Corrugated plant with an area of 37,000 m² and an annual capacity of 180 million m² will be launched at the end of June 2022 in Belchatow (Bełchatów)
“Every seventh cardboard package in Europe and every tenth in Poland is manufactured by DS Smith,” says Krzysztof Sadowski, CEO of DS Smith Polska.
“Every day, Polish factories produce 3.5 million boxes.
“Our goal was to build here one of the most modern corrugated packaging plants in Europe.”
Convenient location is among the main advantages of the plant. The city of Belchatow is well connected to the network of national roads and highways.
More than 200 jobs have been created at the new factory. Most of the company’s employees are residents of the city and its outskirts. The company provides free training and monitors how the employees get used to work.
For reference
When announcing the project in May last year DS Smith put the investment cost for the Bełchatów plant at PLN250m (EUR53.4m). The plot of land measuring nearly 13 ha is part of the Łódź SEZ (Free Economic Zone) and was acquired by DS Smith in September 2018 for nearly PLN4m (Eur850,000).
The expansion in Poland is part of a £100m (Eur120m) investment project which DS Smith announced at the end of 2020 for Poland and Italy.
A corrugator and three out of ten packaging production lines at the company’s Italian site in Castelfranco Emilia near Modena have been in operation since March 2022.
DS Smith puts annual production capacity of the new corrugated board and packaging plant in Italy at over 200 million m².