1. AVIS will celebrate 25th anniversary soon. Tell us about the list of equipment supplied by the company to the market today?
It’s true, our company was founded in 1997. The founders were native of Izhevsk machine-building enterprises and had serious production experience. It all started with a small production. Today, щгк company occupies an area of 12,000 m2, and our product range includes more than 100 production units of equipment. The AVIS is a full-cycle enterprise, The plant is a full-cycle enterprise, that combines all stages of production from engineering development, metalworking to the launch of finished products at customer sites.
Traditionally, the company specialized in the production of equipment for working with PET packaging. This direction is dominant today. The product line of our company includes the whole range of equipment for creating full-cycle filling lines, both automatic and semi-automatic. We produce blow molding equipment, machines for filling, capping, cap orientation, labeling, group package, conveyor systems of various configurations. We work with drinking and carbonated water, drinks, beer, kvass, technical liquids, oils.
Since 2008, the Company began to master the production of equipment for filling milk and fermented milk products in PET. And now this direction is flagship. This year we have stepped over a hundred implemented projects for filling milk in PET.
2 Can you identify the dominant trend in the development of dairy packaging equipment?
Let’s start with the fact that revolutionary changes in the packaging market, especially liquid products, will not happen in the near future. There will not be securely packaging, utilized in the snap of a finger.
The main market of liquid dairy products will continue to be divided between “traditional” types of packaging: finpack, PET, purepack, glass and foil cardboard.
But the share of each type of packaging in the market is constantly changing. In Russia as early as 40 years ago, glass was practically the only packaging. But eventually glass lost the price war to other types of packaging. And the triumphant return of glass positions to the packaging market will not happen.
Today’s consumer often changes in his preferences: he wants the “flexibility” of packaging, but at an affordable price. And in such a situation, only PET corresponds to all parameters. Individual format – yes, relatively low price – yes, keep the product fresh – yes, go far with minimal cost and not be damaged on the way – yes. And thanks to the combination of all these qualities, PET is increasingly expanding presence in the market of liquid dairy products through other packaging. Of course, PET packaging will not conquer all market, but it will be the prevailing one. With regard to environmental friendliness of this packaging, is a favorite as it is easy to recycle. Therefore, PET will be the main packaging for liquid dairy products.
And our task as equipment manufacturers is to create equipment that will enable enterprises to respond to market needs without significant costs.
Our equipment provides such opportunities, within reasonable limits, of course. Almost any production model can work in the range of PET packaging from 100 ml to 2 liters. There are some nuances, but in general it is so.
3 Due to a significant increase in the production of raw milk in the Russian market, have you felt an increase in the interest of processors in the production of milk in PET packaging? What are the customer requirements for equipment? What is demanded the most?
The interest on the part of processors towards production of milk in PET has been steadily stable for many years. But we have seen the interest towards filling milk in PET from small companies. For the first, these are farms that have begun to think about their own processing.
All our customers place quite high demands on equipment hygiene. And our main advantage is the high level of cleanliness of the filling milk in our equipment.
This allows manufacturers increase shelf life of the products. Our lines, even with the basic configuration, allow to filling milk and get a shelf life from ten days.
Although the trend for extended shelf life (for milk in PET it is 21 days) is not yet widespread. Nevertheless, we have developed enough competencies, and now we have high hygiene triblocs (Ultra Clean), which increase the shelf life of milk to 21 days. There are practically no such production solutions in Russia.
But in addition, it is important for enterprises that filling machines, on the one hand, have a high level of automation, and on the other hand, be as simple as possible to operate and reconfiguration. And this combination is also a competitive advantage of AVIS Company machines. Therefore, our machines successfully work in the most remote areas of our country (Magadan, Mirny, Norilsk) and at large enterprises (Komos Group, Uvamoloko, Nytvensky Butter Plant). Our client list attests to the quality of our work.
It is worth noting the fact that AVIS equipment is not inferior to European counterparts: we use components from leading manufacturers. And our price for equipment is significantly lower than European. With an almost 30% increase in the euro exchange rate over the past six months, the cost of our products has increased by 5%, and for some positions we managed to maintain it at the level of 2019. This is the result of hard work of our team.
4 How do you work with enterprises where your equipment is already installed?
The service department is a separate and most important division in the structure of our company. Equipment is tested at our production site before it being sent to the customer. Complex of equipment is lined up in the shop floor of setup and tested in operating mode for two weeks. In case of successful testing equipment is shipped to the customer. In the process of work our service department monitors the equipment on the continuous basis, provides consulting assistance both by phone, the Internet, and with visits to enterprises. If necessary, we can run a diagnostic on sight and give professional advices. We want our response to be as fast as possible. Speed is our absolute advantage.
And this is especially important in the light of recent developments regarding the pandemic and the closure of borders. Our Russian customers practically did not feel any changes in service, in comparison with those who work on foreign equipment. Delivery of components, departure of the master on the site holds in normal mode and in the shortest possible time. Moreover, we have customers who order diagnostic and maintenance on a regular basis according to pre-approved plans and regulations. These are thousands of units of equipment in Russia and neighboring countries. We monitor the operation of the equipment produced by us even if the customer’s enterprise is closed and the equipment is transferred to a new owner.
5 What are the development plans?
I think that the dairy business will remain key for our company in the next few years. We need to expand the range of equipment as production volumes of customers is growing and we must offer them new machines for more productivity. Another key quality indicator that we constantly strive to increase is the reliability of our machines. And, of course, work on costs reduction. Any equipment is a high cost for enterprises, so we try remains at a reasonable level of price level, not at the expense quality or reliability. It requires constant modifications of the equipment. And now we have begun to actively develop the filling of water in bottles with a capacity of 19 liters (the so-called office format).
There are already working samples for blowing of 19 l bottles, now we are starting the batch production of bottling equipment which are of Western standards, but at the same time cost almost three times cheaper than European and American counterparts.
In conclusion, I would like to express my gratitude to all employees, whose professionalism and intellectual potential are the key to the success of the company, as well as to our customers and people for whom we are working, because of them our equipment is becoming better, more reliable and qualitative.