Interviews: Industrial

Low prices, high quality

Interview with Tomas Mateos Lopez, Reyde S.A. Production Manager

Reyde is a Spanish company in El Prat de Llobregat near Barcelona that produces containers from 125 cc. up to 200–250 lt., but also industrial containers of major capacity, mainly for the industrial market. The company works in the blow molding sector of plastic materials with two Uniloy machines; among the most interesting productions there is a food container produced with coextrusion process.

What is your core business? What type of customer typology and which market area do you turn to?
Lopez: Our main market area includes containers from 1 to 250 lt. for the industry. We have two production plants in Barcelona, one for small containers and the other for the blow molding of containers from 1.000 lt. capacity and over for water and diesel oil. We supply a wide and complete market range of products, blow molded containers for every kind of customer. We also have a section that produces plastic containers for recycling of waste material: paper, plastic, glass, etc.

What are the most recent and significant technological innovations in the blow molding world and in the jerry can and industrial packaging sector?
Lopez: I think that the blow molding world has undergone a significant growth in the last 14 years, in fact there has been a change of habits that has transformed the metal container market into a plastic one, principally because of the lower price but also for the development of the technology and the machines. Today, a machine that is over ten years old is considered to be an old technology machine, while the new machines make it possible to reduce prices and improve quality. This is what the market strongly demands.

What are some of the peculiarities of the Spanish market compared to the rest of Europe?
Lopez: We have verified a market increase in our production sector. In the last few years Spain has had a higher growth than the rest of Europe, probably because we started off at a lower level, but I think there are still good possibilities to grow that also depend on the ability to improve the technology; in recent years we have registered an important growth. There have been some problems regarding prices due to the price increase of polyethylene, but these factors regard Spain as well as all the other countries.