Comar Announces Major Expansion to Meet Growing Dropper Assembly Demand

Comar, a premier plastic packaging, device and component supplier, innovating solutions for customers who lead the way to a healthier world, is pleased to announce a major capacity expansion to support sustained growth in its dropper assembly product line.

Dropper assemblies are often used to dispense high-value products that can be viscous or fluid in consistency and come in a large variety of configurations based on end use and functional criteria like bottle size and ingredients. Component options include:

•   Pipette substrate (glass or plastic), length, diameter, and tip shape
•   Bulb substrate (rubber or TPE), size, color, and features
•   Closure size, color, CR Function, and features
•   Other decorative features such as overshelled closure
•   Custom printing or a choice of stock dies
•   CE registration
•   Packaging options (poly wrap, shrink wrap, or blister packed)

Comar has been a leading supplier of dropper assemblies in North American for the past 30 years. Over that time, Comar built a unique and unmatched library of injection molds to produce hundreds of components and over 1,700 unique SKU combinations. Historical demand for dropper assemblies has been rather steady over the past 10 to 15 years, with some market growth off-set by the conversion of many Rx and OTC drug products moving into Comar’s more precise Oral Syringe. In recent months, a combination of market developments has spiked dropper demand to unprecedented levels. The market is being influenced by macro-economic factors such as an aging population and more adoption and promotion of high-end health and beauty skin care serums, and supply chain strategies in favor of regional supply versus global. Underpinning these growth categories are steady demand for applications of dropper assemblies in the medical diagnostics, pharmaceutical, and food & beverage segments. This significant and sustained increase in demand is being felt on a global scale and manufacturers could not react fast enough.

“We’ve been challenged to keep up with the increase in demand but are very pleased to announce plans to increase capacity across all components via investments in additional injection molding machines, glass pipette forming machines, and additional molds and assembly equipment. Many of these investments will be completed in Q1 2020 and by 2021 we expect full implementation that will increase our capacity by up to 60%” said Mike Ruggieri, CEO at Comar.  In addition to in-house capacity expansion, Comar is working with component suppliers to ensure right-sized capacity to support growth and more collaborative supply chain to shorten lead times. 

“We are thankful for our customers resilience and patience while working with us through existing lead time challenges. Looking forward, we are confident that these investments will improve our service levels and offer enhanced flexibility to support the highly fragmented and complex nature of the product line while balancing extreme volatility in demand” said Scott Conklin, EVP Sales & Marketing at Comar.