20 years of successful cooperation between 1.PLASTCOMPANY & Wanner Technik GmbH seen through the eyes of the owners

View of Petr Betáš, CEO of 1.PLASTCOMPANY, spol. s r.o.

I got first in contact with Wanner company in 2001. I have already worked for 1 year as a salesman and technologist in PLASTOCHEM company. I started to gain more experiences at the International Engineering Fair in Brno where our company was having its exhibition stand. I have already met some of our foreign partners, for example Mr. Bob McKinney from Neue Herbold company.

I was standing at our stand, watching people who were interested in our technologies. All of sudden, tall „bald“ man appeared out of nowhere, striding with his briefcase directly to the owner’s table (Mr. Michal Valíček), without saying a word. After one hour discussion I learned that we were graced with the visit of Mr. Ralph Dostmann, the owner and executive head of Wanner Technik GmbH. I also found out that starting this day we would represent this company at our markets and support the sale of their products – small compact knife granulators Wanner for plastics recycling and that I would be the person who would take care of this company. I was told later that the idea to contact each other was suggested and arranged just by Bob.

The beginning of this cooperation was running slowly. We were not the members of the European Union yet and the goods delivered to us was specific for the business. We arranged with Mr. Dostmann first visits by customers and first testings of Wanner granulators. I scheduled a „visiting week“, Mr. Dostmann arrived with a van full of small granulators and off we went!

Our very first customer was J.P.Plast Kyjov company and Mr. Macúch. We presented the granulators, we granulated everything what was possible; we said good-bye without any clear conclusion if they would be interested in our granulators or not. It took nearly 2 years till we sold our first granulator to J.P.Plast. Since then we sold to Mr. Macúch more than two dozens of granulators and our successfull cooperation keeps continuing.

In 20 years I have seen large progress in developing of Wanner granulators technologies. Wanner presents almost every year several improvements or new or at least upgraded granulator. Most of those come from practical experiences and from customers needs; Wanner has dealt many times with the ideas of customers from our region and added those ideas into its technological portfolio. Wanner puts effort into being a flexible and creative company which shares its experiences with customers but learns from them at the same time. Self-reflexion is very important there. While working with this company I am being more and more confident that no customer wish could be a problem.

Cooperation with Wanner has started to be very intensive and now we are bounded not only as business partners but also as a friends. Each and every year Mr. Dostmann calls to say „happy birthday“ to me! The daily Wanner agenda is now being processed by the whole team of Wanner co-workers (I want to say big Thank You also to them). Despite this fact, Mr. Dostmann still keeps an eye on the company run. Me personally, I love chatting with this „bald“ man, who I met 20 years ago, on any possible occasion.

 View of Ralph Dostmann, owner of Wanner Technik GmbH

We look back on 20 years of successful cooperation with the team around Michal Valicek and Petr Betas, first in the organisation PLASTOCHEM, later as 1PLASTCOMPANY.

Our cooperation began in 2001 after an engineering fair in Brno, at a time when the Czech Republic and Slovakia were not yet members of the EU.Even the journey to this fair was unusual - in particular, there was a long stretch of road that was marked with a maximum speed of 30 km for no apparent reason, but which could be driven much faster without any problem, so that the whole convoy of vehicles then passed it at about 70 km/h. In the next village it became clear why this was the case - all vehicles with "western" number plates were stopped and a fine had to be paid to the extremely friendly policemen and policewomen. It was at this fair that the cooperation started.

In order to introduce our products to a new market, we usually proceed in such a way that we visit customers on site with the respective salesman, to whom we then present our smaller granulator series, which we bring along in a van. We call this a demo tour. 

This was also our procedure in the Czech Republic. A demo tour has the advantage that the salesman gets to know the products in action, and for me the tour has the advantage that I could get a feeling for the respective market for our products on site. In 2002, Petr and I went on our first demo tour together - our first customer was J.P. Plast, which is still a good customer of ours today. In the following years, I repeated these demo tours with Petr Betas at irregular intervals before my colleague Thomas Musikant took over this task from me. It was extremely interesting for me to see how quickly the Czech Republic and Slovakia developed over the years - with each new demo tour you could experience and learn about the progress. At the beginning of the cooperation, the roads were still very bad and some of the companies' yards were so unpaved that you could even get stuck there in bad weather or in wet conditions, but all that changed very quickly. 

The cooperation continued to develop and with the accession to the EU, the problems with customs clearance also disappeared - demo tours became easier.

In the meantime, we have a stable, long-standing customer base in the Czech Republic, Slovakia and also Hungary, which is excellently looked after by 1PLASTCOMPANY. The cooperation with the local team works smoothly and in an extremely good and trusting relationship.
In total, we have supplied over 1000 granulators to these markets during this time.

I would like to thank the entire 1PLASTCOMPANY team - also on behalf of the entire Wanner team - for this extremely good and fruitful cooperation.

We look forward to continuing this cooperation.

After all these years, I personally have an extremely friendly relationship with Petr Betas. I am always happy when I have the opportunity to meet him at our company, at a trade fair or on – one of the rare - tours to the "wild" East. I sincerely wish Michal Valicek and Petr Betas all the best and continued happiness and success.