Alimac is an example of brilliant entrepreneurship and product excellence.
Founded in Italy in 1990, Alimac soon became one of the most important international players in the handling solutions business.
Currently, Alimac is an international and modern industrial group, a market leader.
Alimac provides customers, the most important local and international brands, with years and years of case studies around the world, full technical expertise from billions of tape carry handles manufactured, and a strong value proposition.
Alimac: one of the first manufacturers of tape carry handles
Alimac began the business when the self-adhesive tape carry handle market was just starting and uncertainty was predominant.
Alimac carried out a feasibility study on the innovative tape carry handle system and its business, just starting in the beverage sector.
Alimac was a pioneer. It realised the potential growth and business opportunities of this market, pushed by some important market drivers.
In the second half of the 1980s, retailers were expanding in Europe and Italy.
In addition, glass bottles were gradually being replaced in the beverage industry by the more modern and economic PET bottles that could be put together in 6-bottle packaging using modern shrink wrapping film.
The new multi-packs were light, economic, sturdy, and made the automatic application of the innovative tape carry handle possible, making them easy to handle and carry.
Alimac was one of the “first movers” of the market, and the curve of experience in this business is currently very large and contributes to the position of Alimac as a key player in the business of handling solutions.
International growth
In 1992, Alimac started growth in international markets and built a business partnership in France.
The modern market approach, product excellence and great confidence in the future of this market led the Alimac founders to start large-scale production of the tape carry handle in Italy, following the most modern industrial criteria, in 1993.
The tape carry handle manufactured by Alimac was immediately recognized by the market as technologically advanced, due to the high quality of components, the excellence of the manufacturing and the full quality control process, still in place.
The first Italian customer to adopt the Alimac solution was the mineral water brand “Chiarella” from the beverage sector.
Evian, the famous international brand of mineral water, was one of the first international brand manufacturers to become an Alimac customer in 1993.
In the same year Alimac started its commercial expanding on foreign markets: France, Spain, Belgium became the new markets conquered by the tape carry handle manufactured by the Alimac plant.
In Spain, a distribution contract with a local company was successfully signed in 1994.
A new production plant was necessary to deal with the new sales volume from emerging markets.
In Germany, a new manufacturing plant was built in addition to the Italian one in 2005.
The production criteria were the same - strict selection of components, the same work phases and processes, management of the entire process, strict and continuative quality control, care of customer needs and capabilities for special projects all over the world.
The innovation of the prelaminated tape carry handle
The modern business approach and consolidated technical know-how led Alimac top management to also start production of the pre-made tape carry handle (also known as prelaminated), manufactured in Germany in 2005.
The production of the prelaminated handle was a milestone in Alimac history. This family of tape carry handles was added to the existing “traditional” product range.
The prelaminated tape carry handle is a “one piece” product, not requiring the coupling phase on the handle applicator before application to the packaging in transit. Some advantages - no coupling errors, easy storage, easy change of the reel when finished, brilliant customized colours and no humidity damage.
Alimac’s massive industrialization of the prelaminated handle conquered many international markets in the Beverage sector such as Poland, the Czech Republic, Yugoslavia, Canada, Argentina, Uruguay and Japan.
The rest is recent history:
• 2011 Alimac Iberia, new commercial office
• 2012 Russian Federation, new commercial office
• 2015 new production plant for Chinese market and commercial office
• 2016 Usa, new commercial office for North America & Canada
The innovation of the Alimac-Mactec Integrated System
In 2015, Alimac started a new market approach - tape carry handle solutions and handle applicator solutions as a unique “all-in-one” system.
Concentrating a twofold vertical expertise in the same corporate group is unusual in the current international scenario of packaging handling solutions.
Companies only design and manufacture tape carry handles or handle applicators and this is a significant entrance barrier for those who want to provide a complete handling packaging solution where durable and consumable goods are fully integrated in a unique commercial and technical solution, more reliable and economic.
Alimac has therefore created Mactec, the business unit designing and manufacturing handle applicators (handle applying machines).
Years and years of case studies in diversified markets are an important expertise enriching the handle applicators technology. That gives Alimac a unique positioning in this business on the markets all over the world.
The AMIS - Alimac- Mactec Integrated System - provides in the same packaging project a unique turnkey solution strongly customized both for tape carry handle and for handle applicator.
In this way Alimac ensures the best tape-machine interaction and presents itself as a unique technical problem solver for tape carry handle and equipment. Customer benefits of one-supplier management before, during and after the packaging project.
Alimac in the today’s market
Alimac has acquired a strong know how in tape carry handle business.
It owns one of the widest ranges on the international scenario and is able to match any market need, thanks to its advanced technologies and lessons learned in numerous successful case studies across different customers and sectors.
The manufacturing process is the state-of-art in this sector, and the Quality Control works endless to ensure the excellence of products.
The Special Projects department studies innovative technologies to meet any customer needs and wants.
Currently Alimac has a commercial presence all over the world in Europe, North America, Russian Federation, Asia, China, South America, Africa.
Alimac customers range from SME’s and local brands to large organizations and international brands.
Alimac is a success history due to years of continuative technical improvement, a huge passion, and a strong willing to do always better in order to deliver excellence to the customers, from smallest to the biggest.
Currently Alimac is still improving the excellence of products and services to provide worldwide the state of the art of the packaging solutions by hand.