Amcor boosts presence in Europe and China with new flexible packaging and innovation facilities
29 Aug 2022 --- Amcor has acquired a world-class flexible packaging plant in the Czech Republic and expanded its Innovation Center Network with a new facility in Jiangyin, China.
The flexible packaging plant’s strategic location boosts the supplier’s ability to meet strong demand and customer growth across its network in Europe.
“With this acquisition, we are investing to accelerate the organic growth momentum of our flexibles business in Europe in attractive segments,” says Michael Zacka, president of Amcor Flexibles Europe, Middle East & Africa. “The scalable nature of the acquired site and its attractive location further bolsters our ability to service strong customer demand and generate strong returns for Amcor shareholders.”
The plant is a greenfield development commissioned by DG Pack in 2019 and features state-of-the-art specialized equipment for attractive segments, including coffee and pet food.
The land and buildings acquired also provide the option to significantly scale up operations and establish a highly efficient production hub.
Market growth in Asia
Meanwhile, the new facility in China provides customers across the region access to Amcor’s expertise to accelerate the development of environmentally sustainable packaging solutions.
Amcor aims to bring more eco-friendly material science to Asia Pacific with its new innovation center.The new center brings advanced packaging technologies and more environmentally sustainable material science to Asia Pacific, helping to drive growth and innovation across the region.
“We are thrilled to bring the best of Amcor’s unmatched innovation capabilities closer to our customers in Asia Pacific,” comments Mike Cash, president of Amcor’s Flexibles business in Asia Pacific. “This world-class facility offers our customers in the region the opportunity to collaborate hand-in-hand with our experts to make innovative packaging ideas a reality.”
“Asia Pacific is a key growth market for Amcor, and our new innovation center is just one of many important, customer-focused investments we are making in the region.”
William Jackson, chief technology officer at Amcor’s Flexibles business, adds: “As the only packaging company to establish a global innovation network, Amcor is uniquely positioned to help our customers benefit from a global approach to innovation. The new innovation center will enable us to develop the best ideas from across the globe for the regional market, greatly enhancing the customer experience.”
Collaboration programs
At the core of all Amcor innovation centers are three key programs designed to encourage collaboration on how to develop real-time solutions that meet customer requirements and facilitate growth:
- The Catalyst program – a flexible, collaborative, and creative co-innovation approach that allows customers to customize solutions for their markets and customers, leveraging advanced analytical and material science labs.
- The Ideation and Prototyping Innovation Lab – taking consumer insights and ideas to conduct rapid prototyping, helping shorten product development and evaluation cycles.
- The Applications Lab – offering a range of production machinery testing capabilities to identify potential issues quickly and early, helping to make the product development process more efficient, cost-effective and seamless.
The Asia Pacific Innovation Center will also serve as a base for collaboration in the packaging industry. From in-depth research on new technology and materials to the latest packaging and composting know-how, the Innovation Center will allow all parties from across the supply chain and region to share best practices.
In other news, Amcor Rigid Packaging has introduced samples of spirits bottles made of recyclable PET that meet the newly-approved US Tax and Trade Bureau sizes. The six new bottles were developed to maximize ease of use in customer production and shipping.
Edited by Joshua Poole
