The manufacturer of plastic bottles and jars for the personal care, pharmaceutical and nutritional industries announced intentions to expand within Europe earlier this year.
The new production facility will boost the company’s existing operations in the Netherlands, which currently consist of a warehouse and a dedicated sales force.
Accelerated expansion strategy
The company stated that it has recently acquired the assets of Netherlands-based packaging manufacturer SmartPET, and is in the process of integrating selected machinery and tools into the new facility.
According to Alpha, this acquisition will allow for faster-than-anticipated entry into the European personal care, food and OTC liquid packaging markets as the timeline for making narrow-neck liquid PET bottles has been accelerated.
Narrow neck liquid PET bottles are used for a variety of personal care and OTC liquid products, including hair care products, hand sanitisers, liquid soaps and cough and cold serums.
“We had looked at a staged entry into Europe, leading with our bread and butter nutritional accounts, but the opportunity to capture immediate business from within the personal care and OTC liquid markets is significant,” said Alpha’s CEO Dave Spence.
Spence said that the company will be looking to grow in Europe as quickly as possible through both existing distributor relationships and direct contact with new customers.
Beating the competition
As well as integrating SmartPET’s machinery into the facility, Alpha will be shipping equipment from North America to the production site, which it believes will give the company an edge over the competition, particularly in the nutritional supplements market.
“By bringing our existing machinery to Europe, we’ll hit the ground running with a great deal of capacity,” said Mike DeFazio, Alpha’s vice president of operations.
“There is not anyone in this region who will have the efficiencies and production capacity that our machines yield,” he added.