German conglomerate Bosch Group plans to expand into blow molding machinery and technology.
Bosch announced June 13 that it plans to buy Tecsor Machines et Systèms SAS based in Meyreuil, France, near Marseille.
Tecsor develops and sells machinery for making and filling PET containers for liquid and paste foodstuffs. Bosch claims a blow molding machine developed by Tecsor can make and fill between 6,000 and 32,000 bottles per hour.
Tecsor was founded in 2005 and logged sales of about 2 million euros in 2012. It employs 14.
The parties agreed not to disclose terms of the deal. The purchase is subject to review by anti-trust authorities. Bosch's Packaging Technology division is directly orchestrating the acquisition.
"With Tecsor, we are further adding to our activities in the area of liquid foods," noted Bosch Packaging Technology division president Friedbert Klefenz in a news release.
In October 2012, Bosch bought Ampack of Königsbrunn, Germany, to expand in filling machinery for cups and bottles. Ampack machinery is directed at filling and packaging sensitive products such as dairy foods, baby food and hospital food. Bosch said Ampack is a leader in near-sterile and aseptic processing of pre-formed cups and bottles. With the Tecsor purchase, Bosch can include in-house production of cups and bottles.
"The new machinery we offer will save our customers materials, energy and costs," Klefenz explained.
Bosch Packaging is a major supplier of packaging and process technology based in Waiblingen, Germany. It employs about 5,000 at more than 30 locations in 15 countries. It focuses on markets in pharmaceuticals, food and confectioneries. Its parent Bosch Group generated sales of Euros 52.5 billion in 2012. Bosch Group's 306,000 employees are split among automotive technology, industrial technology, consumer goods and energy and building technology.
Tecsor's technology entails molding containers from a PET blank. Bosch sees the acquisition as an opportunity to enter the market for PET containers.
At Pack Expo in Chicago last fall, Bosch Packaging introduced a new horizontal flow wrapper form and fill seal machine that the firm claimed produces higher seal integrity and airtight packages that feature longer product shelf life than when rotary cutting heads are used. The company also debuted in North America its SurePouch roll-fed vertical form-fill-seal machine for stand-up flexible packs.
