Brivaplast, the Italian company that specializes in the manufacture of applicators and packaging solutions for the Beauty sector has recently moved to a new industrial site located in Ornago, east of Milan. Amount invested: € 8 million for the building, and € 4 million for the new machines. Stefano Vanoncini, CEO, tells us more.

With € 40 million in sales (compared to € 3 million in 1994), a staff of 200, a production subsidiary in China opened as early as 2006 and a sales office in Los Angeles opened earlier this year, Brivaplast, a 100% family-owned company, which celebrated its 50th anniversary in 2016, is a further example of the dynamism of this Italian industry serving the Beauty sector.

With its core activity—the production of mascaras (bottles and brushes)—representing 70% of its revenues today, the Italian company has also acquired a leading position in the world for the production of other types of applicators, such as gloss applicators. In addition to mascara, the production of closures and decoration for the perfume industry accounts for 20% of the turnover.

Moving Up a Gear

“Moving into this new site,” explained Stefano Vanoncini, CEO, “has completely changed our lives. We now have 12,500 m² of buildings, including 2,500 m² for offices and 10,000 m² for production and warehousing (a 2,000 m² area is currently empty but it will certainly be used in the near future), the whole of it on a plot of 15,000 m². We obviously had no difficulties installing our entire fleet of injection, injection-blowing, decoration and assembly machines.” Note also that the roofs of the buildings have been equipped with 7,000 m² of photovoltaic panels that enable the company to produce more than 35% of their energy needs and that LED bulbs are used in the workshops with a light intensity control that operates according to the outside brightness. “We recycle 100% of our production waste and most of our presses are electric,” stressed Vanoncini. As for the commercial part, it was not left out, including the setting up of a “Beauty Workshop” to welcome customers.

In terms of products, the bulk of the production (70%), which totals some 85 million finished products per year, remains the manufacture of mascara bottles and brushes where Brivaplast provides fiber brushes (75% of the production) or injected plastic brushes (25%)—a particularly rich sector in terms of patent filings. “In three years,” explained Vanoncini, “we have spent more than € 200,000 in this area, but we boast being designers and manufacturers of applicators in the broadest sense of the term and we have already developed many exclusive products in the area including gloss applicators,” he added.

Production in China

The year 2006 was a turning point for the Italian company with the construction of a production plant in China. A risky challenge which was successfully met, as 12 years later, the Chinese factory generates some $8 million in sales for a workforce of 100. “All our products are manufactured there, explained Vanoncini, to be marketed in China, of course, but also in the U.S. and Europe.”

2018 promises to be a good year for Brivaplast, whose sales are up 18% over last year and who seeks to obtain, in the coming months, the ISO 14001 certification (the company was already granted the ISO 50001 certification in 2018).