Updated — Accredo Packaging Inc. always tries to stay one step ahead.
The flexible packaging maker is again expanding its Texas manufacturing plant and preparing to open a new facility in Vietnam. The total value of both projects is $100 million, the company said.
The Sugar Land, Texas-based firm plans to add 200,000 square feet to its facility near Houston. The space is expected to be complete by the fourth quarter of 2019.
“It's essentially going to start out as a warehouse, but they will add railroad tracks, etc.,” said Malcolm Cohn, director of sustainability for the company. “As the business continues to grow, the building also has been designed to accommodate extruders.”
The company currently is installing its sixth extruder in the last available space for such equipment in its existing facilities. There remains room for three more printing presses in that current space, Cohn said, “but otherwise that building is going to be full up.”
Accredo, which began in 2009, has used measured growth to create a company from scratch that now has more than $100 million in annual sales. The company looks to be “always one asset ahead of its need,” he said, and that's why Accredo is moving forward with more space at this point.
The added room will be in new building located adjacent to existing operations. And new production equipment eventually will be located there as the company continues to grow, Cohn said.
The Texas expansion will bring the company's total space to 550,000 square feet at that location.
In Vietnam, Accredo is putting the finishing touches on a 238,000-square-foot manufacturing site in Binh Duong province near Ho Chi Minh City.
The plant is slated to open during the third quarter and fully operational by the end of the year.
Accredo will make coextruded films, printed roll stock, printed laminated roll stock, stand-up pouches and wicketed bags in Vietnam.
While the total price of the two projects is $100 million, the private company declined to break out the cost of each individual effort.
Accredo is part of the API Group of companies and a sister firm to Advance Polybag Inc., a major producer of grocery store bags that was founded by Hank Nguyen in 1986. The Nguyen family later decided to branch out into flexible packaging almost a decade ago and has enjoyed annual growth of about 20 percent in that business, Cohn said.
“They saw that there was an opportunity in the flexible packaging market as opposed to plastic grocery shopping bags. The owners had the vision that when they were going to start this new business that they were going to build it on the foundation of sustainability,” he said.
Both the Texas and Vietnam sites have been built to meet green building standards.
The Texas site uses electricity created by wind for its operations, and the Vietnam will use solar power.
That new location in Asia will serve customers in China, Australia, India, Malaysia, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam.
