STiR coffee and tea magazine

STiR coffee and tea 11 IMA C27-E tea bagging machine Klaus Peters general director IMA S.p.A Tea & Herbs Division and president IMA MAISA IMA Consolidates Teabag Equipment Market The acquistion of teabag packaging equipment manufacturers Teamac (2015) and Argentina-based Mai S.A.this spring make IMA Group the dominate supplier in the market. Klaus Peters, general director IMA S.p.A Tea & Herbs Division and president of rebranded IMA MAISA says that when combined with IMA RI "our market share is now 70% mainly based on the development of new machines to react to new requests for packaging in the market." The combination of these companies gives IMA a significant foothold in South America and an extensive global presence, he said. Mai S.A., founded in 1976 by Pablo Mai, has 3,500 installations with a service network support- ing Africa, Southeast Asian, and Latin America clients. Peters, who presented the new C27-E at Interpack 17, said the market "is seeking a very clean machine, a simple machine, easy to operate, easy to maintain." The C27-E meets and exceeds those requirements at a medium range of speed of 300 bags per minute, he said. IMA's single-chamber machines are tailored to the needs of customers supplying U.K., South Africa, and Australia. The Middle East and North America prefer double-chamber bags. The newest single-lane machine fills IMA's patented flow pack bag at a rate of 900 per minute. Some customers reconfigure 1,000 products per year, he explained. IMA was the first to replace hundreds of mechanical parts with electronic controllers, opening a technology gap "that is much bigger than it was three years ago," he said. Currently only 15% of the tea sold is in teabags leaving 85% without packaging. It is a market driven by cost and the price consumers are willing to pay. Premium long leaf tea earns a higher price which is why IMA is develop- ing a pyramid tea bagging machine to be introduced next year, he said. Customers care a great deal about the enviroment which is why the machines are designed to package tea in paper, woven, non-woven, and PLA. CORRECTION Due to an editing error, a photo caption on pg. 28 in the August/ September edition incorrectly identified Klaus Peters as Alberto Vacchi, chairman, IMA Group. STiR regrets the error. EQUIPMENT NEWS

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