KLW PLASTICS INC.
What: Manufacturer of 3.5- to 7-gallon rigid, tight-head or closed plastic containers
Where: 980 Deneen Ave., Monroe
Phone: 513-539-2673
President and CEO: Scott Dowrey
Website: www.klwplastics.com
KLW Plastics Inc. is a relatively young company founded eight years ago, but in that time it has opened three locations in three states and is currently expanding its Monroe headquarters.
Private investment firm Koda Enterprises Group LLC, based in the Boston, Mass. area, founded KLW Plastics in Monroe in 2005 on technology that makes lighter-weight containers and uses less plastic. KLW manufactures 3.5- to 7-gallon rigid, tight-head or closed plastic containers. Business customers in the food and flavoring, chemicals, and industrial cleaning products industries use the containers to ship and store their products.
“One of our machines is one of the most advanced machines in the industry and all of our machines are the newest in the industry,” said Scott Dowrey, named president and chief executive officer of KLW in June 2013.
More than 55 employees work at KLW facilities in Atlanta, Ga., which opened in 2012; Houston, Texas, which opened in 2008; and Monroe. The Butler County plant alone employs about 25 workers. Many of the Monroe employees previously worked at a Cincinnati company in the same industry that closed.
KLW is a 24/7 operation producing more than 5 million containers a year.
Underway at the Monroe KLW plant, at 980 Deneen Ave., is an expansion project to add 25,000-square-feet to the building and install new equipment. Over the next 18 months, more than $3 million will be invested.
The new equipment will allow the local plant to produce a three-layer plastic container. As it is now, only KLW’s Atlanta facility makes three-layer containers. Monroe now only makes a one-layer plastic container.
The expansion, and number of layers, is important for the company’s growth in sustainable products.
On Jan. 1 this year, KLW introduced a new E-tainer, the first consisting of recycled plastic content. Other KLW containers are made from 100 percent virgin resin.
Using multi-layer technology, the new green container’s middle layer is made from post-consumer resin. However, the outer layer and inner layer touching the liquid is still made from virgin resin to meet United Nations specifications.
“From here our growth will be based on additional value of sustainable packaging,” Dowrey said.
Meanwhile KLW is also developing a new product in partnership with a corrugated company that is a hybrid bottle in a box.
The U.S. “is behind the curve compared to our counterparts in Europe and Asia,” he said. The domestic industry “is probably two years into a 10-year curve of sustainable packaging going from the number three or four decision factor to the number one or two for buying a product” from a supplier.
Until now “we’ve been unable to get the raw materials to make a sustainable container, to get a reliable supply,” he said.
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