Tetra Pak invests US$ 49 million in the SP plant
Valor Econômico - 06/24/2008
Aiming at providing support to the growth of its production in the next years, Tetra Pak announces today an investment of R$ 80 million (US$ 49.1 million) in its Monte Mor (SP) plant, the highest value ever invested by the Swedish company in the country since the setting of its second unit in Ponta Grossa (PR), in the beginning of this decade. The manufacturer will import two new pieces of equipment - a printer and a rolling mill, a machine capable of assembling the sheets of the long-life packaging, formed by card stock, aluminum and plastic. The equipment, which will increase in 25%, the input production capacity in the country, shall start operating until the first half of 2009, concluding the last stage of the plant's expansion, opened in 1978. Tetra Pak will employ another 69 people in the unit. The Brazilian subsidiary - which produced more than 12 billion packages in 2007, only loosing in volume for the operation of the company in China - is considered one of the examples of the group's success. In 1990, a year before Paulo Nigro, president of the Brazilian subsidiary joins as sales' manager of the company, the local operation had revenues of US$ 50 million. In 2007, the figure leaped to US$ 1,5 billion. Much of this growth is credited to Nelson Findeiss, the first Brazilian to run the Sweden company in the country in the beginning of the 1990s. More than half of the almost 10 billion units sold in the domestic market nowadays represent the milk products market. Nigro - who last year substituded Findeiss in the company's operations in South America and Caribbean - evaluates that the per caita consumption is still low. The idea is that the demand should be met in three years with the new capacity. In case it is necessary, part of the exportations, that represent around 25% of the produced volume nowadays, can be directed to the domestic market. But, besides the plant expansion, Tetra Pak hired people to deal with clients (which include food engineers and microbiologists) and opened positions to look for more professionals to support its growth. Besides, the manufacturer decided to focus on great potential regions, where the package's consumption is smaller, and develop new products.