Toyo Ink plans to double production capacity for laminating adhesives in Asia
By strengthening its global supply chain, Toyo Ink Group aims to expand sales of highly functional and environmentally friendly solutions such as solvent-free adhesives, for which demand is expected to increase worldwide. The expansion work at the Malaysian site is already underway and full operation is scheduled to start in the third quarter of 2023. After start-up, Toyochem Specialty Chemical will serve as the parent plant for laminating adhesives for the Asian region, especially for high-performance products, a core competence area of the group.
At present, the demand for laminating adhesives, which are mainly used for coating multi-layer films in flexible packaging, is increasing, especially in Asia for retort food pouches and pharmaceutical packaging. This includes applications such as PTP (Press-Through-Package) films, a common form of blister packaging for drug pills. The increasing population in Asian countries is expected to further fuel the growth of the test tube sector by about 10% in the next five years.
"Toyo Ink Group has long been a pioneer in developing high-performance adhesive solutions together with our subsidiary Toyo-Morton, the largest Japanese manufacturer of laminating adhesives," said Toshinori Machida, Executive Operating Officer of Toyo Ink SC Holdings. “As part of our global expansion plan, we now want to offer our unique brand of packaging adhesives, coatings and printing inks in other regions of the world. In addition to Malaysia, we recently expanded our production infrastructure in China and Turkey. Our Turkish facility is designed to serve as a hub for the markets in the Middle East and North Africa, Central Asia and Eastern Europe. In order to ensure a stable supply to meet future demand, we aim to increase our global laminating adhesive production capacity by one and a half times current levels by the end of 2027.”
(Source: Paint + Varnish)