AEROSOL EUROPE: Mr Jeunen, you are General Manager of Aerosols & Liquids JEUBIS N.V. in Sint-Truiden, Belgium. When was the company founded and what kind of organizational structure does it have today?
Carlo Jeunen: We are a relatively young contract filler, but I can look back, together with my colleague Germain Liebens, before we started our own company in 2003, on more than 30 years’ experience with aerosols. Today you can add another 24 years to that. My God, time flies by!
We maintain a pretty flat structure because that makes us very flexible for our customers and we can better control costs. Therefore, we can handle short lead times, we produce quality products on a very high and stable level, and we can produce very small runs as well as big runs.
AEROSOL EUROPE: How many industrial sites does JEUBIS operate today?
Carlo Jeunen: Today we own 2 sites. One with all the production facilities and administration, a second one with warehouse and dispatch.
AEROSOL EUROPE: Have you made distinctions between the plants with regard to the various product groups? Could you also briefly describe your product range?
Carlo Jeunen: In our production plant itself (mixing area and filling and assembly lines) we have one purpose: the technical products are separated from the cosmetic products, no mixing is possible.
Our product range is split in two: on the one hand you have the technical products such as aerosols and liquids for the automotive industry, air fresheners, varnish in BOV, lubricating greases in aerosol packaging.
On the other hand we specialized in cosmetic products such as powder deodorants, post-foaming shower gels, crackling sprays, hairsprays, soaps, pro-biotic products in an aerosol.
AEROSOL EUROPE: What production equipment do you have at your disposal in your plants?
Carlo Jeunen: For the aerosols we have 4 Coster lines that can fill cans from 14ml up to 750ml, tin or aluminium. They are medium-speed lines because the very high-speed ones keep us from being very flexible. Two of these lines have the standard filling tools for filling through the stem and are equipped with the well-known UTC (under the cup) – filling concept to do Bag-On-Valves, metered valves.
Furthermore, we have a medium-speed liquid line for plastic bottles or tin cans from 30ml to 2L, a filling line for high-volume containers (5L up to 200L) , a tube-filling line, a line for filling all types of pouches/liquids such as soaps in bags, a line for making roller/roll-on deodorants, and a machine for filling sachets.
AEROSOL EUROPE: Which propellants do you use and how do you store these propellants in order to guarantee continuity of supply and to meet safety regulations?
Carlo Jeunen: We have an underground tank for 30,000L normal LPG aerosol gas and we have 3×10,000L tanks, one for DME gas, one for butane gas and one for propane gas.
We also have bundles with CO2 , N2 and He gasses that we use for specific applications.
AEROSOL EUROPE: Do you formulate and develop your own mixtures?
Carlo Jeunen: Yes we do, and we are sure that this is one of our strong points. Some fillers use this as a basis for calling themselves “full-service” fillers, but we go further, we also have our own in-house legislation specialist who can create safety data sheets, make changes to labels, produce dossiers for cosmetic products, … so we have the facilities and capabilities of a big company combined with the flexibility and drive of a small company.
AEROSOL EUROPE: What storage capacities do you have for raw materials as well as for finished products at your plants?
Carlo Jeunen: For raw materials we have the capacity to store 320 pallets and 4 tanks of 6.000L for flammable liquids like alcohol, acetone.
In our finished products warehouse we can store 480 pallets, but since we make 90% of our products “to order,” this area should be as empty as possible.
AEROSOL EUROPE: Do you offer any other services in addition to your filling operations?
Carlo Jeunen: As I said earlier, we formulate our own mixtures. We have a woman in the lab who specializes in cosmetics. We do the mixing and filling, all according to ISO 9001 and 14001 standards. Our in-house specialist handles the legal/hazardous side (SDS, labels, cosmetic dossiers) of aerosols and some liquids. We can run small or big orders for competitive prices with very short lead times. We can fill through the stem and UTC with all existing propellants. And we are specialists in filling cosmetic products in Bag-on-Valves. (shaving gels, shower gels, crackling gels)
AEROSOL EUROPE: Do you have a quality management system implemented in your company?
Carlo Jeunen: Yes, we do. ISO 9001 (quality) and ISO 14001 (environment). By the end of 2016 we will also have ISO 22716 (GMP – cosmetic).
AEROSOL EUROPE: Where do you see potential markets for growth?
Carlo Jeunen: With the handicap of high salary costs in Europe and especially in Belgium, we constantly try to make our products “China-proof.” We still see growth by venturing further into “niches” (BOV, UTC, post foaming gels, ‘crackling’ products) , and by offering much more than a normal “full service contract filler” offers. Finally, I think that selling our own branded products through the Internet is also a potential market for growth.
AEROSOL EUROPE: What challenges is the contract filling industry facing due to globalization?
Carlo Jeunen: Globalization represents a big opportunity to expand. Through our customers, the products we make already reach all 5 continents. Our high and constant quality, together with the label “Made in the EU,” is greatly appreciated in the rest of the world, especially for cosmetic products.
“Make high-quality products and you will never run out of work.”
AEROSOL EUROPE: Mr Jeunen, we thank you for this interview.
