Kortec expands and moves headquarters to new facility

Bennett told PlasticsToday the company was simply "running out of room" as the business continues to grow, particularly in the barrier thin-wall packaging technology area, which drove the need for more space.

The increase in business has seen its staff grow from 25 to 35 in the past three years, with the potential to add more.

"We are approaching being at full capacity with our R&D work and will soon need to add further capacity, but we have no space available," he said. "At the same time, we have been selling commercial systems for barrier thin-wall containers and we are rapidly reaching our current capacity for the assembly of molds. So we need additional space for that activity also." 

The new headquarters will have the additional capacity needed to accommodate engineering, mold assembly, and R&D activities, Bennett said. The new building will provide a 30% increase in space over the previous building. All phone numbers, individual extensions, and email addresses have remained the same.

"The new location is very close to our current facility and that has allowed us to move with minimal disruption to our ongoing work and with minimal disruption for employees," he said. "We are able to move into a new, larger purpose-built facility and retain our current personnel." 

The Kortec barrier thin-wall technology was introduced to the market in 2009. Throughout 2010 and 2011, the company delivered several systems, and the most recent is a 64 cavity stackmold (32+32), which is the world's first stackmold co-injection system.

Bennett said orders for additional systems are strong. There are several drivers behind the growth that he said includes, "the replacement of metal and glass packaging, dissatisfaction with the lack of uniformity in thermoformed containers, and the potential for a #5 recycling code rather than #7 for barrier TF containers."