Wuliangye Subsidiary Plas: From Workshop 615 to a Smart Packaging Leader with Over RMB 7 Billion in Annual Revenue

In Wuliangye’s “Great-Nation Strong Aroma” quality system, a plastic bottle cap plays an important role. Sichuan Yibin Plas Packaging Materials Co., Ltd. (“Plas”) is a wholly owned subsidiary of Wuliangye (000858.SZ) and has long supplied plastic caps and other packaging materials to Wuliangye. After more than two decades of focused development, Plas has built a complete chain from raw materials to finished products. Its business covers three segments — smart packaging, functional materials and deep processing, and home decoration — making it a large modern packaging leader with strong core capabilities and clear comprehensive advantages.

An Innovation Leap: From Workshop 615 to Industry Leadership

As Wuliangye Group grew into a large modern enterprise group, Plas, one of its diversified businesses, achieved leapfrog expansion. In 1997, it was only Workshop 615, dedicated to anti-counterfeiting plastic bottle caps. Today, it is a rising star in China’s packaging industry with annual revenue exceeding RMB 7 billion. Following a path of introduction, absorption and then independent innovation, Plas has accumulated more than 300 authorized patents and has been recognized as a National Industrial Design Center, China Smart Packaging R&D Center for Alcoholic Beverages, and Sichuan Provincial Engineering Technology Research Center for Functional Polyester Materials.

“We began by introducing foreign patented technologies and production equipment to start our first production line, and soon established our own technology development department to pursue independent innovation. Over more than 20 years, we have built more than 100 patented technologies for bottle caps alone,” said Hu Changhong, a recipient of the “Sichuan Craftsman” title and head of Plas’s Model Worker Innovation Studio.

R&D and application of packaging technology remain a key innovation focus for Plas. The technical team led by Hu Changhong has consistently driven growth through technology innovation, successfully developing the core components and tamper-evident anti-counterfeiting technology for the eighth-generation Wuliangye bottle cap.

Today, Plas’s caps have evolved from merely providing a seal to delivering multiple functions such as sealing, food safety and anti-counterfeiting. They improve the consumer opening experience and incorporate professional industrial design. Combining “high technology” with “high appearance,” these caps have earned broad recognition for Wuliangye from consumers and the packaging industry.

As the pioneer of deep-cavity thin-wall injection-molded transparent boxes, a large domestic production base for all-plastic caps, and a world 3D packaging center, Plas operates a globally advanced cluster of automated equipment and has formed an anti-counterfeiting plastic packaging industry cluster. Its products serve alcoholic beverages, drinks, condiments, dairy, medical and health products, and daily chemicals.

“To improve raw material safety, in 2014 we replaced all PC (polycarbonate) with PET (polyester resin) to meet the special storage requirements of high-proof baijiu. At present, all materials for caps and boxes are developed in-house, effectively supporting food safety and functional needs,” said Wang Shatong of Plas’s Model Worker Innovation Studio.

The use of new materials has accelerated the growth of the functional materials and deep processing business, providing safer alternative materials for baijiu packaging and helping Plas become a leader in baijiu packaging materials. “The transparent material for packaging boxes and the transparent PET material inside bottle caps are our functional materials. They are supplied not only to Wuliangye Group but also sold externally,” Hu Changhong said.

Plas has now established a production base in western China for PET polyester bottle flakes and functional materials. It has also developed a range of products with independent intellectual property rights, including functional polymer synthesis modification, polyester chip blend modification, and functional polymer blend modification.

Digital Empowerment: Smart Packaging Drives Modern Packaging Upgrades

Digital transformation is a major strategy for Wuliangye Group. Plas places strong emphasis on developing and applying anti-counterfeiting technologies, supporting the creation of a “digital” Wuliangye and expressing “Great-Nation Strong Aroma” in digital form.

As an implementing unit of China’s National 863 Program, Plas was among the first to apply RFID (radio frequency identification) technology to anti-counterfeiting and traceability in alcoholic beverage packaging. With its technology partners, it developed an industry-leading single-chip, dual-band physical anti-reuse RFID technology that has been applied in baijiu packaging at scale.

The anti-counterfeiting traceability system and “physical + information” anti-counterfeiting mark that Plas provides for the eighth-generation Wuliangye were ranked first among the top ten outstanding cases in the China Anti-Counterfeiting Industry Association’s “Anti-Counterfeiting Traceability and Brand Protection” list in May 2022. Each year, they help protect tens of millions of bottles of Wuliangye products worth tens of billions of yuan.

“We have applied several advanced technologies, including micro-nano optical variable, holographic hot stamping and information anti-counterfeiting. They provide first-, second- and third-line anti-counterfeiting identification features and achieve 7-code interconnection across the overall packaging structure, meeting the needs of different groups such as suppliers, stores and consumers,” Hu Changhong said.

Smart packaging with “high anti-counterfeiting, high appearance, high experience and high premium” features achieves “one item, one code.” Powered by advanced Internet of Things technology, it enables full-lifecycle data collection and whole-process traceability across suppliers, production lines, warehouses, transportation, stores and consumers. This not only gives consumers more product services but also provides basic data support for manufacturers and brand owners in digital marketing and digital management. At the same time, leveraging its accumulated data assets, Plas offers customers at home and abroad integrated “full industrial chain–full value chain” smart packaging services.

In line with digital transformation and green development trends, Plas will continue to focus on market demand, explore a new “product + service” model, strengthen its R&D and innovation design platform, lean manufacturing platform and big data service platform, and build a green development full industrial chain covering packaging materials, packaging products, anti-counterfeiting traceability and recycling, working with partners to advance green smart packaging innovation.

Source: China Packaging Network (pack.cn); original article: http://news.pack.cn/show-379659.html