The ALPLA Group is the world leader in the field of innovative production and recycling packaging solutions. The family-owned business has 190 sites across almost 50 countries around the world. This proximity to its international customer base has allowed the company to waive much of its transportation costs while remaining responsive to its customers’ needs.
“We can provide a one-stop shop for our customers,” explains Javier Delgado, Regional Managing Director for Africa, the Middle East, and Turkey. “Customers can get the product from us, the plastic bottles and cap, but then we can label it, sleeve it, fill it, and close it. Upstream we can manufacture the mould, design the products, and offer modelling and sketches. Downstream, we can work from within the customers’ own facilities, avoiding secondary packaging and transportation costs and filling for them at their own premises.”
These solutions are providing a unique way to ALPLA’s customers around the globe, and in the African, Middle Eastern and Turkish markets, we can see that model at its best.
In this region, the company is present in nine countries, with a turnover of half a billion dollars. The firm has 18 facilities, including 14 of its own plants and four lines in-house at its customers’ premises.
“Food and beverages make up approximately 60% of our business,” Delgado says. “Soft drinks, juice, and water bottles. The second biggest segment is home care, followed by personal care, and then we have four more segments – dairy, pharmaceutical, oil and lubricant and agrochemicals. These are the seven segments where we operate in our region.”
Those customers include global accounts such as Coca-Cola, Pepsi, Unilever, and P&G as well as local accounts, such as Refriango, and to serve them ALPLA AMET employs 2,500 people.
“We are pioneering, customer-orientated, and with 68 years of experience built around one main pillar – our employees,” Delgado tells us.
A Pipeline of Talent
Of course, ensuring a sure and steady supply of employees of the right calibre is a challenge in itself.
“The pillars of our 2026 strategy include one named ‘Horizon 10’, the goal of becoming a 10-billion-euro business by 2025, and one named ‘Talent Powerhouse’, which is linked to our employees,” Delgado says. “Finally, our third pillar is ‘Family Corporation,’ a new structure for the business that will combine the best aspects of being a family-owned business and a listed corporation.”
In many ways, that second pillar is the most important. The company needs an ongoing pipeline of fresh talent that can develop and grow within the company. The international ALPLA Group as a whole has an apprenticeship scheme running across several countries, in collaboration with local governments and providing recognised accreditation to students in the fields of mechatronics and plastics. An Austrian accreditation will always complement the local one (dual accreditation).
“We recruit students every year for a course that is both practical and theoretical,” Delgado explains. “After three years 95% of the students continue within the organisation, while others take their qualification elsewhere.”
In the region (particularly in South Africa), next year ALPLA intends to hire 12 more students again. After continuing this way for three years in a row, the company will have a rolling stock of 36 apprentices undergoing its course at a time.
“We offer them this dual apprenticeship but pay them a salary while they study with us,” Delgado points out.
It is a model that ALPLA has replicated across five or six countries, and Delgado tells us the plan is to double that over the next three years, then continue to do so in pace with the company’s growth. However, these apprenticeships are only the beginning of a lifelong process of constant training for its existing employees, both on-site and externally.
“This training is connected with our corporate offices in Austria, so exposure to travel and different cultures is available to our staff from a technician level upwards,” Delgado says. “We have learning centres in every country where we are training people from the shop floor onwards.”
It has created a powerful and diverse team.
“One of the parts of my responsibility that I most enjoy is the opportunity to work in a multicultural environment,” Delgado tells us. “It gives us the chance to deal with different cultures, genders, religions, and ages. This is what makes our region unique in the ALPLA world, among any companies. It makes us strong and makes me proud to work here.”
A Valuable Ally
Nurturing that pipeline of expertise is more important than ever in the challenging times the industry and its customers have been facing lately, particularly in the Africa, Middle East, and Turkey region.
“The biggest challenges we are facing today are the geopolitical environment, and especially in our region,” Delgado says. “We are currently seeing the Gaza War, and there are often concerns about Sudan, Ethiopia, Yemen, or Syria.”
ALPLA must also navigate currency fluctuations in the region, including ongoing devaluation that has been occurring at an increased rate in recent times.
“That is a big challenge because our products are being purchased by consumers, and whenever purchase power from consumers drops that impacts our customers, and then our own bottom line,” Delgado points out. “So, we work closely with customers, especially in volatile environments. The tightening of finances for suppliers and customers is greater than ever. We need to pay attention to our contracts to ensure we are substantially covered for the short to mid-term span.”
Continuing to Pioneer
The AMET region is still one of the youngest regions in ALPLA’s portfolio. The company has only had a geographic footprint here since 2014, starting with South Africa. Delgado himself was one of the first employees from the firm to position himself here.
“I started our first plant in South Africa, and today the entire AMET region is considered one of the fastest growing in the ALPLA system,” Delgado points out. “Our performance nearly matches that of the US and Asia Pacific branches of the company. So, the pace of growth we are expecting over the next decade is high.”
The firm has a wide experienced but a young senior management team, and a leadership team of eight people based in the UAE (Dubai), Turkey, South Africa as well as at ALPLA’s HQ in Austria.
“It is a dynamic, fast-growing region,” Delgado says. “We will continue to grow our existing plants in our existing countries, while continuously working to find new countries to expand into through greenfield, brownfield and clients’ in-house plants.”
