Tetra Pak expands Kenyan plant - Capital Business
Connect with us

Hi, what are you looking for?

Kenya

Tetra Pak expands Kenyan plant

NAIROBI, Kenya, Feb 25 – Tetra Pak Eastern Africa, a leading supplier of liquid food processing and packaging equipment and material in the region has invested Sh200 million in a new printing press to improve print quality and increase production capacity.

The substantial investment will progress services for the entire Eastern Africa region while opening up new export markets in Sub Saharan Africa. While commissioning the new plant at the Nairobi Converting factory, the Assistant Minister for Industrialisation Nderitu Mureithi said the Government was concerned that Pan Paper Mills was experiencing operational challenges and noted that a bailout package was in the offing. Before its collapse, the Webuye-based company provided about 50 percent of the raw materials for Tetra Pak.

The minister applauded the company’s effort to invest in capital equipment aimed at improving lead times for customer packaging material and open up the market further to provide more export opportunities beyond the East African region.

“Tetra Pak has been in business in Kenya for over 50 years playing a key role in the development of the liquid beverages industry especially the dairy sector. We are very proud of this achievement and the Government will continue to support the private sector in areas of improved investments,” Mr Mureithi said.

On his part Tetra Pak Eastern Africa Managing Director, Anders Lindgren said the company would continue strengthening its investment portfolio in the region to improve core competence that benefits the clients. “By investing heavily in our capital equipment we hope to elicit positive responses from our customers”, Mr Lindgren said.

The new machine will allow printing of wide-ranging designs to meet customer’s demands and minimise delays for customer packaging material delivery.

“Our customers will now be assured of great quality printing at the shortest possible time. This is the largest investment we have made since this factory was built here in the 1980s. We will offer customers much bigger variety and seek other markets across Africa and Middle East,” he said.

Mr Lindgren called on the Government to sustain infrastructure improvement and decrease high energy costs that have continually aggrieved the manufacturing sector. He said although there was continued development of the road network and other infrastructural investments such as internet access, the costs of energy were still high.

The company currently covers over ten countries in Eastern Africa providing top of the range processing and packaging equipment as well as versatile packaging solutions for the liquid beverage industry. Tetra Pak Eastern Africa has been active since 1956 and became the first market company outside Europe. It is a member of Tetra Pak Group, the world’s leading liquid food processing and packaging multinational of Swedish origin and headquartered in Lausanne, Switzerland.
 

Advertisement. Scroll to continue reading.
Advertisement

More on Capital Business