Following the acquisition of South Korea-based sanitary pumps manufacturer JEC Pumps, pumps specialist Verder Pumps intends on proliferating its global reach over the next five years, predominantly in the medical and pharmaceuticals industry.

JEC Pumps has a sizeable market share in the European sanitary pumps sector and its offerings are predominantly suited to industries where high hygiene and non-contamination are important.

“We have focused mainly on the mining sector for a number of years, and we now feel ready to diversify our offering to the industrial sector,” says Verder Pumps MD Darryl Macdougall.

Verder has a five-year growth plan to bring its industrial offerings onto an equal footing with its mining offerings.

The JEC acquisition, with its sizeable Asian footprint, has also prompted the company to increase its staff complement in the medical and pharmaceuticals, and food and beverage industries. Verder Pumps looks to capitalise on each person’s active knowledge of the industry to promote the JEC brand to industries that require pumps that fall within the high hygienic spectrum.

Macdougall tells Engineering News that the integration of JEC into the Verder Pumps sales and distribution network will continue Verder’s local high-growth trajectory. Additionally, JEC – with its high- quaity rotary lobe circumferential piston and twin-screw pumps – offers Verder Pumps a stronger hold in the Asian market.

The elevated hygienic requirements in the pharmaceuticals industry guarantee consumers higher-class and safer products.

“For us, it matters that Verder Pumps meets and exceeds those requirements,” highlights Macdougall.

Verder Pumps, and now JEC Pumps, has the capacity to better face challenges, including the pumping of liquids with extreme variances in viscosity, as well as shear sensitive liquids. The pumps are manufactured to handle abrasive fluids and are classed as extremely hygienic.

“We are now in a position to offer competitive commercial and technical industrial products with the advantage of the European Hygienic Engineering Design group certification,” boasts Macdougall.

The JEC brand has been promoted through original-equipment manufacturers in Southern Africa over the past two years, but a comprehensive marketing drive has not been put in place, says Macdougall. This has prompted the marketing drive by Verder, which also entails highlighting Verder Pump’s centrifugal stainless steel pumps division Packo Pumps, which carries pumps equally suited to industries requiring pumps that meet the relevant hygienic standards.

Subsequently, Verder Pump’s Vantage 5 000 pump – a high accuracy peristaltic tube pump used in the laboratory and biotech industries – will be part of the medical and pharmaceuticals drive.

Verder Pumps is confident that when it competes in the medical and pharmaceuticals, as well as food and beverage industries, the company has a sound offering commercially and technologically, Macdougall concludes.