Switzerland’s Tetra Pak, (Lausanne; www.tetrapak.com), has commissioned its latest factory in India to meet growing demand for its processing and packaging solutions in India, South and Southeast Asia as well as the Middle East. The company said the EUR 120m facility in Chakan, near Pune, doubles its Indian production capacity to 8.5 bn packages per year, with potential to expand to16 bn packages.

President and CEO, Dennis Jonsson, said: “India ranks among our fastest-growing markets. Investing in this factory demonstrates our strong commitment to supporting our customers to meet growing consumer demand in the region.”

Spread over 45 acres (roughly 18 hectares), the new plant houses a product development and innovation centre, which includes a laboratory, a pilot processing plant, and a pilot packaging plant to meet customer formulation and development needs. It will also have a straw production unit, a processing systems workshop, a filling machine renovation facility and a technical training academy.

Tetra Pak hopes the plant will achieve Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) gold certification, reflecting its extremely high standards of energy efficiency and environmental performance as well as the well-being of the employees who work there.

The company saw its global net sales rise by 4.3% in 2012 to reach EUR 11.2 bn – see Plasteurope.com of 15.04.2013.