A revolutionary technology for plastic-free packaging; the recovery of a shed in the Taro valley and a recruitment plan to offer job opportunities to over 50 young people from the Parma hills. It is the triple objective of sustainability – sustainable for the environment, for the community and for the company business – that the Acmi di Fornovo di Taro achieved with the investment announced yesterday, which opens up a new scenario for the international development of this green patch of Emilian Apennines.
Here the group controlled by the Magri family, which has almost 40 years of history behind it in the construction of packaging and bottling lines and is today one of the world leaders in complete secondary packaging systems for beverage, has inaugurated its fifth production plant, which joins the two Fornovo Taro offices and the Felegara and Rubbiano facilities, also in the province of Parma.
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The new headquarters will be the home where Acmi researchers’ latest “creature” grows, the result of a year of work and one and a half million euros of investments in R&D: an innovative pallet wrapper that does not use plastic film, but a special kraft paper (wrapping paper) that is totally recyclable, developed by the British multinational Mondi. “It is the first machine in the world that allows you to wrap any type of pallet not with the classic stretch plastic films but with recyclable paper, guaranteeing the same performance”, says Giacomo Magri, president of the company, with a turnover of 90 million euros in 2020 (for 92% made abroad with customers such as Coca Cola, Danone, Heineken, Nestlé) and 400 employees. Rocket E-500, this is the name of the new plastic-free wrapper, uses a special “Advanced StretchWrap” kraft paper to wrap the pallets, specially designed by Mondi (leader in the paper sector globally, almost 7 billion euros in revenues and 26 thousand employees). The robotic technology developed by Acmi and a patented reel unwinding system allow Rocket E-500 to reach a speed of 100 pallets per hour and to guarantee with recyclable paper the same results that would be obtained using plastic film, both in terms stability and protection from external agents.
“We debuted in 2017 with the first sustainable solutions that halved the consumption of plastic films and introduced cardboard packaging – explains the president – with Rocket E-500 our” GoGreen “project for a plastic-free food & beverage industry makes the big leap. We expect to reach full capacity within 24-36 months with a production of 100 machines per year, which means an additional business of 25 million euros. And we have chosen to invest precisely in Borgotaro because in the packaging valley technical skills are starting to run low and here in the Apennines we have a protected basin with two Ipsia schools that offer excellent professionalism ».