Keeping it in the family

摘要

Few people can say they've witnessed the transformation of China's canmaking industry from as close a vantage point as ORG Technology's vice president Chris Zhou (or Zhou Yuan, to use his Chinese name). The scion of China's first family of metal packaging, Zhou practically grew up in the company's Beijing factory, using the plant as an ad hoc playground where he would practise his basketball skills. The company provided him, naturally, with his first job and helped nurture a deep appreciation of the sacrifices made by Chinese factory workers. For him, canmaking is a link to family, culture and childhood, not just an industry of inputs, outputs and revenue. Zhou's grandmother Guan Yuxiang had a successful career in sales with a state-owned power company, then moved to the southern island of Hainan, a few hundred kilometers from Hong Kong, where she imported cans to supply local canneries. Soon after, in 1994, she decided to build ORG's first canmaking plant at Wenchang, later starting a second on the mainland.