The Packaging News review of 2009: honours all round

DEAL OF THE YEAR
Winner: Alcan, Amcor and Bemis, too
It was the deal the packaging world had been waiting for and in August it finally happened: Amcor announced that it had made a firm offer of $2bn to buy much of Alcan’s packaging business. It was about time – it took two years for mining giant Rio Tinto to complete the sale after it acquired rival miner Alcan, in June 2007, and immediately put its packaging business on the market.

The addition of Alcan’s Global Tobacco, Food Europe, Food Asia and Global Pharmaceuticals to Amcor’s considerable existing empire will create a business with sales of around $12bn and no fewer than 300 factories worldwide.

And let’s not forget Alcan’s other sale of the year, when Bemis paid $1.2bn for its American food packaging business. As 2010 begins, Alcan’s beauty packaging business is still up for grabs – but with Ernst and Young reported to be touting the business to potential buyers, a deal may not be too far off.

Runner-up: Chesapeake
Another international deal that grabbed the headlines, this time for Chesapeake, which, despite most of its operations being in Europe, was headquartered in the US. Its fall in late 2008 into Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection triggered a sale to private equity investors Oaktree and Irving Place and, sensibly, a move back to UK headquarters. At $330m, the business was a steal.

PACK POLITICS OF THE YEAR
Winner: Defra’s packaging strategy
When environment minister Hilary Benn launched the government’s Packaging Strategy in June, there were some grumblings that the entire exercise had been a waste of time – after all, how could we have a strategy focused on packaging without one on products?

Perhaps predictably, the strategy focused on how to reduce packaging’s environmental impact: the document would make it more easy to enforce action against manufacturers who over-package products; banning some materials from landfill to increase recycling rates was mooted; and refillable and reusable packaging would be put on the agenda.

Much of the industry saw the 83-page document as a positive indication that the government had recognised the sector’s successes and put its finger on many of the problems standing in the way of packaging becoming even more green than it is currently. How some elements of the strategy will be put into action remains to be seen, but the document was a big step in the right direction.

Runner-up: Welsh bag tax
“The worst kind of greenwash we have ever come across.” This was how the Carrier Bag Consortium described the Welsh Assembly Government’s (WAG) proposal to levy a 15p tax on every single-use carrier bag, be it paper or plastic, handed out in the country. The WAG plan was revealed in August, just days after Wrap announced that supermarkets had cut plastic bag use by 48% in the last three years.

CAMPAIGN OF THE YEAR
Winner: Hank the Singing Bottle
Baulking at more traditional methods of promotion, the European Container Glass Association (Feve) created a campaign centred on a loveable Arnold Schwarzenegger-quoting bottle to encourage the reuse of glass.

Hank the Singing Bottle proved as popular   as his song. ‘I’ll Be Back’ spoke of the renewable nature of glass as rampant lovers, boozy blokes and wayward children cause him to be broken and reincarnated in various forms. It is in his final guise as a make-up pot in Hollywood that Hank finally meets Arnie, who he claims stole his line.

Feve hoped the campaign would increase the amount of container glass collected and recycled. President Dominique Tombeur said: “We hope Hank will help raise greater awareness about the importance of glass recycling”.

We’re sure the letters he is supposed to have sent to the Governor of California, French first lady Carla Bruni and celebrity blogger Perez Hilton will only help the campaign grow. Now all we need is an album.

Runner-up: Plastics 2020
PlasticsEurope, the British Plastics Federation (BPF) and the Packaging and Films Association (PAFA) started a wide-ranging debate on plastics and waste management issues with the launch of its Plastics 2020 challenge this summer. The scheme aims to engage MPs, ministers and key opinion formers, as well as the general public, in an open debate on the environmental issues surrounding the plastics. A worthy runner-up.

CELEBRITY OF THE YEAR
Winner: James May
He might come across as mild-mannered, but Top Gear presenter James May, otherwise known as Captain Slow, was outraged by the Portman Group’s suggestion that a bottle of BrewDog’s Speedball beer could make him aggressive.

The Portman Group, which seeks to encourage the responsible promotion of alcoholic drinks, blacklisted the beer because its name had links to drug use – Speedball was also the name of the drug cocktail that killed Hollywood stars River Phoenix and John Belushi.

May and co-presenter Oz Clarke drank the beer, albeit from bottles in paper bags, when they visited the BrewDog microbrewery as part of their Oz and James drink to Britain series, aired on BBC2 in January.

In an angry outburst over the Portman ruling, May said: “The idea that this bottle of beer, or several of these bottles of beer, could somehow make me an aggressive person is patronising and actually insulting.”

Runner-up: Lisa B
Model and actress Lisa B showed her support for glass packaging when she helped launch the sector’s Choose Glass Week event. The model – best known for her turn as Hugh Grant’s other woman in the film Bridget Jones’s Diary – said that choosing glass was a “simple, effective way” to make a difference to the environment.

INVESTMENT OF THE YEAR
Winner: Can-Pack
It had been a full 20 years since a new canmaking plant opened in the UK when Can-Pack began production a year ago at its Scunthorpe facility. If you hadn’t heard of Can-Pack at the time, that’s probably little surprise – this was the Polish
company’s first major investment in western Europe, even though it is already a big cheese in the canmaking world in central and eastern Europe and has plants in the Middle East and India. Built on the promise of contracts from major brewers, the £40m factory can produce up to 1bn 44cl and 50cl cans a year on a single line. Capacity could be expanded to double that if and when a second line is installed. But perhaps the best thing about the factory is managing director Jerzy Laszcz. In an interview with Packaging News, he gave some of the best soundbites of the year: he likes to hire “factory animals”, noted that British consumers are obsessed with saving money and said that there were “charming places in England” to visit on his weekends off – before hastily adding that it’s just as much fun spending time in the factory. Priceless.

Runner-up: DS Smith
A very worthy runner-up, DS Smith spent £104m on buying and revamping a former Mondi mill in Kent to produce lightweight corrugated case material. Production started at the mill in January 2010.

COURT CASE OF THE YEAR
Winner: Quinn Glass
If Quinn Glass ended 2009 on a high after communities secretary John Denham decided not to reject the most recent planning application for its glass bottle manufacturing and filling facility, it was anything but an easy ride.

The year started in a cloud of uncertainty about when enforcement action would need to take place. The local authority concluded that there was no immediate need for action, but the judge at the subsequent case at the High Court in London, brought by Ardagh Glass against the councils, ruled that the plant was indeed “unlawful”.  As a result, Cheshire West and Chester Council issued an order in May to “cease production within nine months and demolish unauthorised buildings”, which Quinn appealed. At the end of the summer, though, the council approved the planning permission and the government did not overrule the decision. Quinn director Adrian Curry said the firm was delighted at the result and thanked staff and customers for their support during the process. Ardagh, meanwhile, said it would consider its position regarding more legal action.

Runner-up: Red Bull
The drinks giant hit the headlines in August after it was handed the biggest-ever fine issued under the Producer Responsibility Obligations (Packaging Waste) Regulations. The firm said it was now well placed to meet the obligations, but the £271,800 fine for failure to comply for an eight-year period highlighted concerns that more needed to be done to raise awareness of the rules.

MOST FASCINATING COMPANY AWARD
Winner: SAICA
Our readers’ fascination with Sociedad Anónima Industrias Celulosa Aragonesa (SAICA) continued this year as the corrugated packaging behemoth announced restructuring plans. Visitors swarmed to the website to read about the company’s £40m investment in facilities and talks of plant closures – affecting up to 264 jobs – making it the second most-read online story of 2009.

Following the announcement, the company chose Packaging News to quash rumours that it was to shelve its £250m recycled paper mill in Manchester. SAICA confirmed the project would go ahead, but said it was looking to reduce costs for the mill to what it called an “acceptable level”. The latest development is the news that the company is investing £42m to bring its UK plants up to group level. This includes a new 3.3 corrugator at its Wigan plant, a 2.8 corrugator at Thrapston and investments in Thatcham and Hartlepool. Yet restructuring continues and the latest round of redundancies are to be at the firm’s Peterlee site.

And still little is known about the elusive Spanish owners of SAICA  – an established player in continental Europe, the company is something of an enigma in the UK. As a result, the industry continues to watch with curiosity.

COMEBACK OF THE YEAR
Winner: Europackaging
Packaging News readers were surprised this September by the return of the Majid family to the helm of struggling carrier bag supplier Europackaging. The move came three years after the family sold the company to private equity house MidOcean Partners.

Birmingham-based Europackaging has sales of more than £200m and supplies packaging products into major retail, wholesale, foodservice and janitorial sectors. Moorgate Capital, Lloyds Bank, Bank of Scotland and KPMG were all instrumental in securing the deal, which has safeguarded 800 jobs worldwide.

The Majid family were believed to have made £100m when they sold the business to MidOcean Partners in December 2006. Since then, the company has struggled to replicate the Majid’s success. In a statement, the family said it was looking forward to “restoring the fortunes of the business”.

Now the industry waits with bated breath to see what the Majids will do with the company next. Will they be able to fulfil their promise of placing the firm back on its feet? Only 2010 will tell.

TABLOID PACKAGING STORY OF THE YEAR
Winner: Maoam
Sex sells, but there are limits. In a letter to the Daily Mail in August, one reader spoke of his outrage at the illustrations on Maoam sweet packaging which, he said, showed a cartoon lemon and lime locked in a “carnal encounter”.

Mr Simon Simpkins, from Pontefract, West Yorkshire bought the Haribo sweets for his young children and said he was disgusted by the image.

“My wife and I have always tried to maintain their innocence and to think our years of careful parenting could have been wrecked by, of all things, a sweet wrapper makes me livid,” Simpkins told the Daily Mail.

A Maoam spokesperson said the wrappers were not created to cause offence but that the character was designed as a unique and jovial figure.

Packaging News readers were also curious about these sweet packs. In a matter of days the story rocketed into the top 10 most-read online stories of the year.

Runner-up: Recycling
As if a weak economy wasn’t enough to deal with, recycling and waste management firms were forced on the defensive after a number of national media outlets published images of stockpiled waste alongside reports that the market had collapsed. However, householders continued to do their bit and, indeed, as the year progressed, the market picked up.

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