A strong collaboration with integrator Shugao
Offering great products and services, Tetra Pak is a value-adding supplier to Shugao, one of China’s major systems integration companies in the growing food and beverage business.
Serving a population of more than 1.4 billion, China’s food and beverage industry is enormous. A growing middle class, with more money to spend, and the greater attention to health, food safety and food quality are a couple of reasons behind the growth in the Chinese food and beverage market. This development opens good opportunities for local companies offering systems integration services to food and beverage producers.
With a yearly turnover of approximately 60 million EUROS and around 100 employees, Shugao (Shanghai ShuGao Mechanical & Electric CO., LTD) is one of the leading integrators in China operating in the food and beverage industry. Since the start in 2011, the company has grown rapidly and now serves many of the dairy and beverage company groups in China. The business idea is as simple as it is clever: to offer high-quality processing components from leading suppliers such as Tetra Pak and at the same time keep costs down for installation and commissioning, project management and less sophisticated components such as piping and tanks. In fact, the company has two business areas; one for systems integration services and another for manufacturing tank equipment.
Another factor behind the company’s success is Shugao’s experienced management team, which keeps an open mind to new business. This mindset has recently led the company into new sectors such as pet food, prepared food and pharmaceuticals, besides the traditional dairy and beverage businesses. A third success factor is the company’s project teams’ attentive responsiveness to customer wishes.
When a fast-growing beverage producer needed to increase production capacity, improve process standards and expand its business into a new category – plant-based beverages – they asked Shugao for help. The company’s good reputation and many years of experience convinced the customer to contact Shugao. The customer mainly produces trendy zero-sugar, zero-calory drinks and wanted to build five new factories including more than 20 production lines for sparkling water, chilled yoghurt, soy milk and tea drinks. In turn, Shugao asked Tetra Pak to supply them with processing equipment such as homogenisers, separators, pumps, valves and automation components, all essential components of the new lines.
Choosing Tetra Pak as a supplier of processing components means getting access to a wide portfolio of tens of thousands of quality products with the convenience of ordering from a single supplier. It also streamlines the integrator’s purchasing process and enables rapid, twenty-four seven delivery.
This is highly appreciated by Shugao, for whom Tetra Pak is seen as a key supplier. “Tetra Pak is the global leader for processing solutions,” says Xu Jiamin, General Manager of Shugao. “It’s an honour to co-operate with such a great company,” he says.
Tetra Pak’s strong application knowledge and technical expertise for optimising end customers’ operations add value for Shugao. It becomes obvious in this case, where Shugao’s customer would like to enter a new category – plant-based drinks. Here, Tetra Pak, with its longstanding experience in the plant-based category, has a competitive edge and clearly stands out from the competition.
Other advantages that Shugao – and its customers – benefit from in collaboration with Tetra Pak are local service and support, commercial and technical flexibility and Tetra Pak’s ability to provide training for the end customer’s operators.
“We have a win-win relationship with Tetra Pak,” says Jiamin. “We get excellent service and products from Tetra Pak, and Tetra Pak can reach more end customers with Shugao as its partner,” he says.
Facts - This is Shugao
Founded 2011 in Shanghai, China Shugao (the full name is Shanghai ShuGao Mechanical & Electric CO., LTD) offers systems integration services to customers mainly in the food and sanitary flow industries (dairy/beverage/pharmacy). The annual turnover is approximately 60 million euros and Shugao has around 100 employees. The company is one of the leading integrators in China. The headquarters is located in Shanghai, while the tank-building unit is situated in Huzhou City in Zhejiang Province.
