PaperWorks Industries Inc. plans to consolidate all of its Canadian folding carton production into its recently acquired Boehmer Box manufacturing facility in Kitchener, Ont. The company, with integrated mill operations, expects to consolidate all print production in Kitchener by May 2016.
This consolidation includes closing its Hamilton, Ont., plant by July 2016, which has around 180 employees. PaperWorks earlier said it plans to add 150 employees across all areas of prepress and production at the Kitchener facility over the next year.
“Because the Hamilton facility is only 75 kilometers away from the Kitchener manufacturing plant, it made sense from a production and asset utilization perspective to consolidate production under one roof,” said Kevin Kwilinski, president and CEO of PaperWorks. “The Kitchener plant is more modern and has newer equipment, which translates into more efficient output.”
In June 2015, PaperWorks agreed to acquire CanAmPac of Napanee. The acquisition included coated recycled board (CRB) producer Strathcona Paper, folding carton manufacturer Boehmer Box and LYFT Visual graphic services. Strathcona Paper is described as the largest producer of CRB in Canada, while Boehmer Box produces offset-litho printed folding cartons for North American food packaging applications.
As a result of the CanAmPac acquisition, PaperWorks’ projected manufacturing output for the combined companies is approximately 400,000 tons of 100 percent recycled paperboard, annually.
In August, PaperWorks then announced a planned investment of more $11 million over the next year to expand the capabilities of the 340,000-square-foot Boehmer Box facility, which produces folding cartons for products like dry and frozen food, beverage, pharmaceutical, household goods, personal care and institutional foodservice.
The Hamilton plant has been producing folding cartons for many decades and was part of the Rosmar Packaging Corp. acquisition that PaperWorks made in 2011.
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