The Aetna Group is world-renowned for producing and marketing end-of-line packing machines for pallet handling and stretch wrapping, shrink wrapping and case packing and taping. It has production plants in Italy, San Marino and India, and sales and service companies in France, Britain, Germany and the USA, supported by an international network of over 250 agents and distributors. Its UK arm AETNA UK’s continued success in our tough business environment is testimony to the leadership and vision of Aetna UK founder and Executive Chairman Barry Tucker, currently celebrating 50 years in the packaging business. WLN went to meet him.
Aetna UK’s stylish, modern offices stand on the brow of a hill just outside the village of Oakley, near Bedford. Here you will find the operations team, equipment showrooms, spare parts store, workshops and storage for its biggest selling lines, semi-automated pallet stretch wrappers. From here over 500 machine movements take place each year, including deliveries, trials, rentals and demonstrations.
Aetna UK has handled Aetna Group’s sales, marketing and after sales support in Britain and Ireland since 1991, and accounts for 12% of group turnover. Its biggest market sectors are food and drink, and logistics. Most customers are in the British Isles, with regular involvement in projects elsewhere when clients here purchase equipment for overseas installation.
“Over the last seventeen years,” says Barry, “we have changed the UK and Irish market perception of a pallet stretch wrapper, from a mere ‘film dispenser’ to a very important necessity which enables product to arrive safely at minimum cost. Because we don’t sell film – unlike most of our competitors – the advice we give is totally unbiased, and customers can rely on our judgement as to the most suitable films to use.”
As Executive Chairman, Barry Tucker is directly involved in sales and leads Aetna’s marketing effort. As classically educated readers will know, Aetna is the original Latin spelling for the volcano Etna – hence Aetna UK’s first promotion in 1991 featured a volcano.
Under Barry’s lead, Aetna UK’s focus is maintaining market leadership by continued investment in high calibre people to provide the highest standards of service. His management team consists of Bob Patel, General Manager and Financial Director, Steve Arnold, Technical Manager. Andrew Barker, service Manager, David Walkinshaw, sales Manager – large machines, and Paddy McCartney, Sales Manager, small machines.
The Aetna family
The Aetna Group in Italy own 30% of Aetna UK. The Group’s largest customer dealing directly with the marketplace, Aetna’s factories “take a great deal of notice of our comments and suggestions,” says Barry.
He is forthright about Aetna UK’s importance: “The Italians are wonderful at making packaging equipment, but we’re better at marketing it here because we know the marketplace. To do well in the UK with Italian equipment, it needs local representation, which we do brilliantly.”
As well as selling Aetna group kit, Aetna UK is free to offer non-competing, complimentary equipment to suit individual customers’ needs. Euroimpianti is one such supplier whose products enable them to provide complete solutions, including palletisers and LGV’s.
Alfredo Aureli, a member of the Aureli family of leading Italian industrialists, founded the Aetna Group in the early 80’s, when his company Robopac began producing robots for stabilising pallet loads with stretch film for the Italian market under exclusive licence from a now defunct American company. Today, Aetna comprises four businesses: Robopac SA: Robopac Sistemi; Dimac: and Pentatec. Robopac produces a complete range of semi-automatic machines for pallet and horizontal bundle stretch wrapping, and L Bar shrink-wrapping and case closing. Its sister company Robopac Sistemi produces automatic machines to handle and stabilise pallet loads and wrap horizontal products with stretch film. Dimac produces shrink wrapping and case packing machines, mainly for the food and drinks industry. Pentatec produces sealing bar shrink wrapping and case packing machines, which complement the Dimac range.
Half a century of success
Barry Tucker is well known throughout the UK packaging industry and trade media. His outstanding career started in 1958 with Thames Board Mills, then part of Unilever and a major player in the board and corrugated industry. “I was Thames Board’s ‘guinea pig’ management trainee, and ended up going out on the road covering Middlesex, Bucks and Oxfordshire.”
His major customers included Quaker Oats, Frank Cooper of Oxford Marmalade fame and Mars Confectionery. Winning new accounts became even harder with the advent of polyethylene films and shrink-wrapping in the early 1960’s. Asked to research shrink-wrapping’s threat to the case industry, Barry produced a report suggesting it would soon become the principal method of basic containment and transport for all suitable products.
Following his own advice, Barry left Thames Board Mills in 1967 and joined the shrink-wrap machinery industry, working for Doboy, the inventors of rotary heat-sealing systems. By the late 1960’s Doboy dominated the world market for bag and sack closing and subsequently, shrink-wrapping and case packing equipment. A mid-west American company driven by second generation Europeans, they aspired to conquer Europe, and grew rapidly during the sixties and seventies.
Barry joined as Southern Area Sales Manager, and in 1969 became MD of Doboy UK. In 1974 he was moved to Hamburg, where he ran the manufacturing company and became European General Manager.
The start of Aetna UK
By the late 80’s, with environmental awareness growing, the German retailer Aldi moved from shrink-wrap back to corrugated cases. Shrink-wrap became unfashionable in Germany: Doboy’s then owners SIG believed it was a trend, and decided to break the company up, but not before dismissing Barry in 1990. By the mid 90’s they had sold the business to Meypack. “Ironically,” says Barry, “they’ve been proved quite wrong: today shrink-wrapping is bigger than ever and seen as environmentally friendly.”
Barry took stock of the situation, and when the chance came to handle the new ROBOPAC range of Italian quality pallet stretch wrappers, shrink wrappers and case packers he set up a packaging equipment company, Aetna UK Ltd.
“In our first year, we sold only six semi auto pallet stretch wrappers. From there the ROBOPAC name quickly became the industry ‘standard’, and by 2000 we were the clear UK market leader with perhaps a forty percent share. Today it’s closer to half and we’re selling seven semi auto machines and one fully auto every week.”
Aetna UK support their customers with over 300 maintenance contracts, and the client base is growing by 200 each year. Aetna is strong in food and drink. Most major UK soft drink and water bottlers have long since standardised on the Robopac product, and continue to specify them. Nestlé and Premier Foods are big users of the range for both human and animal food pallet wrapping.
Aetna UK’s “best project”, Barry says, was at Premier Foods, Long Sutton, where they put in five palletisers and two fully automated Robopac Helix Rotary arm pallet stretch wrappers. Aetna UK are currently involved in a huge pallet handling and wrapping project with ICI Paints, where they are dealing with laser guided vehicles (LGVs), conveyors and pallet wrappers. “When complete, it will make a great story,” says Barry.
Aetna UK’s after-sales service is exemplary too: “We offer excellent response: qualified technicians able to respond anywhere quickly: spare parts availability: telephone support: online access to information about updates or modifications to our machines.
“In an age of subcontracting, our biggest USP is the fact that all the engineers are directly employed by us, and all based in the UK. Many competitors rely on engineers based overseas, who have to be flown in. This means that downtime through the broken machine is increased. We have won many tenders on this point alone.”
Significant increase in orders
Despite the economic gloom elsewhere, Aetna UK is thriving, says Barry: “Last year was our best year ever. We saw a significant increase in orders for automatic pallet wrapping machines and in particular, the rotary arm design from Robopac. These machines have a reputation for being highly robust and well engineered, providing day in, day out operation.
“One customer refers to his Helix HS40 pallet wrapper as ‘an invisible machine,’ because it gives so little trouble from one year to the next! We received several multiple machine orders from existing customers, and importantly, orders from new customers seeking to replace competitors’ machines.”
Speaking of record years, for the second year running Aetna UK also beat their previous year’s sales of semi-automatic wrappers, their biggest selling product range. The Rotoplat 506 is their top selling model, with over 100 sold each year.
Innovation is extremely important to Aetna. The Group’s five companies invest 6% of their turnover on R&D, developing a continuous program of innovation to enable them to offer customers greater performance and reliability and to stay ahead in their packaging technologies.
It’s Show Time
The Aetna Group will be introducing some new machines and systems at the Interpack Exhibition in Dusseldorf at the end of April. These will include a new lighter-duty battery-driven Robot pallet wrapper and several new fully automated systems, including the new Futura ring wrapping system, the double arm rotary helix and a new hooding system.
“We don’t expect real market growth over the next few years,” Barry concedes, “but we do expect to continue holding our overall share and growing our share of the quality segment, and rolling out new advanced models is part of that commitment.”
Barry is looking forward to going to Dusseldorf for Interpack. Over his fifty-year career, he says “one of my favourite bits has been the trade shows, including the PPMA shows, which I used to organise as a PPMA Director. I attended my first Interpack in 1969, before the new halls were built. In 1972 the Exhibition had grown too large for the old centre in the town and by 1975 the new site was ready. I am proud to say that 2008 will see me visiting my thirteenth Interpack.”
The way ahead
Over his career, Barry has seen huge changes in the industry: “Many of the most famous UK machine manufacturing companies have fallen or been absorbed into bigger organisations, and larger and more structured companies are squeezing out the characters that made this a great industry to be involved in.
“Manufacturing in the UK is becoming ever more difficult, and there is also the potential ‘tsunami’ effect from China. Soon, the Chinese will be building equipment well up to European standards, and there will be even more price squeezes to affect European manufacturers. There’s a bright future for those who can stay on their toes and be sufficiently flexible to stay in the game. Standing still is not an option!
“Because it’s mature, the market is becoming ever more competitive: stretch wrapping and shrink have been here for around forty years. Today you can only make incremental developments: film has probably gone as far as it can, other than improved degradability. Hopefully continued research and development allied to stability, consistency, backup and experienced advice will ensure we retain our market leadership in the years ahead.”
Barry has enjoyed his time in the business, and is happy to say so: “Without doubt the packaging industry has been very good to me, and I have lived a very full life. At the age of 70 I look back on the adventure with great pleasure, and feel most fortunate for the career it’s given me. My eleven years on the PPMA Board were great fun, and I made many friends for life. At times it was hard work, particularly the three years of my Vice Presidency and Presidency, but I really enjoyed every moment and it was a great additional experience. Today many of us are still in regular contact and benefiting from those years together when we climbed many mountains.”
At the close of our conversation, Barry’s parting remarks make it very clear that as far as he is concerned, he isn’t yet done with the packaging business:
“Who knows what further adventures and opportunities are waiting for me, providing the energy and spirit remain strong? I still have plenty to offer our company and the industry, and I believe we are once again at the beginning of a new adventure. We have a strong, close knit team, a superb range of products and a great deal to offer.”
Aetna UK
Tel: 01234 825050
www.aetna.co.uk
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