Clive Smith, zone VP, Sidel GMEA told FoodProductionDaily.com Sayeed International has a strong penetration across the Pakistan bottling industry.
Dubai office opened last year
“This partnership will completely relaunch Sidel in the Pakistan marketplace. We have had some dealings in the country in the past but we want more visibility in the area and we can do this even more now after we opened our office in Dubai last year,” he said.
“Following our restructure with a zone for GMEA, the Greater Middle East & Africa, (formerly covered by WEA – West Europe & Africa and ECEME – Eastern Central Europe, Middle East) we started with 10 people and now employ over 110.
“Our customers don’t need to go to Europe any more because all our services are here; project management, blind design, customer service, technical support, installation and commissioning management.
“I was formally part of WEA but we had to get out of Europe to run the business here because it is the wrong mindset running the GMEA from outside the zone.”
Smith said everything centres around the Dubai business and travel is made easier without having to apply for visas to travel from Europe.
Pakistan 1.4% growth rate
He added Sidel will look for more small orginsations to partner with as it buids up its sub service based in Pakistan and it is looking for service and support engineers to join its teams.
With a population of 196m, Pakistan has a forecasted growth rate of 1.49% in 2014. According to Euromonitor statistics, the population consumes a total of 1.66bn litres of soft drinks products in 2013, an equivalent of 7.9 litres per capita, and with an anticipated CAGR rate of 7.8% between 2013-2018.
In this sense, Pakistan ranks 42nd in size of its beverage consumption globally, and sixth in terms of growth, said Smith.
“The difference in this part of the world is most customers are looking for publicity. The dynamics of this region is that people are proud to spend lots of money and they want their clients to know they are investing in this part of the world. Business is far more loyal than in Europe where it is cut throat. If you lose your competitive edge in Europe you are in trouble, but if you lose it here there is less pressure because it’s more about relationships and trust.
Nova Water
“People like to do business with successful companies so if one firm purchases a line from someone like Sidel it wants to get the same line.”
Clients include Al Ahlia Gulf Line, a licensed bottler and distributor of Coca-Cola in the UAE and Oman, and Health Water Bottling (HWB) Company in Saudi Arabia for its Nova water.
Sidel recently installed its Matrix line at HWB, which will produce 330ml and 600ml PET water bottles at a speed of 134,000 bottles per hour by February 2015.
“We need to consolidate our business in Saudi as we have done well there,” said Smith.
“The Saudi Industrial Projects Company (SIPCO - Pepsi Bugshan), exclusive bottler of PepsiCo Beverages International (PBI) is building a Mega Plant in Jeddah 2 Industrial City, which is under construction and will be the biggest plant in the world.
“We are supplying four lines into that factory which is happening next year. It’s very exciting for us as it’s a great project.
Egypt production
“We are also focusing our attention on Egypt, despite the political challenges there the climate seems to be settling down and I would imagine the Egyptian market is going to climb out of its recent turmoil and inevitably that is going to lead to production going up, and we will certainly be going after that market.”