MEXICO CITY — The Mexican market for flexible and rigid packaging machinery is growing at a rate of 4 to 6 percent a year, according to Steffen Sieber, senior sales manager of Brückner Maschinenbau GmbH & Co KG, of Siegsdorf, Germany.
“We are very happy with the way things are going,” he told Plastics News at Plastimagen México 2014, where the German manufacturer of film stretching machinery exhibited technology that, it said, can achieve working speeds “significantly higher than the previous 525 m/min [meters per minute],” among other items.
Brückner finds Mexico “quite an interesting market for flexible and rigid packaging,” said Sieber. “Our business here is cyclical, four years nothing and then a run. Every four-five years customers here spend $20 million to $40 million.”
Brückner's biaxially oriented polypropylene film customers in Mexico include Biofilm SA, which opened its first production facility in Cartagena, Colombia, in 1988 and its second in Altamira, Mexico, in 2004. The Mexican plant has a production capacity of 210 million pounds a year, according to Biofilm's website.
Other customers in the country include German manufacturer Treofan GmbH & Co KG, of Raunheim, which has a manufacturing facility in Zacapu, Mexican company Altopro SA de CV, of Mexico City, and KristaFilms SA de CV, of Apodaca.
In rigid packaging, Brückner has 15 customers in Mexico, according to Thorsten Warm, the Querétaro-based sales representative for Brückner Maschinenbau and Kiefel Technologies, which showed the latest developments for the packaging, automotive, medical and domestic appliance industries at Plastimagen. Kiefel is a member of the Brückner Group and is based in Freilassing, Germany.
According to Alexander Donabauer, Kiefel's sales manager for Spain, Portugal and Latin America, thermoformed clamshell production is dynamic in Mexico, with five big suppliers and a number of smaller ones.
Other trends in the Mexican market, he said, include the production of low-cost, Tupperware-style PP food containers. Plastic food trays and drink packaging also will grow in Mexico, he said.
The trend of individual coffee portions for coffee percolators is taking off in Mexico, he added. “Now it's just coffee but in the future you will have systems for making soft drinks.”
Convenience meal packaging in plastic is another growth area, he said. “Tin cans are being replaced by plastic.”
