Uflex to invest Rs. 1,000 crore for expansion

As the packaging industry is growing, market major Uflex has announced plans on investing Rs. 1,000 crore over the following two years, a top company official said. Uflex is planning to invest in enhancing its capacity and adding more value to its flexible packaging product range spanning liquid and granular materials.

Uflex chairman and managing director Ashok Chaturvedi said in an interview, “As part of our growth plans, we propose to invest Rs.1,000 crore in the next two years to expand capacity and product range for packaging semi-liquids and liquid materials and powder and granular materials.”

Uflex is based at Noida and works multinational with production plants in India, Dubai, Egypt, Mexico, Poland and the US and markets in 85 countries worldwide. Uflex makes polyester chips, plastic films, laminates, inks and adhesives for packaging liquid and solid goods.

“We are setting new plants and more assembly lines at new locations in India and overseas for making a range of new and value added products to our global customers,” Chaturvedi asserted.

The 32-year-old firm has plants at Noida in Uttar Pradesh near Delhi, Jammu and in Malanpur in Bhind district of Madhya Pradesh and is now setting up an aseptic plant at Sanand in Gujarat to pack liquid products at Rs.550 crore in first phase.

Chaturvedi added, “When fully commissioned in phases over the next two-three years, the Sanand plant will employ about 3,000 people and 90 percent of its production will be to meet domestic demand.”

Uflex has many big names as its customers which span across 140 countries of the world. These include P&G, PepsiCo, Tata Global, Mondelez, L’ Oreal, Britannia, Haldiram, Amul, Kimberly Clark, Ferro Rocher, Perfetti, GSK, Nestle, Agrotech Foods, Coca Cola, Wrigley and Johnson & Johnson. The company has lately unveiled a range of inks, which are rub-scratch and crinkle resistance and offer good gloss and tape release.

“Similarly, our innovative moisture proof bag (Flex SafePack) protects moisture from entering into cement and prevents loss by withstanding harsh conditions for longer shelf life,” Chaturvedi pointed out.

Uflex has developed technology to reprocess mixed plastic waste arising from production process. The technology also reprocesses mixed plastic waste after customers refuse into articles for making durable plastic products.

“For instance, our world’s first 8 micron film is suitable for conversion operations like printing, lamination, coating and metallization, with cost and material savings ranging from 33-47 percent, which is beneficial to end-users,” Chaturvedi said.

Chaturvedi lamented that about 40 percent of food valued at Rs. 50,000 crore was wasted every year across the country for want of storage and packaging to protect and preserve. “We have the ability to be a part of the solution by offering innovative solutions to extend shelf-life of products and keep them safe for a longer period,” he claimed.

Industry Council for Research and Packaging on the Environment (INCPEN) says that flexible packaging helps reduce food wastage to one percent from three percent by increasing its shelf life, especially of vegetables and dairy products.

“By extending the lifecycle of food and protecting it from foreign elements, smart and flexible packaging can ensure consumed products were safe and help in improving their sustainability,” Chaturvedi added.