Jindal Films invests in innovation capabilities at European site

Jindal Films, the world’s largest BOPP and BOPET manufacturer, has announced it is investing heavily in its European facility in order to support its continuing strategy of growth through innovation.

The company says its location in Virton, Belgium, will house a state-of- the-art testing laboratory for exhaustive film characterisation, and will be uniquely equipped to simulate customer conditions on packaging, printing and labelling machines. It will also invest complementary systems in its North American plant in LaGrange.

Jindal says a brand new, highly flexible ‘Orientation Pilot Line’ will be centrally installed in its Virton facility to “better serve its new developments globally, have quick access to new film prototypes and accelerate new films ready to market.”

This new hardware capability, says the company, will be combined with a highly skilled international team of scientists, engineers, and technicians who “master all fields of expertise from polymer and coating science, down to processes and field applications.”

“This is a big step and great way to celebrate more than 40 years of continuous leadership in innovation,” said Pascale Wautelet, Global Technology Director.

“We have embodied innovation with new products that have changed the flexible packaging and label industry, and established the company as the innovation leader in the market place. This new global footprint will give us access to breakthrough technology and support our aggressive growth plans.”

Paul Griffith, EVP Europe and Asia, added: “Our customers expect rapid innovation and this new complementary global set up will enable us to solve more challenging packaging problems and deliver solutions in a faster time-to-market.”

Work will commence immediately and is expected to be fully commissioned by July 2016.