Ceepackaging

Kraft Foods is celebrating the Christmas season with the launch of its popular Carte Noire coffee brand in an original contemporary metal container. Developed in cooperation with CROWN Speciality Packaging, a business unit of Crown Holdings, Inc. (NYSE: CCK) (Crown), the package is part of an exclusive holiday promotion available starting in early December in French and Ukrainian supermarkets.

A rail strike and snow storms marked the start of BRAU Beviale 2007 in the Exhibition Centre Nuremberg (14-16 November), but this did not deter the 34,456* trade visitors (2006: 36,260*) at this year’s most important capital goods exhibition for the beverage industry. The share of international visitors rose in both percentage and absolute terms. 28 % came mainly from Austria, Switzerland, Belgium, Russia, the Netherlands, the Czech Republic, France, Great Britain, Italy and other growth markets in Central Eastern and Eastern Europe to source information about beverage raw materials, technologies, logistics and marketing from the 1,416* exhibitors (2006: 1,437*) – almost 40 % of them international.

A World Bank report has found that the countries of Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union are experiencing a third transition, a transition that overlaps with their recent political and economic transitions. In 2025, more than one in five Bulgarians will be more than 65 years old—up from just 13 percent in 1990. Ukraine’s population will shrink by a fifth between the years 2000 and 2025. And the average Slovene will be 47.4 years old in 2025—among the oldest in the world.

The 8th Moscow International Exhibition “Pharmtech – Technologies of Pharmaceutical Industry 2006” will take place in Expocentr from the 20th to the 23rd November 2006. This is the only specialised event in Russia and CIS dedicated to pharmaceuticals production. For the first time the exhibition will be held in a new venue, modern architecture and developed infrastructure of which provide for holding events up to the highest standards.

With the recent addition of two HyPET 300 systems, Retal Industries, a major packaging and component supplier in Russia and Eastern Europe, has extended its reliance on Husky Injection Molding Systems. From the initial machine supplied to their plant in the Czech Republic in 1994, followed in 1999 by the first machine supplied to Russia, Retal Industries has installed a total of 69 Husky systems to date. The company designated Husky as the main supplier for their PET preform systems more than five years ago.

Despite an increased focus on markets in Western Europe, drinks giants Coca-cola and Pepsi-Co will continue expanding eastwards to offset their smaller market shares, according to a new report by research group Euromonitor.