In all the best success stories, it is not one person that makes the difference, but rather a motivated team of like-minded individuals that come together to achieve a big goal. This is certainly true of RETAL Cyprus, the Limassol-based plastic packaging factory, part of RETAL Industries, which celebrated its fifth anniversary on 9th October this year.
The story first started with a big inauguration in 2015. The importance of RETAL opening and operating a successful factory in Cyprus, where it is headquartered, was clear from this event, as it was attended by the President of Cyprus Mr. Anastasiadis, senior local government officials, the President of RETAL Anatoly Martynov, all of RETAL's board of directors, and its global customers. The event was widely publicised as it highlighted the importance of opening such a modern factory in Cyprus.
RETAL's plans in this strategically important region - the south part of Europe - have come true. Today it is a successful and dynamically developing business that contributes to the Cyprus economy. The company’s president Mr. Martynov notes, “RETAL has over 20 years of experience in the production of plastic packaging. It is the synergy of our deep understanding of the industry and significant investments in our modern plant that are key to the achievements of RETAL in Cyprus.”
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Working together to create a complicated closure has been a positive and commercially beneficial project for both RETAL and PepsiCo.
The resulting crown-shaped cap helps to ‘guarantee the preservation of the first-class taste and useful properties of the fruits within thanks to a unique combination of functional parts and clever design.
The project has been driven by PepsiCo’s launch of a new chilled juices category in Russia in 2019, seeing its Ya and J7 trademarked chilled natural juices. Сaps for this project are the result of this collaboration and are exclusively owned by PepsiCo, bringing benefits that have seen increased sales and strong brand awareness.
Traditional yet modern
The crown closure from RETAL is produced by utilising the shared customer/supplier relationship. Commercial production started in August 2019, with this 38mm 8.5g closure complimenting the 38mm 36g preform also supplied by RETAL to PepsiCo for the Russian market. For the production of this brand new line of chilled natural juices, which have a shelf life of less than 72 days on a cold (dairy) shelf, completely new aseptic filling equipment was installed at the Tsaritsyno Dairy plant in Moscow, including an ultramodern line with a capacity of 16 thousand 0.85 litre PET bottles per hour.
RETAL key account manager for Russia Anastasiya Romanovskaya adds, “This premium product needs special packaging that highlights its quality and positioning. The fundamental difference between the new crown closure and its Tropicana predecessor is the clever combination of its functionality, which is how the necessary tightness is achieved, with the design element, which sees a characteristic bright design in the form of intersecting arches. This versatile solution eliminated the need to seal the neck with foil and ensure the complete tightness of the product when it is resealed, making it convenient for consumers.”
Creatively commercial
It is these performance- and design-driven intersecting arches that help make this closure unique. Having already worked in close partnership with PepsiCo for some years, Romanovskaya and her team were committed to designing a closure solution that harnessed RETAL's deep understanding of the company and its products. She says, “Huge efforts were made on both sides to ensure that the samples requested for different tests were produced and delivered on time. We also made a commercial mold as part of the project; all in all, it was a very complicated process that required the skills of PepsiCo and RETAL's R&D teams. We truly value the shared project and the resulting sucсess of the crown closure.”
Evgenia Kiyashko, purchasing manager for polymer packaging PepsiCo Russia, says, “Consumer-centricity is in heart of our business. We investigate consumers needs and heavily invest in product innovations. Launch of chilled juices was one of our largest projects in 2019. We wanted to deliver a brand new, high quality product to our consumers and make it look really great. This required new ideas in packaging including juice closures”.
Romanovskaya concludes, “Creating a crown cap solution for PepsiCo was a fabulous challenge and one we were delighted to solve successfully and ahead of schedule. We understood that we were part of an important image project for the market leader of the juice sector in Russia and we did not have a single chance for a mistake or delay! We utilized our best resources, overcoming difficulties step by step, staying in constant contact with our injection equipment manufacturer Husky. We hope that the impressive results of this crown cap project once again prove RETAL’s high quality design and service standards to PepsiCo and the market.”
In all the best success stories, it is not one person that makes the difference, but rather a motivated team of like-minded individuals that come together to achieve a big goal. This is certainly true of RETAL Cyprus, the Limassol-based plastic packaging factory, part of RETAL Industries, which celebrated its fifth anniversary on 9th October this year.
The story first started with a big inauguration in 2015. The importance of RETAL opening and operating a successful factory in Cyprus, where it is headquartered, was clear from this event, as it was attended by the President of Cyprus Mr. Anastasiadis, senior local government officials, the President of RETAL Anatoly Martynov, all of RETAL's board of directors, and its global customers. The event was widely publicised as it highlighted the importance of opening such a modern factory in Cyprus.
RETAL's plans in this strategically important region - the south part of Europe - have come true. Today it is a successful and dynamically developing business that contributes to the Cyprus economy. The company’s president Mr. Martynov notes, “RETAL has over 20 years of experience in the production of plastic packaging. It is the synergy of our deep understanding of the industry and significant investments in our modern plant that are key to the achievements of RETAL in Cyprus.”
Beyond the facility’s impressive equipment and investment, is the unquantifiable advantage of RETAL Cyprus – its engaged, enthusiastic, and highly trained staff. General manager Mr. Hagai Golan shares: “We started from practically a greenfield site. There were almost no specialists in our industry in Cyprus. We recruited people with technical skills, trained them and together we are achieving our goals. We have enjoyed great support in training from our colleagues in other RETAL plants, bringing their expertise to us here in Cyprus. Our team certainly helped us a great deal during coronavirus crisis; our plant operated without interruption and the demand for our products has remained stable. All of this allows us to look confidently to the future."
RETAL global key account manager Nedko Nedev concludes, “RETAL Cyprus is a game changer - one of the leaders in the region. In our first five years we've established high quality standards and reliable business relationships with our local and global customers. Today, about 95% of PET packaging for water, beverages and dairy products in Cyprus is produced by RETAL. Also, our products are in demand outside Cyprus, being exported to Greece, Israel and African countries. RETAL Cyprus plans to expand our product range and sales geography in the near future.”
RETAL Cyprus pays great attention to environmental issues, with extensive investment in solar panels currently providing around 25% of the factory's electricity requirements. The company produces sustainable plastic packaging and utilises its R&D capabilities to offer lightweighted products with a design-to-recycle approach and tethered closures. Promoting the principles of a circular economy, RETAL Cyprus is actively involved in projects related to rPET usage, carries out plastic pollution awareness initiatives, and takes part in cleanup activities to improve the ecology of the island.
RETAL Cyprus also takes part in the social life of the country, sponsoring the Apollon Ladies football team, with both groups participating in environmental activities aiming to raise public awareness in Cyprus on plastic usage.
In its first five years, RETAL Cyprus has become an integral part of the global RETAL company. In the early months, specialists from other RETAL facilities came to Limassol to share their experience. Today, RETAL Cyprus is a hub for key business decisions, strategic planning sessions, and analysing results for the whole group.
The team has ambitious goals, and we hope that by the next anniversary we will have even more to share about the latest achievements of RETAL Cyprus.
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Sustainability Director Emmanuel Duffaut is actively ensuring RETAL engages with suppliers that also perform highly in their CSR actions, as well as systematically guaranteeing quality and food-safety procurement across the company's facilities worldwide.
Duffaut says, “It is crucial that we buy raw materials, good, and services in the lowest impact, most responsible manner possible and we must have a formalized and credible way to evaluate and report our suppliers’ CSR performance to meet our customers’ needs and protect their reputation. Along with our Procurement department, we are implementing a systematic, structured and standardized evaluation of our suppliers regarding CSR to ensure to our existing customers and potential customers that they work with a responsible company.”
RETAL provides to its suppliers subsidized licenses of the 7 Toolkit that RETAL uses, which is based on the ISO 26000 standard, and was created by the CSR Company International Ltd, whose owner Martin Neureiter was the global chair for the ISO 26000 standard development.
With formalised CSR increasingly integrated across RETAL's global facilities, the company is delighted to reflect its multi-stakeholder appreciation for partnering with a responsible manufacturer that practices sustainable procurement.
Globally-active plastic packaging solutions manufacturer RETAL is implementing a ‘defined, robust’ Health & Safety project across all its 17 international factories.
The 2BSafe project sees all RETAL’s worldwide factories working to the same high-level international standards, rather than simply adhering to local regulations, to formalise its strict health & safety standards in every factory.
Lead by Sustainability Director Emmanuel Duffaut and project manager Marlene Riethus, the cross-facility team brings together the different legal regulations and cultural expectations in order to establish and maintain a standardised agreement for health & safety performance.
Corporate standardisation of health & safety also brings economies of scale for resources management, such as buying PPE for the whole group, as well as allowing for effective process management with standard products.
Riethus says, “We want everyone at RETAL to work within the same H&S management system; as a global company with increasingly active global communications, we need to demonstrate to our stakeholders that we are OneRETAL. It helps to protect our employees, to be more effective, to attract talent, to avoid litigation, to reduce downtime…there are so many positive aspects.”
The RETAL 2BSafe project is currently in its implementation phase and is expected to be rolled out across the company by 2021.
Effective internal communications for a global company brings many advantages but can be hard to implement and maintain. With various stakeholders and their differing needs, creating an engaging communications strategy is an opportunity for commercial and organisational goals to be met. Following their intranet launch in 2019, global plastic packaging manufacturer RETAL shares how developing its intranet has been both more difficult and more rewarding than it expected – and how they had to adapt in response to Covid.
For traditional manufacturing companies, the understanding of what effective communication is and why it’s necessary can be the first hurdle in developing a communications strategy. Different stakeholders can see the value of communications in opposite terms, with the ROI hard to quantify, especially in the short term. Yet the cost of poor internal communications may only be seen when it’s too late, so proposing, agreeing to, and, crucially, getting the budget for, a corporate intranet is the first hurdle.
RETAL develops and manufactures plastic packaging solutions to customers in over 60 countries worldwide. The business was founded in 1994 and currently employs around 1,500 employees. Today, RETAL has locations worldwide including Eastern and Western Europe and the US, so its wide range of cultures both internally with employees and externally with customers and other stakeholders means that communication is key. Having historically relied on separate communication within each of its locations, the company realised that integrated internal communication could add considerable value to both its employee engagement and its bottom line – as long as it was done right.
In 2019, the organisation invested in a new corporate O365 intranet. The project was focused on delivering enhanced communication across its 15 factories.
Using an Attollo Intranet out-of-the-box package, RETAL built its internal communications platform to allow for closer cooperation between colleagues and departments in a more efficient and effective manner.
However, the unprecedented changes that the spring of 2020 brought meant that the dedicated communication platform has more than earned its keep, highlighting how staying closely connected even when colleagues are working from home around the world supports a profitable modern workplace.
In this article, RETAL explains how its newly designed intranet had to quickly evolve to meet the needs of its employees in the face of Covid.
Socially-distanced celebrations are still possible at RETAL Baltic thanks to the official opening of its new premises.
The new space is dedicated to an updated central group laboratory to maintain the company’s international-standard quality assurance and testing, as well as expanding working and auxiliary spaces for administration and production employees. It sees the previous 700sqm site now doubled to 1400sqm, in addition to its production facilities.
On 19th June, General Manager Viktorija Jurevičiūtė cut the symbolic ribbon to declare the facilities open, following 12 months of construction that was delayed earlier this year due to coronavirus. The RETAL Baltic team enjoyed a small ceremony to mark the event, with the additional space allowing for plenty of room between people. Each employee was also presented with a personalised plant to match the new office.
Viktorija says, “This new facility represents our continued growth, both professionally and personally, and so we wanted to give each employee something to mark the occasion. The bright, clean design is perfectly in tune with our focus on providing high quality, sustainable plastic packaging solutions and we’re all looking forward to utilising this investment.”
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Digitalisation supports sustainable packaging thanks to adding value without adding materials or considerable costs. That value takes many
forms, from marketing and consumer engagement to raising awareness of environmental issues. Digital tools that can bring benefits to global beverage brands include laser engraving and a gaming-style recycling app, with plastic packaging manufacturers able to integrate both relatively easily and cheaply.
Laser engraving is a design tool to add value to plastic packaging, with the infrared and UV laser capabilities bringing appealing consumer
engagement opportunities right at the start of the design process. The digitalisation element of laser engraving comes from its graphic design
foundation, whereby the right files mean clear designs can be engraved on closures.
Andzejus Buinovskis, design engineer at global packaging manufacturer RETAL, developed specific files that highlight the possibility of laser
engraving for integration in the company’s portfolio of HDPE closures, which are widely used by many of the world’s leading beverage brands.
Andzejus says, “I realised the potential for laser engraving on the underside of our closures when I was Retalsent files to create engraving on our closures, but the graphic files were not suited to laser engraving. The files were prepared by a professional graphic designer as they meant to be printed, but they would not translate well in laser engraving and would not have the desired result. I worked on solutions using one or two lasers and with ultraviolet, infrared or both technologies, with my knowledge of the capabilities of the machines married with
my design skills. For example, the laser doesn’t see shapes, but rather outlines; the laser beam follows the perimeter of the shape, so the design needs to be simplified in order to create a clear image. I worked with the creators of the machine to understand in depth what is and is not possible within its existing capabilities, like can we create an infilled area and can we engrave on light, dark and coloured closures.”
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Implementing sustainable procurement practices across global plastic packaging manufacturer RETAL’s supply chain illustrates its on-going focus on implementing holistic and efficient CSR management following the ISO 26000 standard.
Sustainability Director Emmanuel Duffaut is actively ensuring RETAL engages with suppliers that also perform highly in their own CSR actions, in addition to the valued quality and food safety factors that are controlled by the company’s Quality Department.
Duffaut says, “It is crucial that we buy raw materials, good, and services in the lowest impact, most responsible manner possible and we must have a formalized and credible way to evaluate and report our suppliers’ CSR performance to meet our customers’ needs and protect their reputation. Along with our Procurement department, we are implementing a systematic, structured and standardized evaluation of our suppliers regarding CSR to ensure to our existing customers and potential customers that they work with a responsible company.”
RETAL provides to its suppliers subsidized licenses of the “7 Toolkit” that RETAL uses, which is based on the ISO 26000 standard, and was created by the CSR Company International Ltd, whose owner Martin Neureiter was the global chair for the ISO 26000 standard development.
With formalised CSR increasingly integrated across RETAL's global facilities, the company is delighted to reflect its multi-stakeholder appreciation for partnering with a responsible manufacturer that practices sustainable procurement.
Laser engraving brings new marketing opportunities for beverage brands, with RETAL collaborating with global customers to make easy to read and cheap to incorporate closure solutions.
By adding laser engraved images and codes to the underside of the HDPE closure, RETAL can provide a fresh new opportunity for customer engagement. Competitions, special offers and further information can all be shared, with QR codes, outlined pictures and sequential or random codes all able to be clearly engraved for carbonated and still beverages.
Thanks to infrared and UV laser engraving, RETAL can engrave on almost all colours, using one or both solutions. Andzejus Buinovskis, design engineer at the global plastic packaging manufacturer, says, “The potential for marketing is endless with laser engraving on closures. The machine can be set to engrave random codes, codes that relate to lotteries or prizes...we can even engrave an image of the prize itself! It's fantastic because of course there is a vastly reduced risk of the consumer checking to see if they've won a prize without buying the product, as can happen with on-label promotions for example.”
The engraved closure adds limited cost, the ultraviolet solution in particular as no additional additive is required to support the absorption of the laser beam. Buinosvskis says, “Laser engraving is a very effective marketing tool. If necessary, we can engrave with two lasers simultaneously in order to suit all colours of closures and, by working with our customers to create designs that are perfectly in tune with their current requirements, it adds a unique touchpoint for consumers.”