Chicago — Toppan USA Inc. is further integrating in the United States with the planned opening of a contract packaging facility in Florida early next year.
The company, a subsidiary of Japan-based Toppan Printing Co. Ltd., already operates a film-making plant in Griffin, Ga.
Now the firm is working with Mitsui & Co. Ltd., also based in Japan, and its U.S. subsidiary Mitsui Plastics Inc. to create Pouchfill Packaging LLC of Daytona Beach, Fla.
Pouchfill, which launched in 2017, aims to further establish Toppan in the United States as the company looks to grow, explained Masa Tatewaki, CEO of Toppan USA, in an interview at the recent Pack Expo in Chicago.
Pouchfill is utilizing the space of a contract packer that closed a few years ago, and is bringing in new equipment to serve both the food and beverage markets with stand-up pouches.
Toppan makes film and will rely on converters, who are their customers, to supply them with pouches to be used at the co-packing facility.
Masa said the company does not want to be in competition with its own customers, but does want to further integrate in the United States.
"We want to expand our business here not only supplying the film," he said.
Toppan is importing a business model used by the company in Japan, where the company is more vertically integrated than its U.S. operation, which opened in 2016. The Georgia location, which makes barrier films, was the company's first production site outside of Japan.
The new Florida facility is expected to open during the first quarter of 2019.
The company's Georgia site now includes about 80 employees and is looking to further grow production and employment in the future, he said.