French packaging group Sphere (Paris; www.sphere.eu) hopes to more than double its turnover in the UK after buying flexible packaging specialist Sarpak (Port Talbot; www.sarpak.co.uk) for an undisclosed sum.

Sphere, which claims to be one of Europe’s leading household packaging producers and one of the world’s leading manufacturers of compostable bio-based materials for films and bags, said the deal was carried out by its UK subsidiary, Alfaplas (Hereford; www.alfaplas.co.uk). Sphere said the Sarpak acquisition would help “position itself better on the British market in order to fully meet the expectations of consumers and local authorities, and to achieve in the future more than EUR 70m of turnover in the UK”.

The group has also recently partnered with Swedish film packaging producer Alfapac (Åsbro; www.alfapac.se) to provide the pre-collection equipment for sorting, collection and composting of residents’ bio-waste in France – a project that is scheduled to go live in May 2021. French food-waste recovery firm Les Alchimistes (Paris; www.alchimistes.co) will take care of the collection and composting of food waste, and the maintenance of drop-off points located in Île-de-France and the Seine-Saint-Denis district.

Sarpak, which employs 53 people, generated EUR 12m in 2019 and currently has a production capacity of 7000 t/y, while Alfaplas, with a staff of 95, had a turnover of EUR 21m in the same year. Sphere, which has 1,480 employees in 15 production plants across Europe, including seven in France, reported a turnover of EUR 640m in 2020.