Crown continues Southeast Asia business growth with launch of beverage can plant in Indonesia
Located just outside of Jakarta in the city of Karawang, it supports the growing demand in Indonesia and Asia-Pacific for eco-friendly beverage packaging formats.
“There is great potential for the beverage can in Indonesia thanks to strong economic growth and a sizable population, which ranks as the fourth largest in the world,” said Robert Bourque, president of Crown Asia Pacific.
“In addition to helping to refresh a brand’s packaging mix, beverage cans offer several key attributes that appeal to the country’s rapidly urbanizing consumer base, including portability, chill-ability and sustainability. We look forward to supporting local, regional and international customers from this new location,” he said.
The new plant is close to soft drink, juice and other beverage manufacturers in the Indonesian capital of Jakarta. The single-line facility will produce standard 330ml two-piece aluminium beverage cans and a range of specialty sizes, and has an initial annual capacity of 650 million cans.
The facility has been designed to be able to accommodate a second can line with similar capacity and a beverage end production line, allowing Crown Asia Pacific to continue to scale up production according to the market demand.
Employment opportunities
The new Indonesian plant is Crown Asia Pacific’s 16th beverage can manufacturing facility in Asia-Pacific. It will create over 100 jobs within the first year, with more than 90% of the workforce coming from the local community in the area.
Crown Asia Pacific is a division of Crown Holdings Inc. which, according to the company, is the number one producer of food cans in the world, and the number two producer of beverage cans.
In Crown Holdings’ recently-released 2017 third quarter results, president and CEO Timothy J. Donahue said that the new beverage can plant in Indonesia had commenced operations in June.
He added: "Our various global growth projects remain on schedule. Earlier this month (in October), we began commercial production on the second beverage can line at our Danang, Vietnam facility. A new beverage can facility in Yangon, Myanmar and a glass bottle facility in Chihuahua, Mexico are both scheduled for start-up in the first half of 2018.
“We are excited about the opportunity to create meaningful shareholder value through these compelling growth initiatives.”
The company’s 2017 third quarter results showed net sales increased to $2,468m compared to $2,326 million in the third quarter of 2016.
"Performance during the third quarter was solid across all businesses, fuelled in part by increased global volumes in beverage cans, food cans and aerosol cans. Beverage can shipments were particularly strong in Europe, Latin America and Southeast Asia,” said Donahue.
In its Asia-Pacific division, Crown has plants in China and Southeast Asia and employs 4,000 people.
Crown Holdings also celebrated its 125th anniversary this year. Globally, it currently operates 146 plants in 36 countries. In 2016, the company’s net sales were worth $8.3 billion.
