6 minute read
Company profi le: Bormioli Luigi
Bormioli Luigi transforms its Spanish facility
(as part of a €200 million investment)
Italian luxury glass manufacturer Bormioli Luigi is in the process of a five-year €200 million investment plan. An area of focus is its Spanish facility, which is being transformed to produce bottles for perfumery and cosmetics. Jess Mills spoke to Simone Baratta* about the investment.
Bormioli Luigi’s Spanish glass facility is in the process of being transformed thanks to a €200 million investment plan by the Italian glass perfume bottle manufacturer.
Its facility in Azuqueca, located about 40km from Madrid, Spain, will be boosted by four new IS machines as well as a revamped decoration facility.
Its five-year investment plan covers the period 2019 to 2024 and will enable the company to convert the facility from a tableware glass manufacturing site to a modern hollow glass facility, capable of manufacturing items for the mid-range perfume and cosmetic glass sectors.
One IS machine was installed in 2022, and two more are planned for 2023 while the last will be placed in early 2024, to work alongside the facility’s 140t/day flint glass furnace.
In 2024, decoration and finishing operations will also be integrated into the plant to build up internal production capacity, thus enabling the organisation to be more flexible and respond more quickly to customer requests.
The development of the Azuqueca site means the company can meet not only the needs of its original customers - those in the premium perfumery segment - but also can extend the perimeter of its offering to a new sector, that of the low-premium and cosmetics segment.
Despite challenges caused by Covid and the energy crisis, progress on the upgrade is going well.
It has already started to produce some items in the new style and the company is happy with the progress so far.
Simone Baratta, Bormioli Luigi’s Director of the Prestige Perfumes Business Unit, said: “Obviously, there is a learning curve for the plants, so we cannot expect to move this plant at the super high-end items, but we are happy with the quality
we are producing and so we will continue to move some items from Italy to Spain.
“And so, finally, to create some new capacity for the prestige items in Italy.
“At the end of this story, I think, in a certain time, the plant will have its own mix with its experience, and it will stabilise the good level of quality.
“That is what we aim to create in the next few years.”
The original plan had been for the Spanish site to also cater for the skincare market but, post Covid, the perfume sector has bounced back.
“So, in this context, obviously we are continuing with our investments and slightly adjusting the mixture of the plant, that today is much more perfumery than what was expected at the beginning.
“But fortunately, we have the technology and the know-how. So it makes sense for us to adjust depending on the needs of the market.”
The plant was purchased in 2017 by Bormioli Luigi. After a few years of managing the site, Bormioli Luigi decided to reposition the facility from its tableware roots to the perfume and beauty segment.
To meet the requirements of this sector, the Azuqueca facility will also be equipped with automated and digital glassmaking equipment and will be the company’s most up to date site with its manufacturing technology.
This will include modern technology based upon automatic control and the sorting process for bottles as well as a large data analysis system. It will enable Bormioli Luigi to increase the efficiency and capability of the glass process as well as reduce defects.
“If we are able to collect a lot of data of the status in the cold part, so from the analysis of the output bottle, we should be able to prevent a part of the defects.
“I think that is the big challenge in order to increase the capability of this process.
“We should not forget that when we talk about the beauty market, we are talking about the
extreme technology of the hollow glass.
“So, when we have strange shapes and highquality demands, some defects are somehow endemic, and we cannot avoid it because they are linked to the properties of the process.
“But there is a part of these defects that we can try to prevent in advance.”
Modern technology from established equipment suppliers such as Bucher Emhart Glass, Iris Inspection machines and Antonini will be installed at the site
Decoration
A key feature of the modernised site will be the new decoration facility. Set for installation in 2024, as well as containing standard technologies such as lacquering, screen printing and hot stamping it
will be equipped with equipment to deal with the specific decoration requirements of its customers.
Decoration requirements of the beauty industry are increasingly important as customers seek to differentiate themselves from competitors. On the one hand glass bottles are increasingly complex with ever more sophisticated shapes required by customers.
Yet on the other hand, the environmental requirements means the technologies involved in the decoration of a glass item have to be sustainable. This means the use of clean raw materials and the elimination of certain metals and VOCs for example.
Decarbonisation
Like all major glass manufacturers, decarbonisation is a key theme at Bromoil Luigi and it takes its Environmental and Social Governance (ESG) commitments seriously.
It has a 50% decarbonisation objective by the year 2030 within its manufacturing plants. The programme was only begun in 2016 but the company is already halfway to meting this objective, primarily based on its investments in electric melting.
It has identified electric melting as the major way to promote decarbonisation and has invested as such. Currently about 65% of its glasses are produce via electric melting. Despite its success
with electric melting, it does not rule out investment in the use of hybrid furnaces and other alternative renewable energy means in the future.
On top of that, it has already developed many innovations in the use of glass, such as lightweight bottles and recycled glass. Its Ecoline range includes a series of bottles, jars and caps made of ultra-light glass (58% less glass weight than a traditional container).
As well as this, it has offered its Post-Consumer Recycled (PCR) glass for several years.
Despite the pressure faced by glassmakers such as Bormioli Luigi – energy costs, soaring raw material prices and supply chain issues – the company is confident that now is the right time to make this investment. It has analysed the market for opportunities and believes the market will support its growth strategy.
“We never had a doubt about continuing with our investments because we know the potential of this market, which continues to grow.
“We are convinced that today, despite the many difficulties and many problems around, there are good conditions for this, and this is the reason for which we confirmed our investment plan.
“In fact we are already working on our next investment plan because 2024 is finally not so far,” states Mr Baratta. � Bormioli Luigi, Parma, Italy https://www.bormioliluigi.com/
