VPK Invests In New Paper Mill
To help meet future capacity for lightweight recycled corrugated case material.
VPK Packaging Group, the owner of Rigid Containers in the UK, is looking to build a new paper mill in central Europe to help meet future capacity for lightweight recycled corrugated case material.
The new € 200 m (£ 158 m) plant, which VPK said would take two years to complete, will produce 300,000 tonnes of material each year - equivalent to the company's needs in 2011.
VPK has taken an option on two possible locations - Zeitz in Germany and Wroclaw in Poland - and expects to create 250 new jobs.
The announcement comes two months before the opening of a new €16m facility in Salonta, Romania, to produce corrugated board packaging and tubes.
VPK, which has 26 plants across Europe including the Rigid Containers operation in North Yorkshire, generated € 617 m in sales in 2007.
But, profit margins for 2008 are 'under pressure' from high energy costs. It expects to pay € 7 m more for its recovered paper and energy in the current financial year than it did in 2007-8.
