Sealed Air and Kuraray expand plant-based food packaging production facility

In North Carolina, Sealed Air Corporation is investing in capacity at its Simpsonville, S.C. facility to produce plant-based food packaging. This facility will be the first in North America to produce materials made from Plantic plant-based resin and post-consumer plastic. Simpsonville is one of the world’s largest packaging plants with over 1,000 employees and 1.4 million square feet of operations. Packaging materials and systems for food and consumer products are currently manufactured at this location.

In June 2018, Sealed Air and Kuraray America, Inc. (Kuraray), a specialty materials company with headquarters in Japan, entered into an agreement to offer Plantic materials to package perishable foods such as poultry, beef and seafood in the U.S., Canada and Mexico.

Sealed Air’s planned capital investment of $24 million is underway and production is scheduled to begin in the second quarter of 2020. To support this work, Kuraray is investing approximately $15 million to install plant-based high barrier resin production and supporting capabilities in Houston, Texas. Kuraray’s resin plant is scheduled to be completed at the end of September 2019 and will begin operating in early 2020.