ASX-listed Pro-Pac Packaging, chaired by former Australia Post boss Ahmed Fahour, has announced a $177.5 million merger deal with flexible packager Integrated Packaging Group (IPG).

‘Significant milestone’: Pro-Pac chairman Ahmed Fahour

“The acquisition of IPG represents a significant milestone in the realization of Pro-Pac’s vision to become the preeminent flexible and industrial packaging manufacturer and distributor in Australia,” said Fahour. “The opportunity to combine two very complementary businesses will deliver significant long-term value to Pro-Pac shareholders.”

The combined business will have annual sales of more than $450 million.

The merger will be funded through a combination of $60 million Pro-Pac shares issued to the vendors, a $54.8 million fully underwritten equity raising and $70 million from a new debt facility, the company told the ASX in its announcement.

Pro-Pac has distribution facilities in Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Perth and Adelaide as well as six manufacturing sites, providing flexible and rigid packaging solutions.

Integrated Packaging Group, formerly owned by private equity firm Advent Partners, operates five manufacturing facilities across Australia and New Zealand, providing a wide range of stretch plastic film used to wrap consumer goods, building products and agricultural products.

The new entity will operate 22 distribution warehouses and manufacturing facilities in Australasia.

Pro-Pac CEO Grant Harrod, who will head the merged group, says the combination of Pro-Pac and IPG provides “many exciting opportunities” in the growing Australian flexibles packaging market.

“Pro-Pac’s expanded capacity to manufacture and distribute high quality products will delight our customer base and provide us with a one-stop-shop offering. Pro-Pac will be a world class manufacturer without geographic constraints as we increase our offerings in key areas such as food service and agriculture film.”

The deal is conditional on Pro-Pac shareholder approval, the completion of the $54.8 million raising and conditions related to the debt facility.

Pro-Pac last month reported a five percent fall in FY17 revenue to $229 million, with profit after tax diving 28 percent to $5.02 million.

Former Australian Post CEO Fahour has been chairman of Pro-Pac since 2015.

| A Print-21 release  ||  September 13,  2017   |||

An estimated 2.5 billion disposable coffee cups are used in the UK each year, creating around 25,000 tonnes of waste.

The difficulties in recycling paper coffee cups are two-fold – in their composition and in any contaminants.

The scheme involves Bywaters, facilities management partners Sodexo and Tenon Group, and UCL.

It will include all paper coffee cups, paper soft drink cups, paper vending machine cups, and paper water fountain cups from UCL’s buildings in central London.

Bywaters is to provide the logistics and collection of paper coffee cups to be converted into quality packaging.

It will collect designated bins then bale up all paper coffee cups to a mill where they will be pulped and the polymer plastic liner separated so all the paper fibre can be recovered and recycled.

The majority of cups collected in the scheme from the cafes on site, although used coffee cups from bins are also being accepted.

Coffee cups are usually collected together with other dry mixed recycling bags collected loose in tail lift vehicle, rather than bins compacted into a dustcart.

John Glover, managing director of Bywaters, told Packaging News that typical paper mills are designed to remove contaminants associated with typical mixed paper, and they expect a lot of different grades from bright white to office paper to kitchen towels, magazine paper coated in chalk or clay, staples, window envelopes.

The mill being used in this scheme is designed to remove high grade paper from the plastic coating and separate the polymer plastic liner.

“Currently paper cups end up as a low grade of paper. If this trial works how we expect it to, we have the scope to change the collection method so that paper cups are picked out as a separate stream at our Materials Recovery Facility. This means the cups could be included in mixed recycling and still go on to produce high grade white paper.”

Bywaters’ Materials Recovery Facility in East London is capable of processing up to 650,000 tonnes of material a year, recovering over 95% of collected materials including plastics and paper. The company’s aim to help all clients achieve at least 80-90% of their recycling targets through continuous innovation.

 | A PackagingWorld release  ||  September 1,  2017   |||

 BOBST – one of the world’s leading suppliers of equipment and services to packaging and label manufacturers, and Radex – a startup company owned by multiple stakeholders with a long track record in the field of DOD inkjet digital printing, today announced the launch of Mouvent, a joint venture that will become the digital printing competence center and solutions provider of BOBST. Mouvent, which is comprised of 80 employees in Switzerland, will focus on inventing and delivering the future of digital printing.

Central to the digital innovation at Mouvent is an ingenious digital printing technology developed by Radex, which is based on a highly integrated cluster and represents a quantum leap for the industry. Thanks to its intelligent and compact design, it will be the centerpiece of revolutionary new machines developed by Mouvent for a wide variety of markets such as textile, labels, corrugated board, flexible packaging, folding carton and more.

“We truly believe this is a watershed moment for the future of digital printing independent of the industry or market,” said Jean-Pascal Bobst, CEO of Bobst Group SA. “Current industry trends – including high demand for digitalization, short runs, fast availability, promotion and versioning, personalized and seasonal products, and increasing sensitivity towards cost and environment – are driving demand for high quality and affordable digital printing machines. Through Mouvent we aim to initiate a quantum leap in this area, ultimately providing the market with what it needs most; highly reliable industrial digital printing on different substrates at a competitive cost.”

As well as the digital printing presses, Mouvent offers a fully integrated, complete solution – it develops, engineers, tests, and industrializes digital printers based on the MouventTM Cluster, it writes the software around the printers, develops inks and coatings for various substrates, as well as providing a full servicing offering. The company is promising a new standard in inkjet label production cost and quality, in ink pricing, head durability, quality and machine performance. Its first machine that has been launched is an innovative, highly productive digital printer for textiles, which prints with up to 8 colors, and there is a full product pipeline to follow.

The innovative cluster design is the base building block for all systems, current and in development. “Our radical new approach is to use a base cluster which is arranged in a modular, scalable matrix instead of having different print bars for different applications and different print width” explains Piero Pierantozzi, Co-Founder of Mouvent. “The Mouvent Cluster is the key technology behind the Mouvent machines, resulting in high optical resolution for a crisp, colorful, very high printing quality, as well as a never-seen-before flexibility and possibilities in terms of machine development. Simplicity is our engineering philosophy.”

Mouvent printers are the smallest digital printers in their category – closer to desktop printing than to traditional analogic printers like flexo – making them very compact, light-weighted and easily accessible. The modular, compact system allows easier settings and start-up with less fine adjustments required resulting in a productivity boost. The compact design has many other benefits, including smaller footprint, faster change-over, simple implementation and low cost.

“We are very excited to start rolling out the pipeline in the months ahead,” said Simon Rothen, CEO of Mouvent. “Today is the announcement of an exciting journey of bringing large-scale digital printing to various industries. The digital printing solutions offered by Mouvent will present new opportunities for all sorts of companies, bringing more flexibility, unmatched productivity, shorter time to market and infinite variation, all with a very compact and energy efficient design. This will revolutionize the digital printing world.”

The Mouvent Team welcomes you to visit their stand A60 Hall 3 during Labelexpo 2017 for the launch of the new digital printing presses for the label industry.

| A Bobst Group release  ||  July 6, 2017   |||

An exclusive report in Packaging News reveals that UK supermarket icon,  Sainsbury’s,  is to undertake a “root and branch” review of its procurement processes for the sourcing of own-brand packaging.

The supermarket giant revealed to Packaging News that the initiative will evaluate the supply chain and identify a set of preferred suppliers meeting Sainsbury’s standards and specifications for quality, value and service.

Speaking exclusively to Packaging News, Chris Grobler, packaging commercial manager at Sainsbury’s, said: “Closing the loop between the best packaging suppliers, our Sainsbury’s brand suppliers and ourselves will create a strategic, efficient and cost-effective way to procure our packaging going forward.”

With public concerns about packaging and food waste in the UK, Grobler said the retailer decided it was a good opportunity to look at packaging with a value chain approach.

He said Sainsbury’s was “casting its net wide” to make sure it understood the packaging supply market and work more closely with packaging suppliers that meet its criteria.

Continue here to read the full release ||  June 23,  2017   |||

Brewing giant Carlsberg is setting itself ambitious targets to achieve zero carbon emissions at its breweries by 2030.The announcement follows the company’s plans to roll out ‘Green Fibre’ bottles by 2018. The bottles are designed to degrade into “environmentally non-harmful materials”.

Carlsberg has now said that it will eliminate carbon emissions from breweries by 2030 through “greater use of renewables”.

It also wants to reduce “beer-in-hand” emissions for consumers globally by 30% by 2030 by “engaging with partners along the value chain”.

Cees ‘t Hart, chief executive of the Carlsberg Group, said: “We’re committed to delivering zero carbon emissions and halving water usage at our breweries by 2030. As a first action, we’ll switch to 100% renewable electricity by 2022 and cooperate with partners to protect shared water resources in selected water-scarce areas. I’m certain that in achieving our targets we’ll create efficiency improvements, risk reduction and a more resilient business that exists in harmony with local communities and the environment.”

Tetra Pak has teamed up with Microsoft to introduce management and diagnosis systems and tools to reduce machine downtime and boost productivity.TetraPak_Microsoft2

The carton packaging giant has started rolling out Microsoft HoloLens mixed reality headsets to Tetra Pak on-site service engineers – who are now able to work with the company’s global experts who specialise in production line problems.

A service engineer can show live video to the correct Tetra Pak expert, who guides the on-site work through Skype.

To help prevent or predict disruptions Tetra Pak is also employing Microsoft Azure Cloud technology that enable its cloud-connected machines to predict when equipment needs maintenance.

By connecting packaging lines to the cloud, Tetra Pak can collect operational data to help predict informed maintenance timing.

Johan Nilsson, Vice President Tetra Pak Services, said: “So if you’re a service engineer and you arrive at the customer, you can use a simple app to pull up the significant performance information from that customer.

“You are much more educated when you walk into the customer, and it becomes a much more informed and fact-based discussion between the service engineer and the customer.”

Nilsson added that the Microsoft HoloLens transforms the delivery of support and enables quick resolution of quality issues.

Caglayan Arkan, general manager of worldwide manufacturing at Microsoft, said: “We are excited to bring the transformative power of mixed reality and HoloLens to Tetra Pak customers to help them transform their business and enhance their service engineers’ capabilities.”

Nilsson told Packaging News both the Microsoft HoloLens and Azure Cloud technology is designed to help make packs look exactly the same.

“The better we can ensure packaging integrity, the better we can ensure food safety. This results in a more perfectly shaped pack.”

He said when creating 190bn packs consistently, these systems will help the quality and look and fit of the pack.

“For example, if you have vibration in the machines this may result in the pack being 1% out or 3% out. The better you keep that in shape and in the right condition, the better the packs are going to look and perform.”

He explained that initially the packs will look perfect, but all production lines require maintenance over time. With this Microsoft system, Tetra Pak can take action earlier so that it does not deteriorate as much and not reach a level that the pack is unacceptable to the consumer.

“So the consistency in packaging performance in terms of shape appearance and integrity will be better secured using this system.”

Tetra Pak is piloting the service in 2017 with 50 HoloLens devices, in the Greater Middle East, Europe, and the Americas, and plans to roll-out to more markets next year.Recommended Articles

|  A Packaging News release  ||  April 25,2017   |||

A visit to Auckland’s Contract Warehousing and Logistics Limited (CWL) in East Tamaki sparked a buzz of interest for the Pacific Trade Invest (PTI) Pacific Path to Market delegation.Rod Giles talks about the warehouse process to the visiting delegates of the PTI Pacific Path to Market Programme in Auckland.

Rod Giles, Founder owner of CWL Limited welcomed the 25-member delegation from eight Pacific Island countries to his business. The delegates were on the final day of the PTI Pacific Path to Market four-day programme that included the Pasifika Festival, a Gap Analysis work shop, site visits and Business to Business Speed Dating meetings. The programme provides a structured approach to understanding the New Zealand market.

The group visited CWL to learn more about warehousing and logistics. Mr Giles said demand for his warehousing had ramped up over the past 3-4 years with the rapid growth of online sales and New Zealand’s vibrant economy.

Mr Giles founded Contract Warehousing in 1978. He had a history in both warehousing which followed into freight before starting Contract Warehousing Ltd some 40 years ago. During this time he has been involved in training for industry and also operating in Australia with his company for a number of years and further developing his company to meet the ever increasing demands of online sales, both nationally and internationally.The beauty of third party warehousing is that businesses don’t necessarily require a shopfront or the capital commitment normally required to commence a business.

Prior to Christmas last year the business was processing 40 containers monthly, up from their usual 15 containers monthly at the same time last year. The success of the business comes from the driving passion of the sprightly 70-year old who starts his day at 6:30am and ends about 13 hours later at 7:30pm. It has seen him start a business in warehousing before others and create custom computer programmes after visits to Australia and England failed to find what he wanted. Facing the challenge however put him ahead of the curve and the competition.

And it’s not just about processing the orders and distributing the goods. Mr Giles says he cares about the success of his customers that translates to his own success.

The beauty of third party warehousing is that businesses don’t necessarily require a shopfront or the capital commitment normally required to commence a business. Instead it allows clients the benefits of experienced trained staff and systems in servicing their needs from day one in what Mr Giles described as “an effortless and seamless manner.”

In a nutshell, Contract Warehousing hires out the space for the goods, the orders are picked and packed by warehouse staff and delivered to the customer by courier.

The delegation’s company tour started with an introduction to the frontline team of about 6-8 office staff. They receive the orders, generate the invoices and forward the order to the warehouse where the goods are picked, checked, packed to meet the products requirement and then delivered by courier. The delegation then visited the very large busy warehouse located in a long building behind the office. The warehouse featured rows of floor to ceiling racking designed to accommodate the wide variety of products which total over 10,000 different items of boxed goods from kitchen equipment from the USA, to food from India, to wine bottles from small South American and books sold to the USA.

Throughout the visit Mr Giles repeatedly stressed the importance of keeping a very efficient electronic system and maintaining the traceability of products. From the receipt of the order through to the picking and packing in the warehouse to the date and time of delivery by courier. The operation relied on accurate units of measure, correct product codes and shipping details, a great team of dedicated staff and an in-depth knowledge of freight, insurances and the associated shipping laws. The traceability meant a stock report could be generated and emailed to clients daily.

It’s a straight-forward process Mr Giles suggests, “What’s required in warehousing is you deliver the right product, in the right condition to the right customer at the right time. For this to happen day in and day out the systems must be in place and the staff fully understand and follow the requirements to make this happen,” he said.

However, he also related a sobering story of client’s failed business after they switched to a DIY Warehouse and Distribution option rather than using the specialist warehousing and logistics company. Mr Giles added “It has to be understood that the best marketing in the world fails if the service to deliver every day does not back up the marketing and this is too often taken for granted.”

For the delegates on the Pacific Path to Market programme, third party warehousing was a revelation and provided a clearer understanding of some of the options available when exporting into the New Zealand market.

For more information contact Joe Fuavao, PTI Trade Development Manager on This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

|  A  Pacific Trade Invest (PTI) release  ||  April 11, 2017   |||

/INS. Walki has developed a new fibre-based soil mulching solution that is completely biodegradable. This organic mulch type, which is used for weed control and to optimise soil conditions and crop yield, is the first of its kind on the market.

Walki, a leading global producer of technical laminates and protective packaging materials, has developed the first-ever organic mulching solution that is based on natural biodegradable fibres instead of plastic. Mulch is a layer of material applied to the surface of an area of soil. It is designed to conserve moisture, improve the fertility and health of the soil and control weed growth. Soil mulching also reduces the need for pesticides, fertilisers and irrigation.

Traditionally, soil mulching materials have been made from plastic, and, most typically, from polyethylene film. While effective, plastic mulch is not biodegradable and eventually becomes waste material that has to be removed from the field and dumped or recycled at a high cost.

It is estimated that more than a million tonnes of plastic films are used for mulching every year around the world. In addition to having to be collected from the fields, the mulch often leaves behind plastic residues, which pollute the soil and reduce its future growth potential. Yields from polluted soil are typically up to 20 per cent lower than those from non-polluted soil.

“Walki’s Agripap solution is the only organic mulch type on the market that is made from paper instead of plastic. It is entirely biodegradable, does not contribute to plastic pollution and, instead, simply dissolves into the soil. It also reduces the need for the chemicals used to control weed growth,” says Walki’s Vice President Technical Products, Sales & Marketing, Arno Wolff.

Walki®Agripap is made from kraft paper that is coated with a biodegradable coating layer, which slows down the degradation of the paper. Without the coating, the paper would degrade in the soil within a few weeks.

Walki’s new organic mulching solution has been the subject of extensive field-testing in Finland. The tests, which were carried out in 2016 by independent research institute Luke Piikkiö, compared the performance of different biodegradable mulches for growing iceberg lettuce and seedling onions. The tests demonstrated that Walki’s Agripap was easy to lay on the fields and delivered excellent weed control. The results in terms of yield and durability were also good.

“Having seen the kind of environmental impact that plastic film can have on the soil, Walki has understood that there is a need for a more sustainable mulching solution. Walki®Agripap is the perfect alternative for the farmers who care about our environment,” says Peter Martin, Technical Service & Development Director, Industrial Packaging.

Following the successful testing and approval of Agripap in Finland and Sweden, the next step will be to complete testing in Europe’s main mulching markets: Spain, France and Italy. Farmers and equipment manufacturers wishing to participate in testing Walki’s new organic mulching solution are encouraged to get in touch with Arno Wolff.

|  An NS release  ||   April 06, 2017   |||

ji Fibre Solutions (OjiFS) has unveiled upgraded and expanded facilities at its Penrose paper bag manufacturing plant. The $30 million capital investment lifts production capacity and provides a world- class food safety environment that aims to future proof the business and continue to set the global standard in dairy bag production.

The new facilities were officially opened on Friday by the Minister for Economic Development, Hon Simon Bridges.

OjiFS chief executive Jon Ryder said the event marks one of the first milestones in an exciting new chapter in the company’s history.

“The decision to invest $30 million into this site was made in February 2015, within months of the purchase of our business (formerly CHH Pulp, Paper and Packaging) by Oji Holdings and Innovation Network Corporation of Japan (INCJ) in November 2014. It is a strong sign of Oji’s commitment to New Zealand and our intent to grow the Oji Fibre Solutions business in NZ and Australia.”

Dr Ryder said the business has traditionally been a supplier of commodity products – the Penrose investment reflects its transition to become more of a solutions company for its customers.

“We are determined to develop a portfolio of value added products that address the sectors we support; in this case dairy, flour and sugar. Our investment provides a world- class food safety environment which is vital to ensure the integrity of the supply chain,” he said.

The investment project has seen the extension of the plant’s existing hygiene hall and upgrade of a conversion line that produces multi-walled bags for dairy and food powder packaging. It entailed upgrading of all aspects of critical hygiene, installation of state of the art bag-making equipment and construction of an additional 3,000m2 of onsite warehousing and associated facilities.

Purpose built and equipped to meet the Ministry of Primary Industries’ guidelines for the design and construction of dairy facilities, the facilities also comply with stringent customer engineering standards for food safety. The new conversion line produces 48 million 25kg dairy and food powder bags per year, bringing total production to around 100 million bags per annum.

Oji Fibre Solutions is a leading supplier of multi-ply paper bags in New Zealand. In addition to supplying the dairy and food bag market, its Penrose business also produces tens of millions of paper bags for a diverse range of market segments including cement, vegetables and food products. Its current market is primarily domestic however the business has rapidly growing export volumes to Australia, the Pacific Islands and South America. Key customers include major dairy processing companies in New Zealand, Australia and South America along with other large scale food product manufacturers.

This follows on from Oji Holdings Corporation (Oji Holdings), through its New Zealand subsidiary, Oji Fibre Solutions (OjiFS),  investing A$72 million in a new corrugated box manufacturing facility in Queensland.

| An Oji Fibre Solutions releas  ||  April 03, 2017   |||

UK soft drinks firm Britvic has said it has reached a major milestone in efforts to develop a wood fibre bottle.

The firm revealed the advance in its 2016 sustainability report and said it could revolutionise packaging across multiple sectors.

Britvic has been working on the packaging over the last three years in partnership with Innovate UK and UK-based SME Natural Resources (2000).

It said that this year it had managed to produce bottles on a prototype manufacturing line using the technology and had also begun to develop a bottle closure system using similar wood fibre-based material.

“This new technology has the potential to significantly reduce the environmental impact of packaging as the materials are sustainably sourced, renewable and fully recyclable,” said Britvic.

It added that the new process requires less energy to produce a bottle than its contemporary equivalents.

In the report CEO Simon Litherland said the company had made significant investment in manufacturing sites to improve productivity and resource efficiency.

Investments made in the firm’s Leeds plant last year have led to water and energy consumption falling by 22% and 45% respectively, relative to production.

“These upgrades have also allowed us to access the latest in packaging technology, resulting in lighter bottles and less packaging materials being used,” he added.

The company reported 84% of its manufacturing waste was recycled in 2016.

Some 90% of direct suppliers are linked on the company’s responsible sourcing platform, Sedex.

And while the company’s road mileage has increased this year, resulting in a 5% increase in emissions to 25,177 tonnes of CO2, part of the reason for this increase was temporary changes to production locations.

The company said it had optimised pallet movements to maximise efficiency, which had helped to save the equivalent of 265 tonnes of CO2.

And during 2016 the company identified which of its sourcing regions are at risk from water scarcity and discussed with suppliers how they were managing these threats.

“Next year will see us continue our engagement activity, aiming to educate our suppliers on responsible water practices,” said Britvic.

|  A SupplyManagement release  |  March 30, 2017   |||