Plastic and paper packaging group Mondi (Johannesburg / South Africa; www.mondigroup.com) is expanding production capacity at its Aramil and Pereslavl-Zalessky plants in Russia. The investment in the two sites, which together are now called "Consumer Flexibles Russia", provides customers in the region with a broader portfolio that includes sustainable packaging solutions.

A 9-layer co-extrusion line designed to produce monolayer to high-barrier multilayer film laminates will be installed at the Aramil facility by the end of 2020. The line broadens Mondi’s range of packaging solutions and helps meet rising demand in Russia from the confectionary, food as well as dry and wet pet food markets. The site in Aramil belonged to the former Russian company Uralplastic-N, which Mondi acquired in 2016 (see Plasteurope.com of 14.07.2016), and it manufactures PE and BOPP films in addition to multilayer laminates.

At its plant in Pereslavl-Zalessky, Mondi plans to install a new rotogravure printing machine by the first quarter of 2021, which would expand Mondi’s printing capacities and improve contingency planning for customer orders, said Peter Orisich, CEO of Mondi Flexible Packaging. “Russia is an important region for Mondi which is why we have integrated the supply between both Aramil and Pereslavl,” said Orisich.

The group reported solid fiscal 2019 results thanks to its flexible packaging business but reduced capex in 2020 after lower Q1 earnings year on year (see Plasteurope.com of 19.03.2020 and 14.04.2020). Earlier in 2020, the South African packaging manufacturer announced its plan to shutter two factories in the UK (see Plasteurope.com of 15.01.2020).