United Caps, an international manufacturer of caps and closures, has reported that it is meeting its strategic growth initiatives despite the pandemic, enabling the company to continue to provide exceptional customer support, both in terms of implementation of existing caps and closures for new products, as well as continuing to generate 50% of its business from bespoke development of caps and closures to meet specific customer needs.
“In 2019, we opened our new plant in Kulim, Malaysia in furtherance of our Close To You strategy, and this has helped position us more strongly in the Asian region as well as to provide improved support to our Asian customers. In addition, we opened two new state-of-the-art European plants during 2020, Dinnington in the UK and Valframbert in France. These actions were critical to both our ongoing Close To You strategy and to our ability to meet our strategic growth objectives,” said Benoit Henckes, CEO.
The Dinnington and Valframbert locations were carefully selected in line with United Caps’ Close To You strategy to enhance service to customers in the respective regions. Henckes welcomed the UK team to the United Caps family in December via Zoom as the Dinnington lines came online, due to Covid-19 restrictions. “We have special plans for an official in-person launch day as soon as the pandemic situation allows,” Henckes said.
Today, United Caps serves its customers from 10 production plants (including the Kulim plant in Malaysia) and 16 sales locations globally. At the end of 2020, the company reported turnover of over €156 million and employed almost 750 people around the globe. Henckes added, “We continue to enhance our infrastructure to support some of the world’s biggest brands, who look to United Caps caps and closures to help create new markets, safeguard product integrity, assure safety and consumer health, and ultimately protect brand reputation. For example, our Kulim plant offers excellent logistics and supporting services, including road transportation to Singapore, Malaysia, and Thailand, as well as proximity to Butterworth Port to serve the entire ASEAN region with caps and closures for infant nutrition. There is further ability to add production of closures for beverages, medical nutrition, edible oils and vinegars and non-food products.”
“We are especially proud of our 127 SAFE-TE closures that will be made in Asia for Asia ensuring safety and convenience for infant nutrition. This product was recognized as Most Welcomed Packaging Solution of the Year 2019 by Duxes,” Henckes concluded.
