The 2,500m² plant will have multiple extrusion lines and will mainly serve the Australian market with color and additive masterbatches.
F&B Packaging
Heiner Mehrtens, head of RBL Masterbatches, Clariant Asia Pacific, told FoodProductionDaily, the company employs nearly 3,600 people across more than 50 locations in 30+ countries around the world.
In the Asia Pacific region, besides Australia, it has plants in China, Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, Vietnam, New Zealand and Indonesia.
“Considering the increasing demand from Australian customers on functional and sustainable masterbatches and technology in various industries, such as packaging, we see great potential in developing in the Australia market,” he said.
“Our products enhance the performance of current packaging products used in the F&B industry, such as recyclability, weight and cost efficiency.”
Mehrtens said it was working closely with Clariant’s New Zealand Albany site to produce products tailored to local customer requirements, along with color matching and quality control capabilities and the Asia Pacific region is an area for future development.
Full range of colour
He said the company was seeing a trend of more demands from local customers about the full range of color and additive masterbatches with high quality.
“They also ask for reliable technical services with a quick response. To better meet the needs of local customers, we are building this plant to provide innovative and sustainable products and on-time services to our Australian customer base as well as to global and local brand owners.”
Clariant is now focusing on serving the Australian plastics industry with products and technical back up and will build the business based on customer service and short lead times.