Coster: Innovation at the Heart of Everything!

In the “Product Innovations” section, there’s “Leaf,” an all-plastic, recyclable (100% polyolefins) dispenser pump that’s lightweight and designed for e-commerce. There is also “mBOV,” the first “bag-on-valve” system with an integrated dispensing mechanism for sprays and gels in cosmetic and pharmaceutical applications. This system ensures product integrity and preservation. It is an alternative airless system (360° spray), compatible with gamma irradiation.

Made entirely from polyolefins (primarily polypropylene (PP), polyethylene (PE), and thermoplastic olefin (TPO)), Leaf is designed to be compatible with PET, PP, and HDPE bottles. Its recyclability has been assessed and certified by Recyclass and Cyclos-HTP, confirming that the pump-and-clip assembly meets the recycling criteria for standard plastic packaging.
There is also “mBOV.” “The first ‘bag-on-valve’ system with an integrated dispensing mechanism for sprays and gels,” emphasizes Damiano Marsilli, for cosmetic and pharmaceutical applications. This system ensures product integrity and preservation. It is an alternative airless system (360° spray), compatible with gamma irradiation.
The “Bag-on-Valve” is a special valve equipped with a pouch, specifically designed to store the product separately from the propellant—typically compressed gases such as air or nitrogen—within a single container. Coster aims to provide a solution for the industry by introducing its “metered-dose Bag-on-Valve” (mBOV).

The “Bag-on-Valve”: A Revolution!

The metered-dose BOV, thanks to a piston-and-chamber system coupled with a three-way valve, enables the precise dispensing of a specific quantity of product with each activation. The basic principle involves harnessing the energy stored as compressed air inside the canister to power the valve.
The mBOV retains all the characteristic advantages of the standard Bag-on-Valve while adding a metering function, which opens up new possibilities in pharmaceutical, cosmetic, and food applications by enabling controlled dispensing. Furthermore, it aligns with the “reduce” trend, which prevents accidental product waste, and it allows the brand owner to provide precise usage instructions to the user (for example, apply a certain amount of product equivalent to a specific number of activations).
“Some products must be dispensed in precise quantities and contain no parabens. For this reason, they must not come into contact with the external environment. The metered-dose BOV can be considered the aerosol equivalent of airless pump solutions, offering the advantages of greater flexibility in terms of packaging choices,” explains Andrea Rainieri, Director of Innovation and Sustainable Development at Coster.
“Compatibility with standard filling equipment also eliminates the need for additional investment by customers who have already adopted BOV technology.”
Coster’s metered-dose BOV is also sustainable for two main reasons: first, because the propellant must be either compressed air or nitrogen, both of which are environmentally friendly gases. Furthermore, this technology supports the recycling process, since the aerosol can, once emptied of its contents, can be recycled as scrap metal.
The ecological and environmental benefits complement those related to product preservation: the aluminum can prevents any external contamination, while the pouch keeps the product protected from air.
Almost all fluids and viscous products can be packaged in a BOV system, provided that the product’s viscosity is low enough to pass through the valve stem and that dispensing performance can be easily adapted to customer needs using various Coster actuator configurations.
It is worth noting that the O’lysee Sun brand has chosen this controlled-dose “bag-on-valve” (mBOV) solution for its line of sunscreens.
Another example is CosterEco, a system consisting of a valve, a push button, and a specially designed insert that enable a compressed-gas-propelled aerosol to maintain consistent spray performance throughout the product’s shelf life. It is ideal for deodorants, perfumes, and body sprays.
As for “Squeezer,” it is a vertical spray solution developed according to the principles of eco-design
Key features:
• Entirely made of a single plastic material (100% PP).
• Propellant-free dispensing concept as an alternative to aerosols and pumps
• Streamlined design comprising three components (3.4 g) + a bottle (sample bottle for promotional and testing purposes only), promoting material efficiency
• Screw-on cap with an anti-unscrewing mechanism, enhancing safety during use and logistics
• Suitable for low-viscosity formulations, including deodorants, air fresheners, perfumes, disinfectants, and insect repellents.

Coster’s Third Life: A New Cycle

To mark Costertec’s 60th anniversary, the Coster Group published a book on the Group’s history. Continued and excerpts….

Coster’s third life began in the Church of Sant’Antonio in Trento at 3:00 p.m. on August 1, 2015, in the presence of a crowd of several hundred people. Among them were many company employees who had come to pay their respects at the casket of Rolando Segatta, the man who, over the forty-five years he led the company, had transformed a small business on the brink of bankruptcy into a multinational corporation with fifteen production sites across four continents and a thousand employees, producing more than two billion valves and pumps.
Such a display of solidarity and loyalty to the company and to Engineer Segatta strengthened the resolve of his daughters, Martina and Cristina, to continue the work their father had begun.
Bernard Msellati, an executive who had previously worked at Coster from 1993 to 2003 and of whom Engineer Segatta had always spoken with great respect, was called upon to lead the company. When Martina and Cristina Segatta asked him to take over from their father, his response was immediate: “It would be an honor.” At that time, the two sisters were convinced they had found the ideal person to lead Coster into this third phase of its history.
The decision to entrust the company to an executive like Mr. Msellati—who was very different from Segatta in terms of his background, experience, and personality—proved to be a wise one. It would not have made sense to prioritize continuity by choosing someone similar to the engineer, since Rolando Segatta was the right man for the job at that time, but that era had passed, and the world in which he had operated no longer existed. A change of course was needed.
With this new direction, they changed the approach and the mindset, but not the guiding principle that had charted Coster’s path to growth over the years: innovation. While under the engineer—a man of industry—this had taken the form of an exceptional technological acceleration that, by focusing on automation and digitization, had propelled the company into the new millennium thirty years ahead of its time, under Bernard Msellati—a businessman and modern leader—innovation took different paths and assumed new forms.
Bernard Msellati did not spark a revolution upon his arrival: what he inherited, in fact, was a healthy company that needed neither shocks nor upheavals. Many aspects were working very well, and there was no reason to change them. Coster’s competitive advantages lay, on the one hand, in its presence across all sectors—from distribution systems (aerosols, but also pumps) to filling lines—unlike its competitors, who specialized in only one of these areas; and, on the other hand, in the very high quality of both its products and the service offered to customers, which ensured reliable deliveries, quick response times, and technical support in the event of problems.
As for all matters related to the industrial side of the business, it was decided to maintain continuity with the previous management, since the foundations were so solid and the structure so forward-thinking that the company required no updates and continued on the path charted by Rolando Segatta.
However, the only area where the new management approach made a change was the organizational structure: above all, a generational transition was needed. The management system—based, as we have seen, on the principle of “divide and conquer” and on decentralization—functioned as long as a figure like Segatta, who knew every aspect of the company, was at the helm. Upon his death, change became necessary.
Gradually and smoothly, the long-standing management team that had worked alongside Segatta for nearly half a century—and whose average age was now seventy-eight—was replaced.
In addition, a supply chain was established, redefining all internal logistics flows, and new roles were created after identifying the new pillars on which to build the company’s future: innovation and sustainability.
While Coster’s spirit remained that of Trentino, the new management sought to give the company a new identity—which was certainly no easy task—while continuing to believe both in individual accountability (a value inherited from the past and from the decentralized structure established by Segatta) and in the industrial excellence on which the engineer had always focused. The difference lay in the fact that, with this new direction, excellence was also sought in other areas of the company’s operations, with an emphasis on new values, such as collaboration, both within the group and with customers and suppliers. In this context, Coster gradually transformed itself, evolving from an inward-looking company into an outward-looking one, open to the world, the market, and the future.

Growth and Modernization

In the Internet age, in a hyperconnected world, the corporate structure envisioned by Segatta—based on decentralization and the autonomy of each facility—proved obsolete and ill-suited to managing a small multinational like Coster. It was now necessary for all parts of the company—which had previously been kept separate—to be interconnected, to communicate with one another, and to develop together organically.
This unity and collaboration inspired a new management policy, the first tangible results of which were seen in the modernization of the IT systems. The digitization that Segatta had envisioned since the dawn of computing in the early 1980s continued as part of this new direction, with one key difference: whereas previously each plant had its own IT system, now a single system was chosen for all of them to connect them and enable coordinated management. The choice fell on what was unanimously considered the best software in the world, SAP 4/HANA ERP: this new program was capable of collecting and processing the enormous volume of data from a company with production volumes totaling approximately one billion units, thereby enabling Coster to be managed as a single entity.
Unlike in the past, today everyone within the company can see what others are doing. In other words, there are no longer “others”: integrated data management, updated in real time, has enabled the machines, facilities, and people that make up the complex organization that is Coster to communicate with one another.
“Dialogue” is the symbolic term that has characterized not only the new IT system but also the entire new wave of administrative reforms. The Digit project is a case in point: for sites to communicate with one another, it is essential that they speak the same language—not only from an IT perspective but also from a technological one. Since the group’s growth had occurred in a piecemeal fashion over the years and each plant used different software and technologies, the Digit project was launched with the goal of standardizing the technological infrastructure across all Coster plants. To achieve this goal, a factory module was defined, intended to be exported and replicated at all of the group’s sites worldwide. This module was inspired by Coster 2, one of Coster’s most cutting-edge sites in terms of both automation (it uses state-of-the-art LGV shuttles) and data management. This is how what is now known as Industry 5.0 began to take shape, with its main characteristic being the ability to analyze historical data to anticipate events: for example, it is possible to perform preventive diagnostics (which allow us to predict when a machine will break down, plan its shutdown and repair before the breakdown actually occurs), anticipate customer demand, and order materials only when necessary, thereby avoiding excess inventory. . In short, it is possible to forecast the lead times for each process and thus optimize every phase of production and business management.
With this new direction, it is not only the company’s internal relationships that are changing, but also those with the outside world, the market, and customers: the caution of the past is giving way to a necessarily “more aggressive” approach. “Today, we’re taking risks like we’ve never done before.” In addition to organic growth within the company, external growth is also essential: to enable the company to capitalize on new technologies, the companies that produce them have been acquired. Among the new initiatives, it is worth noting the in-house production of BOVs and the acquisition of a French company specializing in aluminum anodizing (an electrochemical process for treating metal surfaces, which is strategic for ensuring growth in the market for perfumery pumps).
Meanwhile, the market has shifted course from the 1980s and 1990s, which were marked by hedonism and consumerism: following the rush toward unbridled customization that characterized that period, the current decline in purchasing power means that consumers are no longer willing to pay more for sophisticated design. The market is demanding cheaper products, which has led to a gradual simplification and standardization of designs in order to keep prices in check. That is why the company has made it its mission to develop new delivery systems that do not necessarily rely on aerosol technology. Coster is also focusing on complementary products and, to that end, has created RxPACK, a new company exclusively dedicated to the pharmaceutical sector, founded in collaboration with one of its competitors. Such a collaboration would never have come about in the past; it is the result of a new, more open mindset and a Coster company that is increasingly open to the world. To be continued….