Extrusion International 2-2019

27 Extrusion International 2/2019 GN Thermoforming Equipment exhibits its technologies at Interplastica every year. Marek Nikiforov, Global Key Ac- count Manager, spoke about the company’s prospects on the thermoforming equipment market. We have been producing thermoforming machines for 40 years. GNThermoforming Equipment is headquartered in Canada. We also have GN EUROPE Thermoforming techni- cal center in the Czech Republic. There we provide training andmaterials tests. For instance, Milliken, amaterial supplier many of our customers order from, often takes a chance of this opportunity. In Russia, we have been marketing our products since 1995 and at the moment we have a strong position in the ther- moforming equipment marketplace. Our application focus is thermoforming trays, containers and offsets. In Russia Ko- mus-Upakovka company is considered to be a leader here. It has 50 GN machines. This is where our promotion to the Russianmarket began and then proceeded to other regions. Now most transparent packaging manufacturers have ma- chines made by GN. As for our worldwide activities, our equipment is supplied to 75 countries, including the USA, Canada, Europe, Co- lombia, Chile, Argentina, Mexico, New Zealand, China, the Middle East. The USA is a very important market for us. Latin America is an interesting market with its own peculiarities. TheMexicanmarket seems very similar to the Russian one, as transparent packaging is also widespread there. Speaking about global market trends, we are pleased with the intent to use environmentally friendly solutions. Most of the world-known producers, such as Danone, claim that by 2025 they will stick to manufacturing packaging made of recyclable polymers only. Thereby, some companies turn to collecting not only PET bottles for recycling needs but pack- aging waste as well. Therefore, we strive to sell more equip- ment for PET packagingmanufacture. At Interplastica we presented our GN 800 machine. It is reli- able and is being sold quite successfully. Now it is the major technology for transparent packaging production marketed by GN. GN Thermoforming Equipment has won the Russian market long ago. So 70-80% of our activities at the trade show are meetings with regular customers and only 20%are newcon- tacts. Naturally, we intend to come to Interplastica next year as well. GN Thermoforming Equipment www.gnplastics.com We are pleased with the trend towards environmentally friendly solutions Interview with Marek Nikiforov, Global Key Account Manager at GN Thermoforming Equipment Tecnova S.r.l. www.tecnovarecycling.it Tecnova has been participating in Interplastica for many years. It is an interesting market yet a special one. It has some peculiarities because of mentality of Russian cus- tomers. It is very important to have local support or a sales office with a Russian team to continue the relationship between the company and the customer. Besides, it is not an easy period for business here due to political situation and economical bans. We also see Chi- na and Turkey signing partnership agreement with Rus- sia. One cannot call it encouraging news for us. Besides, a different exchange rate compared to that one 3-4 years ago made it impossible for many Russian companies to af- ford buying European machinery. One should have very unique technology to keep com- petitive here. Still we think Russia is a perspective market for us. Our core business is extruders for plastics recycling. In Rus- sia recycling business is still developing. So we are here to expand our business for post consumer recycling. We wit- ness consumers in Russia start sorting waste and get used to the idea of recycling. This is the first step. We hope that in future the demand for recycling machines will be grow- ing here. Russia is an interesting yet special market Interview with Mr. Ferdinando Caridi, Sales Manager at Tecnova S.r.l. Mr. Ferdinando Caridi, Sales Manager at Tecnova S.r.l., speaks about peculiarities of the Russian market