In an effort to meet the rising regional demand for carton packaged beverages, Tetra Pak (Lund / Sweden; www.tetrapak.com) has started building a new packaging material factory in Chakan, near Pune, where the Swedish company has been running a plant for the past 14 years.

At an investment cost of EUR 100m, the new plant is to have an initial production capacity of 8.5 bn packages, with the potential to raise total capability to 16 bn packages. “With strong economic growth, a dynamic consumer base and modernisation of distribution and retailing, there is a high demand across all categories,” Kandarp Singh, managing director at Tetra Pak India, explained some of the reasoning behind the decision to build another facility in the country. Tetra Pak recently made similar investments to upgrade capacity at its plants in China, Pakistan, Russia and Brazil.

The new plant’s facilities will include a machine rebuilding centre as well as a product development and innovation centre, which is to include a laboratory, a pilot processing plant and a pilot packaging plant for customers to consult with.

All in all, the market for carton packaged dairy beverages and fruit-based drinks in India, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh is expected to grow from 757m litres in 2010 to 1.3 bn litres in 2013, according to Tetra Pak.