News

Sealed Air has begun construction of a new UK facility to develop and test protective packaging in what it has described as a “six-figure” investment.

The firm is adding around 90sqm to its existing packaging design and development centre (PDDC) in Kettering that will house a range of new pack testing equipment including product fragility testing and random vibration testing.

The centre, which is due to open in the last quarter of the year, is the first of what Sealed Air has termed "next-generation PDDCs" in Europe, following the opening of similar centres in the US and Asia. In total, Sealed Air runs around 30 PDDCs worldwide and six in Europe.

Matthew Houghton, Sealed Air European PDDC manager, said that the new centre, which will add to the existing PDDC in Kettering, would further the company's work in cutting weight out of packaging while developing its protective qualities.

"Last year we took 5m kgs of packaging weight out of the system, and with the environment at the forefront of people's minds this centre is an important addition to our capabilities," he said.

He added that the PDDC, which designs packaging for a range of products from items weighing less than 1kg up to several hundred kgs, would allow customers to recreate more realistic conditions of packaging transit.

"[It] will form a new centre of excellence and will allow us to carry out a number of additional standard tests outlined by the International Safe Transit Association," he said.

Sealed Air's PDDCs develop protective bespoke packaging designs in plastics and cartonboard before selling the packaging, and the kit to build it, to customers. However, it does not charge for the design work directly.

There are no plans to add to the headcount of six staff at the centre in the short term. "We have a number of staff with 20 years' service or more, so there's a lot of experience there," Houghton said.