Graham Packaging opens new plant in Tuzla, Turkey

Wed, 5 December 2007

Graham Packaging Company, L.P., has begun manufacturing operations in a new plant in Tuzla, Turkey, producing polyethylene (PE), polypropylene (PP), and polyethylene terephthalate (PET) bottles for the personal care, household products, and dairy markets in western Turkey.

The newly constructed two-story, 4,000-square-meter plant replaces a facility that Graham Packaging previously occupied in Istanbul. The new plant is bigger, has more modern infrastructure, and is closer to the company's principal customers in the region. Sixty employees work in the plant.

"This investment in this plant is a tangible indication of Graham Packaging's commitment to the rapidly developing Turkish market and will serve as a base for growth in the overall Euro-Asian region," said Ashok Sudan, Graham Packaging executive vice president for global food and beverage.

Graham Packaging, based in York, Pennsylvania, is a worldwide leader in technology-based, customized blow-molded plastic containers for the branded food and beverage, household, personal care/specialty, and automotive lubricants product categories. The Company produces more than 20 billion container units at 85 manufacturing plants in North America, Europe and South America and had sales of $2.52 billion in 2006.

Graham Packaging is a leading U.S. supplier of plastic containers for hot-fill juice and juice drinks, sports drinks, drinkable yogurt and smoothies, nutritional supplements, wide-mouth food, dressings, condiments, and beers; the leading global supplier of plastic containers for yogurt drinks; the leading supplier of plastic containers for liquid laundry detergent; and the number-one supplier in the U.S., Canada and Brazil of one-quart/one-liter plastic HDPE (high-density polyethylene) containers for motor oil.

The Blackstone Group of New York is the majority owner of Graham Packaging