French packaging specialist Albéa (Gennevilliers; www.albea-group.com) has invested almost EUR 30m in new production sites at home in France and in Italy. The two facilities are scheduled for start-up during 2014 and involve the consolidation of several smaller regional sites.

About EUR 22m is being spent at Argonne, south of Paris, where the company is building what it claims is one of the world's largest tube manufacturing plants. Projected production of tubes and caps made from plastic and laminate is expected to reach 1 bn annually for each. The new facility replaces two local sites in nearby St. Menéhould and Vienne Le Chateau and will employ 600 individuals at its 23.000 m² complex.

A similar plan is being realised in Italy for production sites in Verderio and Imbersago near Milan. The supplier of beauty and care products is building a new site in Bottanuco for the production of mascara brushes. When finished, the new facility will have 13.000 m² of production space and another 3.000 m² of warehouse capacity. The new site is to include units for injection moulding, extrusion as well as blow moulding and mould making with the resulting tube decoration to be integrated, which has been previously carried out at separate locations. The company has invested closed to EUR 6m for the Italian facility conversion.