Plastics News Daily Report - May 10, 2018 - 60

60 ‹ PLASTICS NEWS DAILY REPORT ‹ May 10, 2018

By Rebecca Kanthor
Plastics News Correspondent
Tech-Long Packaging Machinery Co. Ltd., one of the world's
largest suppliers of PET stretch
blow molding machines and beverage packaging lines, is partnering with another Chinese company, Unique Injection Molding
Systems, for joint efforts in the
Americas and much of Europe.
Guangzhou, China-based TechLong wants to use NPE2018 to
introduce the partnership, which
will see the company as the exclusive representative of Unique's
preform manufacturing systems
in North and South America and
in Europe, excluding Russia.
"Tech-Long makes the complete
bottling lines, and every bottle
starts with a preform," said Keith
Boss, CEO of Duluth, Ga.-based
Tech-Long Americas. "So, it's a
very nice synergy to match. At the
NPE show, we're trying to demonstrate to the public that a lot of
the Unique machines are sized in
such a way that they match nicely
with the Tech-Long blow molding
machine."
Like Tech-Long, Unique's global
headquarters are also in Guangzhou.
Tech-Long's U.S. market is
promising, Boss said.
"Other companies have been investing in China and Tech-Long's
been investing in other markets
around the world," he said. "Our
business is becoming as big for
Tech-Long outside of China as it is
inside of China. And I'm really optimistic that's going to continue."

Plastics News photo by Rebecca Kanthor

Tech-Long, Unique unveil new partnership
BOOTH S11067
TECH-LONG PACKAGING
MACHINERY CO. LTD
Tech-Long entered the U.S. market in 2012 and invested $5 million
in a headquarters near Atlanta in
2015.
"We made a commitment to the
U.S. market in 2012, and we've done
nothing but invest in the U.S. since
that time," he said. "We sold our
first line to Sriracha sauce [maker],
Huy Fong Foods in California. It's
been there now for six years.
"What I'm proud of is that we
sell the first system to a customer and they come back and buy a
second or third or fourth, right?"
he said. "My goal is to get customers and then to keep 'em."
Tech-Long also started manufacturing blow molds in Duluth,
about six months ago, he said.
"As our installed base grows of
the Unique injection molding machine, it makes sense for us to do
some manufacturing in the U.S.,"
he said.
"We spent over a million dollars
in capital equipment to do that,
and we're creating some jobs in
Atlanta," he said, noting that three
people have been hired there.
At NPE, Tech-Long will be showing two PET stretch blow molding
machines, an eight-cavity machine running a carbonated soft
drink bottle at "industry-leading speeds," and, in a product
introduction, a newly designed
two-cavity machine running oval
containers using the company's
preferential heating technology.

River Xu, owner of Unique Injection Molding Systems, Keith Boss, CEO of Tech-Long Americas, and Fred
Pinczuk, business development manager of Tech-Long Americas, at Chinaplas.
The two companies have had
what Boss termed a "strong affiliation" for several years. TechLong in China used to be an investor in Unique, but Boss said that
Unique purchased back those
shares from Tech-Long in 2017.
The firms, however, continue to
work together.
He said the partnership also
stems in part from a long-term
friendship he has with Unique's
owner, River Xu.

"River and I have worked together for a long time," said Boss,
including at Husky Injection Molding.
He said Tech-Long management
also felt that Unique was making
gains in the market.
"We've been monitoring the
progress that Unique is making,
and it's pretty significant, so we
want to be part of that," Boss
said. "We're very bullish on the
product, and we feel we can sell

it into our market. I think the market's looking for alternatives."

Unique's perspective
For Unique, which has installed
150 systems in China and 50-60 in
Africa, Europe, the Middle East,
Asia and the Americas, the time is
right to push into the U.S.
"In the Chinese market, all the
See Tech-Long, Page 62

http://www.dekalbplastics.com

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