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Raflatac emphasized its growth at Labelexpo Americas

30.9.2004

At this year’s Labelexpo Americas, Raflatac had an exceptionally strong showing, as the company welcomed around 1000 visitors to its booth during the four-day event, held September 13-16 in Chicago. Over 400 leading industry suppliers exhibited to nearly 13,000 visitors with nearly 20% of visitors traveling from outside the USA, including big delegations from Brazil, Mexico, Japan, China and Australia.

A key highlight of the show included the keynote presentation, ‘The State of the Label Industry’, by Dan O’Connell, President, Raflatac, Inc. The three main areas O’Connell addressed were Labelexpo 2004 vs. 2002, labelling and the supply chain and TLMI’s 2004 North American Label Study.

According to O’Connell, the labeling industry is experiencing growth, but there are challenges, such as increasing costs, affecting the industry.

“But even with increasing costs, label packaging is ‘in’. Opportunities are increasing as costs become more controlled, productivity is increased and new technologies are being utilized. PS producers need to help customers shrink their lead times, introduce new products and try to help them reduce downtime with faster changeover.”

“In the North American Label Study, it was found that 86% of end-users were satisfied with converters as label suppliers,” O’Connell said.

Continued investment in the region

At Raflatac’s press conference, Jouko Lähepelto, Senior Vice President, Americas, announced UPM’s investment of USD 40 million in additional coating and finishing capacity at Raflatac’s manufacturing center in Fletcher, NC.

“This means additional coating and finishing capacity. The most significant part of the investment is the second coating line, which will be added to our manufacturing facility in Fletcher, NC. It will focus on films and hot melt adhesive grades. As our first coating line, the second will be based upon Raflatac's proprietary technology know-how.”

“Globally Raflatac has been growing slightly faster than the market. In 2004, strong growth areas for Raflatac have been China and North America. In North America, we are clearly focusing on growth, developing our products and finally, the key thing - our people. Together, these make up the way we do business. We call it the Raflatouch.”

New products and services

At the show, Raflatac also announced the opening of a new terminal located in Northeastern Pennsylvania. The new terminal will service customers throughout New England, the Mid-Atlantic region and parts of Canada. It is scheduled to be fully operational by January 2005.

As for products, Raflatac introduced the latest additions to its film labelstock range including New! Raflex Plus, a fully squeezable white polyethylene film and a pasteurizable film construction.