Plastic food and beverage container producer Constar International (Philadelphia, Pennsylvania / USA; www.constar.net) has announced plans to exit the commodity carbonated soft drink (CSD) market following the expiry of a large contract. As a result, the company will reduce its operations at two US sites, in Jackson, Mississippi and Havre de Grace, Maryland, with the loss of about 80 jobs.

“With a large contract to supply commodity CSD products expiring at the end of 2012, we had to choose between devoting more resources to low value adding activity, or reducing that activity significantly and sharpening focus where we add greater value,” said CEO Andre Laus.

The Jackson plant, which is an injection molding facility, will close at the end of January 2013, while the Havre de Grace plant, which comprises two buildings with a full range of injection and specialty blow molding operations, will concentrate operations into the larger of the two buildings. Approximately 40 employees will leave from the Jackson site by the end of January, and about 40 will leave from the Havre de Grace site by the end of March.

Constar explained that the high-volume CSD bottle market is rapidly shifting to self-manufacturing driven by machine technology available to CSD fillers. “Now a private company with financial sponsors who are willing to move decisively, we are changing both our scale and our focus,” said Laus. Constar emerged from bankruptcy protection in 2011 – see Plasteurope.com of 22.06.2011.

The company plans to focus on plastic packaging for technologically advanced and specialty applications. “We have been too highly concentrated in commodity business,” stated Laus. “We need to direct more of our effort and resources to targeted growth opportunities in packaging markets for hot-fill beverage, food, barrier, short-run and specialty products, and new applications.”

Many of the company’s assets that were dedicated to commodity CSD products can be retooled to support growth in specialty markets, the CEO added.