and palletising solutions as installed at the Unilever factory in Dubai. Last but not least, we will demonstrate how Sidel is walking the sustainability talk, which is extremely relevant to the FMCG packaging industry and at the core of our collaboration with plastic converters in the region.” 

Visitors to booth B1-4 will also discover how Sidel’s services portfolio helps build, maintain and improve customers’ performance throughout their asset lifecycle, offering high levels of reliability during peak production seasons. Here, the company’s line improvement portfolio is enhanced by the opportunity of upgrading aged and low performing equipment with future-proof solutions, like EasyFEED™, Gebo AQFlex® and OptiFEED®, therefore securing sustainable benefits. 

¹Euromonitor International 2018 

²Euromonitor International 2018

³Euromonitor 2018 India Edible Oil report 

⁴Euromonitor International 2018