An international leader in the packaging and processing sectors, Della Toffola is a multinational group made up of 17 companies located all over the world, that for over 50 years has supplied machines and systems for the oenology, beverage, dairy and food sectors, filling and packaging, water treatment, chemicals and pharmaceuticals. We asked Alberto della Toffola to tell us more about the market news of the Montebelluna-based company and its success formula for 2020.

Which are your technological innovations?

The news of 2020 touch different markets. Let's start with the wine processing sector. In this field we are developing new continuous pressing systems in order to make the winemaking process more effective. The continuous grapes pressing, thanks to an automated system, allows wineries of medium to large capacity to have continuous productivity in a sector that has always worked in batches. This is therefore a great advantage both for the speed of production and for the quality of the product. The system is automatic and analyzes the incoming grapes by calculating the process steps to operate at its best.

Moving on to filtration, again in this sector, we also have news for the beer market. We have new filters with ceramic membrane, which allow beer to be recovered from fermentation yeasts.

For the beverage processing sector, we are installing complete beverage production plants that serve the entire production chain: starting from powdered sugar, up to the finished beverage. In this area we collaborate with important global players, who require high rates systems.

Concerning the packaging front, we also have isobaric machines used for carbonated products, with the management of automatic filling while in the dairy sector we are present with our ultra-clean storage systems that are increasingly consolidated on the market.

However, the absolute novelty arrives in the filling sector, with an innovative technology for application and managing of the OPP wrap-around label from a green perspective. This is the de-labeling of returnable glass bottles or PET bottles that before this technology were difficult to recycle, due to paper labels and glues. Today, however, we recover bottles by washing quickly the surface, adding a laser cutting process that totally removes the label for a perfect de-labeling. Today we already have 8 plants installed in Central America and Mexico, where we recover all the bottles that arrive from the market, offering a full circular recovery of reusable bottles.

Which are your expectations regarding IPACK-IMA?

We expect interested people and visitors to come. We miss physical trade fairs, which represent a fundamental aspect in the development of new markets, as online conferences are not the same. My expectations are therefore the same of everyone: national and international incoming for both packaging and processing industries.

We are not yet ready for the online business only. The power of a live meeting can never be equaled, as it allows dialogue, observation of other people, focus on your interlocultor: all this is allowed only by human contact.

Your vision of the current market

Despite everything, 2020 is moving, although certainly not with the same dynamism that was expected in February. The March-June period almost gave the impression that the world has stopped, then there was a restart towards July, and now the situation is uncertain again, even if the market is recovering in all the sectors in which we operate. However, we are seeing an investing return, which certainly does not match the expectations of the beginning of the year, but with a comforting restart in the Middle East and Asia and now also South America.