Sealed Air to Add Capacity for Plant-Based Packaging

Packaging solutions firm Sealed Air Corporation announced a new $24 million project to expand capacity for plant-based packaging at its Simpsonville, SC production facility on Thursday. The company said its investment will enable the plant to become the first site in North America to manufacture packaging from Plantic brand plant-based resin and post-consumer plastic. 

In 2018, Sealed Air formed an agreement with Japanese-owned specialty materials firm Kuraray America Inc. to use Plantic resin is packaging products for perishable foods in North America. As part of the newly-announced effort, Kuraray is investing $15 million to install plant-based high barrier resin production technology and support systems at facility in Houston, TX. The site is expected to come online early next year.

“This collaborative effort with Kuraray expands our ability to deliver innovative, sustainable food packaging solutions that leave our world, environment, and communities better than we found them,” Ted Doheny, president and chief executive officer of Sealed Air, said in a company press release. “This investment also helps us reach our commitment to deliver 100% recyclable or reusable packaging offerings, and 50% average recycled content across all packaging solutions by 2025.”

Sealed Air’s new production capabilities at the Simpsonville plant are expected to become operational in the second quarter of 2020. Materials used for the plant-based packaging are imported from Plantic Australia.

“We are looking forward to this collaborative investment with Sealed Air which allows us to produce and offer a high-performance plant-based packaging option to the food industry on a much larger scale,” the general manager of Kuraray’s Global EVAL Division, Katsumasa Yamaguchi, said in a statement.

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