caps and closures | Case study
Jan Erik Meidell was reported in Norway’s Aftenbladet newspaper in April saying the company expected to receive up to €13m over the lifetime of the contract, which could have amounted to more than 3.5bn units. Visually, the Magicap design is similar to the Flex
closure that SmartSeal has been supplying directly to a number of customers for more than a year, including Germany-based premium sports nutritionals company Multipower. However, a company spokesperson told Injection World that Britvic’s Magicap is a unique version manufactured by Alpla. Alpla reached an agreement with SmartSeal back in 2009 allowing it to manufacture closures using
SmartSeal’s no-spill technology. Alpla’s UK-based sales executive Robert Ellis confi rmed the Magicap closure differs from the standard SmartSeal Flex product.
SmartSeal told Injection World in a statement it is not aware of any
Above: Britvic’s Magicap is based on the Flex design from Norway’s SmartSeal, which reports no complaints from custom- ers, such as Germany’s Multipower (right)
Far right: This image from the UK Food Standards
Agency shows how Magicap could fail
Britvic, which recorded group sales of £641m last year and is one of the top two soft drinks fi rms in the UK, said in July the recall and associated loss of sales would cost it up to £25m. Its share price dropped immediately, at one point by as much as 17%, and some fi nancial analysts predicted the company could become a takeover target. Within weeks, Britvic was approached by smaller UK rival AG Barr and had initiated merger discussions, which are still continuing. Meanwhile, it remains unclear what was at the core of the problems with the Magicap closure. In mid-September, a Britvic spokesperson said investigations were still ongoing. She would not comment on whether the failures were the result of a design or manufacturing fault, whether any remedy had been identifi ed, or whether Britvic planned to reintroduce the Magicap design in the future. Alpla also declined to make any comment on the
cause of the problems with the closure when approached by Injection World. Aside from Britvic and Alpla, the recall will also hit
Norwegian closure designer SmartSeal, which developed the no-spill technology used in the Magicap and was expecting a licence income. SmartSeal CEO
38 INJECTION WORLD | October 2012
www.injectionworld.com
consumer complaints or quality issues relating to its own Flex closure design. It declined to disclose the identity of its current manufacturing partner, but it has in the past
announced development and manu- facturing agreements with Corvaglia of Switzerland and MCG Industries of South Africa, aside from Alpla.
Click on the links for more information:
www.britvic.com
www.alpla.com
www.smartseal.no
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