APT details extent of Ontario expansion

In an e-mail response to questions from MPW, a senior APT executive responded that the processor’s Ontario expansion will raise capacity there by about 8 million lbs/year. The expansion is customer-specific, he adds, but was also in line with the company’s longer-term planning. The first stage of the expansion will be completed in the fourth quarter of this year with a second stage completed in mid-2010. APT standardizes on extrusion machinery from Davis-Standard and thermoformers from Lyle, but would not comment on the number or type of machines added for this expansion.

Last autumn APT, processing for ConAgra Foods (Omaha, NE), introduced to North America the frozen meal trays to incorporate post-consumer recycled plastic. Most frozen meals trays are made of virgin crystallized polyethylene terephthalate (C-PET). Read our report from a visit to APT’s facility in the Irish town of Carrickmacross here. The processor has thermoforming facilities in Cambridge, Ontario; Waynesville, North Carolina; Chillicothe, Missouri; and Carrickmacross, Ireland. —[email protected]