Rocheleau sees potential to make big bottles close to home

Orlando, Fla. — Rocheleau Tool & Die Co. Inc. went to NPE2024 with the company's largest reciprocating screw blow molding machine ever, a unit that's designed to allow for the more economic production of larger-format bottles on a regional level.

The Fitchburg, Mass.-based firm sees its new RS-90 extrusion blow molding machine as a unit that can cut down on transportation costs for plastic processors and their customers.

Shipping empty containers from bottle makers to those that fill them means shipping air to one degree or another. That's just the way it is. And shipping larger-format bottles long distances can be especially challenging with fewer units fitting on each truckload.

But Rocheleau believes the company can help mitigate the economic challenges of transporting larger, empty bottles through the use of RS-90s on a regional basis closer to consumer product companies that ultimately use those containers.

"Some of the larger containers, like the 5-gallon containers, where you're basically shipping air, it's more cost-effective to have manufacturing facilities closer to where the bottles may be filled," Cathy Rocheleau, a co-owner of the company, said on the floor of NPE2024 in Orlando.

"So a trend toward larger packaging requires a little more focused production to eliminate the freight problem," CEO Steven Rocheleau added. "Focused machines like this now are becoming more important for our customer base."

While the RS-90 is Rocheleau's largest of its style to date for the company, the machine is actually designed to compete against even larger-format machines like blow molding wheels used for high-volume production. The Rocheleau machine will never compete with wheels on production cost per unit, but the machine can fill a market need by being located closer to customers and allowing for lower production volumes as needed, the company said.

"Blow molding and blow molding big bottles, it becomes more and more and more and more local. So for someone like us, it's a good thing because you can't always just have one guy with some big wheel machine who is absolutely going to make the bottle at a lower cost," Steven Rocheleau said.

Rocheleau, the company, historically has been strong in providing blow molding machinery for smaller-format bottles, such as single-serve size, he said. But the company is seeing a growing market opportunity in pushing into machinery to make larger-format packaging.

"All these 2.5-gallon to 5-gallon size containers are a growing part of the market," the CEO said. "So we're looking at this format to address some of that need."

The smaller footprint of the RS-90, compared with other blow molding technologies, means the equipment can have a faster cycle time and use less energy and space, Steven Rocheleau said.

He figures COVID-19 has had some impact on container sizes as more and more people looked to buy larger sizes for home consumption. Vegetable oil, for example, is just one particular product where he's seen a growth in container size for at-home use. "I think people being home and buying gallon-sized jugs of vegetable oil was really a big boom in business," he said.

Despite introducing the new RS-90 machine at NPE2024, the CEO said the company is not automatically going to suggest customers buy one of those models if a different piece of equipment makes more sense.

"Really what we look at doing is meet a customer where they're at and not just say we want to build the biggest thing and we want to tell people that they need this because it's the most efficient. We look and we say, 'What do you need and what's the most efficient way to satisfy that project?'" Steven Rocheleau said.

Rocheleau calls itself a maker of extrusion blow molding machinery, molds, automation equipment and blow molded parts.