Americas
Introduction
With the acquisition of Scholle IPN, SIG has expanded its customer base in North America while opening up new opportunities in South America. Large US beverage and quick-service restaurant customers have been added to the co-packers who have traditionally been at the heart of SIG’s US business. These co-packers serve not only food service producers but also small start-up companies in areas such as plant-based beverages and nutritional drinks. A joint market approach for our expanded portfolio has been adopted to leverage client relationships. Strategic customer engagement sessions have resulted in a pipeline of new projects in the food service and food and beverage space.
Mexico is a fast-growing milk market where the leading dairies play a key role. South America is led by Brazil, the second-largest aseptic carton market in the world, where we continue to gain market share. Smaller markets, such as Chile and Ecuador, are becoming increasingly important too, with global food and beverage companies stepping up investment.
2022 overview
The Americas registered another strong performance in 2022. Growth in Brazil was driven by price and volumes, augmented by the contribution of new filling machines. In the USA, food service demand was strong as consumers stepped up their use of quick-serve restaurants. Bag-in-box was able to increase its supply of syrup to existing and new customers.
Performance highlights
Building on our strong position in Brazil
In Brazil, innovative formats, volume flexibility and high-output filling machines are driving growth with major clients in categories such as flavoured milk, sweetened condensed milk and non-carbonated juices. We are also expanding into new South American markets outside Brazil, including Peru, Ecuador and Columbia, enabling us to leverage our production capabilities in Brazil.
Partner of choice in Mexico
In Mexico, SIG has strong relationships with leading dairies, including Santa Clara, which is owned by The Coca-Cola Company. Santa Clara’s white and flavoured milks have grown continuously, leading to a need for more capacity. Santa Clara chose SIG for the installation of three new filling machines to help achieve its objective of becoming the leading dairy brand in Mexico.
“I’m confident that the reliable technology offered by SIG and the very talented and passionate teams of both companies have been and will continue to be the perfect combination to write a unique, successful story within the Coca-Cola system worldwide.”
Eduardo Ramírez
Commercial Director of Jugos Del Valle Santa Clara
Broad digital capability
The value of our offer to customers continues to be enhanced by the range of services we provide, including our digital offering. The SIG Reliability Centre, a state-of-the-art remote solutions centre located at the Company’s industrial complex in Paraná, Brazil, coordinates the deployment of solutions such as our Plant 360 Remote Services and Plant 360 Asset Health Monitoring. Our PAC.TRUST solutions enable customers to offer consumers full transparency on the origin and processing of their products.
Brazil: Mococa expands partnership with SIG with adoption of PAC.TRUST digital solution
Mococa Produtos Alimentícios, a well-known company for dairy products in Brazil, has chosen the technological capabilities of SIG’s PAC.TRUST solution. The Company has four aseptic carton filling machines currently in operation.
Through SIG’s PAC.TRUST digital solution, Mococa will have complete visibility of its production process, from the arrival of raw materials at the production plant to confirmation of delivery of finished products at the point of sale. This ensures real-time monitoring and control, and full traceability in minutes, resulting in increased factory efficiency.
For Mococa Information Technology Manager Marcos Godinho, SIG’s technology now makes the company’s internal processes even more agile:
“With PAC.TRUST, it will be possible to reduce manual operations, make the processes even more reliable, and provide our management team with information in real time. The team has information in the palm of their hands, making our decision-making process even more accurate, reinforcing Mococa’s commitment to deliver accessible and high-quality products to its consumers.”
The partnership between Mococa and SIG began in 2021 with filling machines from SIG for filling dairy blends. Today, Mococa fills cream, culinary cream and dairy blends into aseptic carton packs from SIG.
Environmental and social proof points
Sustainability is becoming increasingly important across the region. In North America, co-packer Leahy became the first to offer aseptic cartons with SIGNATURE FULL BARRIER packaging material in food service for the All Friends brand. Nutpods, the plant-based creamer brand, also launched its first line of zero-sugar Barista oatmilks for home espresso drinks using the SIGNATURE FULL BARRIER combifitMidi carton packs. In September, Dos Pinos announced the migration of all its products to paper straws. SIG replaced the straws with 100% natural, degradable and compostable fibre straws, which disintegrate in 12 weeks without harming the environment.
“This initiative is part of a series of actions that we developed within the framework of our 2020–2024 Sustainability Strategy to become a manager of sustainable development and eliminate single-use plastics.”
Luis Mastroeni
Director of Corporate Relations and Sustainability, Dos Pinos
Bag-in-box and spouted pouch also fit perfectly into the trend of sustainable packaging with its history of replacing rigid packaging with lighter structures that present a significant reduction in greenhouse gas emissions compared with alternative substrates.
SIG invests in innovative recycling technology to increase value of recycled aseptic cartons in Brazil
SIG recently announced a BRL 10 million investment in innovative recycling technology that will enable polymers and aluminium from used aseptic carton packs to be recovered and sold separately for the first time on an industrial scale in Brazil. By expanding the range of applications for recycled materials from used aseptic cartons, SIG expects to increase their value by more than 50%.
“We’re excited to introduce a new technology in Brazil that will enable separation of aluminium and polyethylene layers from carton packs, thereby expanding the market for these materials and generating more value from the separated waste,” says Ricardo Rodriguez, President and General Manager of the Americas region. “This project is the latest in a series of innovative collaborations led by SIG to boost collection and recycling rates for used aseptic cartons and grow the recycling chain in a sustainable way.”
The new recycling plant is currently under construction in the state of Paraná. It is expected to begin operating in 2024 with an initial production capacity of 200 tonnes per month. Together with industry partners, SIG has also invested in a plant that went into production in Germany in 2021 to separate polymers and aluminium from PolyAl.
Looking ahead
The construction of our new aseptic carton packaging plant in Mexico proceeded as planned in 2022. Commercial production commenced mid-February 2023. The plant will support our ongoing growth trajectory in North America, allowing our team to respond to market demand with greater agility and flexibility as well as offering improved lead times and higher levels of service.
Santa Clara, an important strategic customer, participated in the start-up of the production plant and witnessed the deployment of our technology in the manufacture of its sleeves. Additional customer visits are scheduled to see our technology in action.
Mexico, the USA and Canada are poised for growth in several market segments. For example, we are entering the school milk sector having recently secured several contracts for the supply of aseptic single-serve cartons to schools. In collaboration with a co-packer, multiple lines are being installed to take advantage of this growing opportunity.
There are many exciting new opportunities for our bag-in-box and spouted pouch business in South America, such as fruit purée pouches in Chile and bag-in-box for agriculture solutions in Brazil.
In the USA, strong demand for bag-in-box from major market players has led to market share gains. We were very pleased to sign Keurig Dr Pepper as our latest customer for bag-in-box during the year. We are also seeing robust demand for spouted pouch.
1 At constant currency.
2 At constant currency, excluding the impacts of Scholle IPN acquisition.