Costa Verde endorses the quality of Sama technology

Sama’s “hybrid” tableware production technology - consisting of isostatic pressing of the cup body and pressure casting of the handle - has been strongly endorsed by Costa Verde, a leading Portuguese company and one of the world’s most advanced manufacturers in this segment. According to technical director Francisco Proenca, this technology is currently the best on the market in terms of product quality and cost optimisation.

Installed in 2014 as the latest in a series of orders placed with Sama, this system underwent performance and productivity assessment 18 months after start-up to see whether the investment had lived up to expectations. The results proved extremely positive, explained Proenca. On the one hand the system guarantees unbeatable production process repeatability, bringing immediate benefits in terms of product quality, and on the other it ensures considerable cost savings due to the absence of any downstream drying processes and a limited need for finishing tasks prior to handle gluing.

The high return on investment ensured by the increased yield of high-quality articles (+7% for the cups, more than +31% for the handles) together with energy savings has allowed Costa Verde to sustain the high cost of developing the resins for the cup handles. This has resulted in net savings of more than 150,000 euros due to the increase in plant efficiency and improvement in output quality.

The investment has enabled Costa Verde to provide an effective response to constantly evolving market demand. Production of their popular coffee and cappuccino cups (90 and 170 ml respectively) may soon be extended to containers as large as 500 ml using this technology.