The India-based UFLEX Group, one of the world’s leading producers of Flexible Packaging materials, has made considerable progress on its new greenfield Packaging Films project in the USA since the signing of the MOU in April 2011 with the State of Kentucky, where the facility will be located.
The total project outlay will be approximately US$ 180 million, half of which will be spent on the first phase with the setting up a state-of-the-art Biaxially Oriented Polyester (BOPET) Film line and a plasma enhanced high-barrier metalliser. At 8.7 meters width and running at 500 meters/minute, the line will be one of the world’s largest film plants and will be bigger than any other film line presently operating in the USA. It is due for start-up before the end of 2012.
The project is being set up under the aegis of Flex Films (USA) Inc., a new company set up by UFLEX. Land for the project has already been allotted and the company has finalised its choice of engineering consultants. Engineering for the project is at an advanced design stage.
The company has appointed Ram Srivastav as the Business Head for this operation. Srivastav is an alumnus of IIT, Delhi and Columbia Business School, NY and brings with him several years of rich international CEO-level experience in management consultancy, project management and running of industries in the energy, technology/software and manufacturing sectors with prestigious organisations like Schlumberger and A.T. Kearney.The ground breaking and commencement of civil construction at the site is slated for October 2011.
The UFLEX Group is India’s largest Flexible Packaging conglomerate and is the world’s only fully vertically integrated company in this business. Its products include plain and metallised films, flexible packaging laminates, bags and pouches, PET resins, holographic materials, printing inks and coatings, adhesives, rotogravure cylinders, flexographic plates, packaging machinery and converting machinery. All these products are manufactured in-house in state-of-the-art global scale facilities and present annual revenues are about INR 41 billion (US$ 910 million).
Because of its extensive domain knowledge of every link of the Flexible Packaging value chain, it offers a wide variety of customised end-to-end solutions for almost any packaging application. Its depth of understanding and expertise enable the delivery of optimum packaging solutions to its customers. The Group is a leading international player in Flexible Packaging with an extensive global manufacturing and marketing footprint. At last count, its products are used in 110 countries and this number is going up all the time.
UFLEX has several manufacturing facilities in India as well as one each in Dubai, Mexico and Egypt. It is in the process of setting up large Packaging Film plants in Poland and in the USA that will become operational during 2012. It is the world’s largest supplier of BOPET Films for Packaging applications.
