Polish group opens £40m UK can plant

Production has begun at a Polish-owned beverage can plant that is the first to be built in the UK

Production has begun at a Polish-owned beverage can plant that is the first to be built in the UK for almost 20 years.

Can-Pack Group, which is headquartered in Krakow, began manufacturing 44cl cans at the 36,000m2 facility in Scunthorpe, Yorkshire at the start of January following a £40m investment.

So far, around 150 people are working at the site, but the company plans to employ as many as 300 by the time it reaches full production capacity. Around a third of workers have been recruited in the UK and the rest in Poland.

Jerzy Laszcz, managing director of the plant, was unavailable for comment as Packaging News went to press. However, he told a local newspaper: This is very important for Can-Pack because it is the company’s first major development in western Europe.

For the next stage we will recruit exclusively in the UK and the workers will undertake training on the site.

Annual output of the plant is expected to hit 21m aluminium cans a week, or around a billion a year. Ends for the cans are produced by the company’s end-making plant in Bydgoszcz, northern Poland. At present, the UK produces around 8.5bn drinks cans every year.

The plant builds on Can-Pack’s growing network of 12 facilities across central and eastern Europe and two in the Middle East.

A presentation by Can-Pack chief operating officer Stanislaw Wasko passed to Packaging News said that the company had chosen the UK as it is Europe’s biggest market for cans and all the main global customers run can filling plants here.

The plant is the first beverage can factory to open in the UK since the late 1980s, when Rexam’s Wakefield plant and Ball Packaging Europe’s Rugby facility were built.

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