— By Plasteurope.com staff — 

Packaging manufacturer Constantia Flexibles (Vienna; www.cflex.com) said it has put a new 5-layer blown film plant onstream at its German site in Pirk.

The film production unit made by German manufacturer Hosokawa Alpine (Augsburg; www.hosokawa-alpine.com) works with inline machine direction orientation (MDO) technology.

Constantia did not provide any details on the sum invested or the planned production capacity.

With the MDO technology – which is based on monoaxially stretching – barrier properties, optical characteristics, and the thickness of the packing material can be modified during the production process. This enables the production of recyclable mono-polyethylene films, which the company markets under the EcoLam HighPlus brand.

Related: German packaging award: from mono-material solutions to 100% recyclate

The research and development department is also based at the Constantia’s Pirk site, where it has a workforce of around 800.

The Austrian packaging manufacturer has been majority owned by US private equity firm One Rock Capital Partners (New York, New York; www.onerockcapital.com) since 2023.

With around 9,580 employees at 36 sites in 16 countries, Constantia Flexibles reported sales in 2023 of around EUR 2 bn.

At the beginning of 2024, the company acquired a majority of the shares of Swiss competitor Aluflexpack (Reinach; www.aluflexpack.com).

— Translated by Jon Relton