The natural choice Logoplaste

THE NATURAL CHOICE

Logoplaste, a global designer and manufacturer of rigid plastic packaging for fast-moving-consumer-goods brands, has entered the post-Covid era under new ownership. However, the company’s commitment to its sustainability goals remains unchanged. Romana Moares reports.

Founded in Portugal in 1976, a company that started with Yoplait yogurts and Nestlé caps has come a long way since then. Over the years, the business developed its innovative and customerservice-orientated approach beyond the pure manufacturing process, expanding into product design, material optimisation and full value-chain process engineering.

Logoplaste currently manages 63 factories in 16 countries and employs more than 2,100 people. Its packaging, which is designed for a range of segments including food and beverage, personal care, cosmetics, household care, oil & lubricants, and healthcare, is produced using the most advanced technologies in injection, stretchblow and extrusion moulding.

The company’s expertise covers every aspect of packaging development, from concept, to design, to engineering, to implementation. Logoplaste’s business model centres on developing partnerships with customer, integrating dedicated facilities, eliminating secondary packaging waste, utilising just-in-time operations, and reducing transport needs. Logoplaste’s customer base includes some of the world’s best-known brands such as Danone, Nestle, Arla, Kraft Heinz, P&G and L’Oreal and many others.

The natural focus

Sustainability and innovation have been integral to Logoplaste since its inception and are the key to its continued success.

The company’s broad expertise is well demonstrated in the Ecover Ocean bottle. Created to raise awareness of ocean contamination by plastics and the importance of responsible disposal, it was the first bottle made from recycled Ocean Plastic and PostConsumer Recycled plastic, reclaimed from the ocean.

Over the years, the company has won a number of awards, the most recent being the 2020 Ecovadis Sustainability Gold Rating. This places Logoplaste amongst the industry’s top 2% in overall score and top 1% in sustainable procurement.

And the company goes further. For more than 25 years, the plastics industry has promoted Operation Clean Sweep (OCS), a campaign dedicated to helping every plastic resin handling operation achieve zero pellets, flake and powder loss. Logoplaste has been supporting OCS for the past eight years and is now ready to go worldwide with proven best practices. By the end of 2021, the company wants to have all of its plants in compliance with OCS requirements.

Carbon-neutral

On a different front, Logoplaste can be proud of another achievement. The company completed the leveraged loan market’s first institutional ESG (Environmental, Social and Governance) term loan which links its interest payments to year-on-year growth of savings in CO2 emissions.

These savings in CO2 emissions are achieved by increasing the number of wall-to-wall facilities (W2W), factories installed within the client premises, that avoid the transport of empty bottles and the use of secondary packaging. This unique set-up is far superior to a traditional off-site packaging approach from a sustainability point of view.

Gerardo Chiaia, Logoplaste’s CEO said: “This is only one initiative in a well-articulated plan that includes actions such as an increase in the use of recycled content, reduction of waste and energy consumption. Our goal is very ambitious: we want to build plants that are at least carbon-neutral or even become regenerative from a CO2 emissions perspective.”

Next Stage of Growth

In recent years, Logoplaste has performed consistently well. This has been achieved both organically, through investment in and develop-

ment of additional facilities across Europe, North America and Brazil, and through acquisitions, notably a majority shareholding in Poland’s Masterchem. Supported by long-standing clients, the company’s activities in North America have more than tripled in the last five years, while in Europe the business has continued to expand.

The company has a clear plan to continue to increase its presence in Europe and the Americas as well as to support clients in their international development in Asia, Australia and New Zealand. To help promote further growth and business development the company started to evaluate strategic options, including bringing in new shareholders.

In February 2021, Logoplaste announced that the Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan Board (Ontario Teachers’) has agreed to acquire The Carlyle Group’s majority stake in the company. Current Logoplaste shareholders Filipe de Botton and Alexandre Relvas will retain their approximately 40% combined stakes in the business as it embarks on its next phase of growth.

Gerardo Chiaia commented: “This marks an exciting new chapter for our company as we look forward to the continued growth opportunity for Logoplaste and its customers with backing from Ontario Teachers’. We also thank Carlyle for their partnership, expertise and support in maintaining Logoplaste’s position as a leading provider of rigid packaging solutions for the consumer goods industry and in driving continuous innovation with an integrated approach that is the foundation of our company.” n