Coveris to acquire Polish packaging specialist (printweek.com)

A decade or so ago, Ben Miyares, a regular contributor to this magazine and President of The Packaging Management Institute, was teaching a module for our on-line Packaging Masters Program Course “The Value of Packaging” at Michigan State University. We had just started PTIS and believed that packaging value was very understated and that there were big opportunities ahead. The Miyares module was about packaging being bigger than an “industry”—he referred to it as an “economy.”

Arkema has agreed to acquire Dow’s flexible packaging laminating adhesives business, one of the leading producers of adhesives for the flexible packaging market, generating annual sales of around US$250 million. The proposed acquisition will significantly expand Arkema’s portfolio of solutions for flexible packaging, enabling the Group to become a key player in this attractive market. Dow’s flexible packaging laminating adhesives business offers a broad range of high-quality solutions in food and medical applications, where flexible packaging is the optimal solution in terms of efficiency, as well as for industrial lamination (window films, photovoltaic backsheets, etc.).

Pregis celebrated production start-up at its new 265,000 square foot manufacturing facility in Arlington, Texas with a ribbon cutting attended by the city’s mayor The Honorable Jim Ross. The new facility is now producing the Pregis EverTec™ mailer which is a durable, lightweight, curbside recyclable, paper cushioned, shipping solution. Pregis is currently employing 75 people in Arlington with plans to scale up to 105 over time. Pregis acquired the technology to manufacture the envirotech shipping solution in October 2020 with the goal to scale the production of the curbside recyclable product to meet consumer demand. The company self-manufactures the proprietary equipment used to produce the mailers. The new capacity in Arlington is in addition to the recently announced facilities in Bethel, Pennsylvania and McDonough, Georgia, as well as the Elk Grove Village, Illinois facility. The company is expanding with additional sites to serve strategic geographic markets which will create approximately 450 new jobs, in total.