Beauty Packaging: How does Bormioli Luigi’s longevity and expertise in glassmaking give the company an advantage in the beauty/fragrance sector? 

Federico Montali: The technical excellence and continuous quest for new challenges are probably the most important founding values of Bormioli Luigi history, our DNA. These form the basis on which we have built the pillars of our industry for the future:
– Innovation, which allows to constantly propose cutting-edge technologies to add value and premiumization to packaging;
– Agility, making it possible to design, develop, industrialize and deliver product at the pace of the more volatile and fast market demand;
– Sustainability, which Bormioli Luigi has been committed to for decades, having made huge investments in highly efficient electric melting furnaces, with zero CO2 emissions.
None of those current and future activities would be possible without an extremely robust glassmaking expertise.

BP: What elements of your glassmaking process deliver distinctly Italian attributes?

FM: Although completely automatic, our process and the products we make are sometimes so complex that our glass engineers have to use intuition more than calculation, and become artists to find technical solutions to get to the result. In those moments, the spirit of Leonardo da Vinci, genial engineer, inventor and artist, is really very close! 2019 is the 500th anniversary of Leonardo’s death (1519) and it will be celebrated across Italy and Europe. We’ve made a bottle for this event in cooperation with the Italian Accademia del Profumo (Fragrance Academy).

BP: Tell us more about your latest developments.

FM: Bormioli Luigi is constantly launching new technical processes and product innovations. To name a few:
– Inside Internal decorative coating that is resistant to direct contact with fragrance and cosmetics: since 2013 more than six million bottles produced including Armani Sì, Juicy Couture,
Narciso Rodriguez, Victoria’s Secrets, Givenchy Gentleman, and many others;
– Inside Mirror: a new version of internal metallization that’s resistant to fragrance and skincare products; 
– A collection of more than 30 innovative effects and finishes made by spraying on glass featuring tactile, aesthetic and functional effects;
– The ecoLine, a range of eco-designed, ultra-light bottles and jars for skincare and fragrance.

BP: What’s next for Bormioli Luigi? How will you continue growing your business?

FM: Bormioli Luigi’s primary business is glass packaging for prestige fragrance, this will remain key for us. The long-term fragrance market shows nice forecasts so the main growth we plan and expect is from this “Made in Italy” core business.

Our recent Bormioli Rocco Tableware business unit acquisition brought three additional glass plants to our group (two in Italy, one in Spain). Next year we will convert part of this glass production from tableware to packaging. This extra capacity will be dedicated to new businesses, especially masstige fragrance, skincare and makeup categories, which display the strongest market growth.

We are also investing in our decoration plant in Parma, “After Glass” to increase capacity and productivity of value-added decorations, like Inside Internal coating.
Our overall investment plan in the next five years is worth 200M€ [about $222 million]. There’s a lot of exciting work ahead!