Ep. 15 - How to keep the spark of Innovation alive after 80 years?

Innovation must be inside us, not in the product. When we decided to do this and we decided to invest on the people is because we want the innovation to go inside the people. It must be the first thought every morning.

So how do you instill that into your employees?

Showing what could happen if you have no innovation?

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The main topic that I would like to address is how to maintain the spark of innovation for a company that is in your case, 80 plus years old. Right. And this is kind of a general framework that many companies around the world have.

Yeah. Well, first of all, thank you, thank you for Mind the Bridge to host this important period of time for our people. And we believe a lot in our young employees and mainly the one that has some spirits that is following the main mission of our company that has always been to be leading the industry in terms of innovative products and innovative process.

Let's talk a little bit about the history of Penliconia's several thousand companies around the world that started working on a very specific solution for a problem and then build a business around this. So maybe guide us a little bit of the history how.

Yeah, the history has been an history of a typical Italian history after post war and immediately we found out that we were not alone doing the product that we are doing, we are making. And immediately we said we need to do something different from the other. We need to pass a message that is different from our competitors. And I think this was the key of our success because luckily enough for us, our competitors are quite dormant in terms of innovation. Yes.

What was the first. So you're talking about after the war. So in the 50s, what was the first client? I was the, you know, the initial.

Well, the initial were national domestic customers in Italy. Not only the big names like San Pellegrino or Coke, but also there were thousands of people producing drinks, more or less house made products like Spuma. I don't know how to say it in English.

It's a soda.

It's a soda. It's a drink that is in a way trying to copy Coke or local production. Gazo Spuma. And those were the customers of that period of time. So small customers, but spread all over Italy.

And that was actually, I think also taking advantage of there was the economical boom of Italy in the 50s and 60s and 70s. And that took you all the way to becoming the leader? Yes.

We have to thank our founder, that is the grandfather of my wife, that has this entrepreneurship spirit and make a lot of debt to invest in the company. The company was bombed two times.

So literally bomb. During the war?

Yes, during the war. And he started again. So this is when we are talking. If you do, if you have a problem, you have to stand up.

And a bomb is a real problem.

A bomb is a real problem. And for this man, that was a very, very, I don't want to say poor family, but very medium average family with one daughter that is the mother of my wife, very small, but he was all the time saying, yes, resilient.

Resilient, yes.

That's definitely today the real yes. And immediately we found out we must be different to have a success. This is a law that is more or less valid in many aspects of entrepreneurship.

Let's talk about this. What do you think in retrospect was innovation back at the beginning of the first development phase of Pellico, what was the innovation there in the process, in the manufacturing?

Well, I can tell you the first real innovation was at that time the caps were at a knife Height that was 6.75 millimeter. And then we together with the steelworks, we decided to. To propose to our customers a caps that is shallower.

Okay, so not 6 millimeter. Not by much.

Not by much. But they had to change the bottling machinery, but the saving was used. And that was the first thing that in a way make Pelliconi unique because all the market was on 6 75. Mainly because of the cork that was inside the cap. But so the tender was still at the actual cork. Cork. Yes.

Until what, what, what time say before plastics?

70S.

In the 70s, we're still using cork inside, you know, a bottle of beer.

Yes, cork and a spot liner. Yes. Yeah, interesting. Then we moved to that. Then the second big step was decreasing the th of the caps. That also was in a way reducing the industrial cost of the caps. Then it became the time of abandoning the pvc. And we were the first to offer the market the non PVC caps. And I would say coming to today, we have new products and new differentiation. Because one thing we realize is that that in today world, another product like the caps as it was, will never take place. Because today everybody want to be different in a way unique. And so standard products are no more successful.

So let's talk about today's and some of the importance of innovation from within, again, is a market that I think is very, to some extent, it moves very slowly because it's downhill at a bunch of complications in the process of bottling and so on and so forth. But there has been some innovation, actually. I think Pelliconi itself was the driver of some of that innovation. Tell us a little bit for the generic audience to understand what some other innovations are coming into the cupping industry.

Well, innovations are coming on the lacquer system that we developed, what is called BP Non intent bisphenol in the varnish.

So tell us for the generic audience.

Yeah, Normally varnishes, lacquer like today, contain bisphenol. That is something that gives the varnish more elasticity. So it's very easy then to apply. But they found out that bisphenol is not good for our health, especially in the kids. If you think bisphenol in baby bottles and things like that are gone already for years, but in the caps and in the plastic caps, they are still there.

So it's part of your process was to find alternative solutions.

Alternative, more healthier solution. We will have other innovation and hopefully some will come from this period of time, but especially in the design of the caps. We understood that the customers today is really looking for something unique. We had the good example is the ring pool cap that was adopted at the beginning from big brewers and today is becoming, especially in China, in some countries of Europe, a very, very successful.

This is not just for the cans. You're talking about bottles, right?

So always. Yeah.

How do you call that?

The ring maxi P or ring pull or whatever. Because there's a ring that you. Did you pull anything? Yes, yes. And. Well, we are developing a new system for promotion because this is another. Another field of unicity that customers are looking for. They want to do promotion in the caps, but they want to have this type of promotion more flexible than in the past. In the past. In the past, you were writing, you won a Mercedes and then there was a problem because when the promotion finished, there were some many other caps in the market and you didn't want to keep T shirts, keep a refrigerator, keep that forever. Forever. Because maybe.

How did you solve that?

We solved that with the QR code. And so the QR code is managed by the. Our customers directly, so they can change the price. That QR code is much more flexible, Much more flexible and much more easy to do a promotion.

So the other big force that I think is, is determinant in your space of packaging in general is the whole movement of sustainability. And rightly so. So you feel a lot of pressure. We know that especially the packaging is. Is one of the major polluters around the world. You see terrifying pictures, right? Of. Of water, rivers and whatnot. So how much of that has been then incorporated within your current process? Not just in terms of reporting, but really as a part of the culture of innovation?

Yes. Pelikoni is very sensitive to sustainability. We appointed one sustainability manager already since 2010. We have a sustainability report since 2010 and we were among only 50% companies in all Italy to have a sustainable report at that time. Today we are moving forward. Our sustainability report is certified by Deloitte, that is our auditors. Because we believe that the company must be judged not only in financial terms, but also in sustainability terms. And this I always say when I'm asked to talk about sustainability is that we have today I see that sustainability is mainly related to environment. But sustainability is not related only to environment. It's sustainable. The business must be sustainable. Innovation must be inside us, not in the product. And when we decided to do this and we decided to invest on the people is because we want the innovation to go inside the people.

How do you. It's great. As I think is able to build a culture of innovation. In practical terms. What suggestions do you have for other companies that are facing the same issues? How to maintain kind of the title of this conversation. How to maintain that spark of innovation. Innovation alive.

Engagement, like sustainability. It must be the first thought every morning.

So how do you instill that into your employees?

Showing what could happen if you have no innovation. And this is very easy to understand. It's very easy to understand. Even in the. In the career of people, it's very difficult to find someone that make and arrive to the top if. If he has no innovation in his mind.

Got it. And so that's part of your, you know, process of also judging the outcome of people. It's not just to do their own work, but also what are they adding on top. How exactly they are our entrepreneur changes.

They are the will to change. Not just for change, but the will to change. In my life, I've always think to that even when I drive to the office, I never do the same road. One day there, one day there, one day.

That's why sometimes you get a little into the opposite. But you learn and you wrong. That's probably a good idea.

I don't like things that are repetitive. Repetitive?

Yeah. So what potential suggestion would you have to create incentives inside a company? Obviously this Is an example of this incentive. Right. So creating also in a formal process to filter the most interesting ideas that can come from every department doesn't have to be in your department. What else?

Well, incentive is, I think, think it's becoming more and more important and incentive could vary because if I have to incentivate someone from Italy is different than incentivate someone in China or in Egypt or where we have our.

You do have offices in China or.

In the US and is. It's a nice experience to do that because of course money is more or less common to everybody. But as we see here today, money is not everything. You need to go to work with enthusiasm, because at that point it's not me saying that. That you never go to work if you are enthusiastic on what you are doing is always like a kind of a vacation.

So what you're saying is that you need to create incentives that are kind of to be interpreted and read through the local culture. How is that different, for example, from the office you have in Bologna and the one in China? What different incentives?

Well, Chinese people that they have for their culture, their religion, they need to work the much that they can, because for them, reaching for their religion, reaching what we call paradise is through works. So they want to. And they have an ambition to become someone to become. Because they are used for every step of their lives to be together with millions of people. And they know that only with emerging from this huge sea of people, it will create them someone with a successful life. So they work really very hard. Sometimes, of course it's not enough because. But we have a few people. I don't know, Matteo maybe is more precise. A few people there thinking of innovation. And they are very different from them and very different from the people that innovate here.

So the process are to be customized.

Absolutely.

The last question that I would like to address with you is thinking, looking ahead, right? How do you see a potential future of bottling and packaging in general? So what do you think? It can be some one or two revolutionary potential technologies that can really change the industry from the inside and out. Looking at the medium term.

Well, I think that in my opinion the trend is going towards very simple products, sometimes mono material products, because they are easy to recycle, easy if they.

Are.

Wasted in the landfill. And I believe that those complicated products will more or less disappear.

Don't you believe in a world where there is actually no packaging, the best packaging is no packaging at all? Right?

Yeah, but sometimes it's. It's difficult to. It's good to say, but it's difficult to imagine.

You don't, you don't see that it's coming anytime soon. No, because the project is edible packaging, right?

Yes, edible packaging is fine, but if you remember a word without packaging existed already but then the spread of disease and things is much higher. I think not no packaging, but intelligent packaging.

So one of the majors and we talked about before recycling and sustainability, I believe. I mean there's actually a long discussion also in the US how to separate for example in your case in the cups, the metal side from the plastic side side.

This is. Will be. Yeah.

This is probably medium which we don't have to wait.

He knows how much we. I'm thinking and saying we have to reach the. The point where this liner is no more plastic is maybe paper or if we have to go back to cork.

Or finding an easy way to separate them in a recycle.

Yeah. But applications very complicated. Very complicated.

Last, very last question. If you were to suggest a startup or younger entrepreneurs that you would love to see right. In. In your world in some area that for you is. Is really key. What, what, what startups would that be? What subset of. Of.

Well, I see many.

Yeah. But the area that you today you really feel that it would be for you priority one, that if really the right solution comes to you, we'll pick up the phone and call the CEO.

I would say that. Well, both of these two projects are very, very exciting.

Yeah. So two projects that you for the audience haven't seen is one is edible packaging. The other one is magnetic magnetic thing.

To avoid varnishes and things like that. So those are quite good. And I, I've never thought about these two because I like to think to new solution. But I have to say that these.

Two, it's great are coming from your entrepreneurs from within. So that.

Yes.

That means that the culture that you.

Are absolutely pushing and we are very, very happy. I'm very happy about that.

So startups out there that have a solution in those two field, please send us, send them an email.

Okay. And well, the one that you told trying to avoid the plastic in caps, try to avoid the varnishes, try to avoid more or less everything that is chemical that in a way is polluting or doing bad things. This is even the packaging of our packaging. Exactly.

All right. Marco, it's been a pleasure. Thanks for your help.

Thank you.

All the best. Thank you for being with us today and see you in the next episode of Open Innovation Talks. Mind the bridge chat with industry leaders Sam.