Berry Plastics Group Inc. is planning what the company calls “an incremental” capacity expansion in its health, hygiene and specialties division.
The move “is targeted to meet forecasted customer growth and will be focused on premium applications in desired hygiene and healthcare markets,” Berry Plastics said in a recent announcement.
The Evansville, Ind.-based company said the 16,000-metric-ton capacity expansion will serve North American markets.
After issuing a statement on the planned expansion earlier in May, CEO Jon Rich briefly addressed the topic on a May 10 conference call to discuss quarterly earnings.
“We're very pleased with the growth that we've been seeing from our customers, especially in North America. We're running at very high operating rates,” Rich said. “Because of our strong position in these product lines, we have a very good understanding of the supply-demand dynamics and also good forecasting capabilities from our customers.”
Rich told stock analysts on the call that the company is in the initial planning stages of the investment. “We don't believe that it will add a significant increase in total capacity to the industry,” he said.
The company will provide more details on the planned expansion in the future, he said.
Berry Plastics, in its announcement, said it will “conduct a search for the best location for the investment.”
The company currently expects the project to come online in 2018
