It’s 100% British, green, clean and already capturing world markets in lightweight flexible packaging

Excelsior Technologies, a UK company which exports the majority of its output to fourteen countries across five continents, has commenced operations at a new £20million, 8.5 acresuper-site which represents the UK’s biggest single investment in flexible packaging for decades.

“At a time when some high visibility names in the packaging industry are deserting the UK, we have put our faith and our money in the outstanding skills and technologies which we have nurtured here and which have attracted customers from as far a field as China and Japan, the USA and South Africa,” said Managing Director, Dave Moorcroft at the opening of the site. Excelsior has twice won the Queens Award for Export as well as a number of Starpack Awards for its high-tech approach to flexible packaging design tailored to customers’ needs. The company sold more than a billion packs last year and the new site in Flintshire will increase capacity further with the installation and commissioning of new in-line packaging production machines including the latest multi-colour, high-speed, wide-web rotogravure and flexo printing machines. The company has also built a dedicated research, design, development and prototyping facility to enable it to maintain its lead in flexible packs and pouches including its world-beating technologies in microwaveable steam packs for frozen foods, ready meals and fresh produce.

The new site also achieves the international standard in quality management – ISO 9001 / 2008 - as well as holding the BRC/IOP Standard for clean manufacturing. “One great advantage of a site such as this is the fact we can set the standard as high as it comes in terms of quality and environmental care,” said David Moorcroft. “Flexible packaging already boasts minimal impacts due to its lightweight, low volume attributes which give customers excellent resource minimisation credentials. On top of this our new facility has state-of-the-art environmental protection at every stage of the process. We know how critical this has become to the big brands and retailers who now have to be fully transparent in the way they bring products to their customers.”

Moorcroft also goes out of his way to promote the often hidden green advantages of flexible packaging. “There is so much myth that needs de-bunking when it comes to packaging”, he said. “We create outstanding pack performance through the development of solutions designed to maximise the benefits of using complex laminates of light, highly functional materials. These bring excellent product protection which not only minimises distribution and storage impact but also saves product and food wastage – one of the biggest concerns of Government today.” The company says that the new site in Deeside, which benefited from around £1million funding support from the Welsh Assembly and will support 200 local jobs, is the largest UK investment in flexible packaging this century. The company exports 60% of its output and the USA is its largest customer.

Excelsior also operates a state-of-the-art, vertically-integrated, film extrusion facility in Nelson, Lancashire, which provides a dedicated quality-controlled source of film feedstock for its new Deeside production base.