Irish-owned Zeus Packaging announced an EUR 15 million investment in Aldar Tissues, a Dublin-based tissue manufacturer that Zeus acquired in 2019 as part of a three-year, EUR 40 million acquisition strategy which concluded in February of this year.
The EUR 15 million investment includes construction of a new 100,000 sq. ft. Aldar production facility in Rathcoole, (Northern Ireland) and two new fully automated, state-of-the-art production lines. The new facility will enable Aldar to quadruple capacity and introduce new premium brands to large retailers across the island of Ireland along with exporting to customers in the UK & Europe.
"Aldar is one of only two toilet tissue manufacturers on the island of Ireland, who combined, represent just 20% of the market," said Keith Ockenden, CEO of Zeus. "The rest of the Irish toilet tissue market is completely reliant on import. Not only is this a negative from a sustainability perspective, it also highlights the additional challenges brought on by Brexit and the knock-on impact of high distribution costs on the consumer.
"At Zeus, we wish to remove this reliance in the Irish market on UK and European imports by strengthening indigenous manufacturers such as Aldar. Since 2019, we have worked with Aldar to improve financial performance by streamlining costs, maximising efficiencies, leveraging economies of scale, and developing new product lines. Through this continued investment by Zeus into infrastructure and technology, Aldar is on track to becoming the largest toilet tissue producer on the island of Ireland, increasing our Irish capacity to 40% of market needs," Ockenden said.
Darren Farrell, Project Manager of Aldar Tissues, added, "Over the last 3 years, we have invested EUR 4 million in in world class paper converting machines, diversified our product ranges and expanded our customer base. This investment by Zeus will accelerate our growth path, enabling us to become the largest Irish manufacturer of own brand and private label paper products."
Zeus expects the new facility to start-up in early 2022
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