Evansville, IN
www.berryglobal.com
2020 Nonwovens Sales: $2.4 billion
Key Personnel
Tom Salmon, chairman and CEO; Curt Begle, president, Health, Hygiene, and Specialties Division
HHS Division Plants
U.S. and Canada: Augusta, KY; Benson, NC; Dalton, GA; McAlester, OK; Mooresville, NC; Nashville, TN; North Bay, Canada; Old Hickory, TN; Pewaukee, WI; Schaumburg, IL; Statesville, NC; Washington, GA; Waynesboro, VA
Latin America: Atlacamulco, Mexico; Cali, Colombia; Jundiaí, Brazil; Pilar, Argentina; Pouso Allegre, Brazil; San Luis Potosí, Mexico; São José dos Pinhais, Brazil
EMEIA: Aberdare, U.K.; Aschersleben, Germany; Bailleul, France; Berlin, Germany; Biesheim, France; Cujik, Netherlands; Dombühl, Germany; Maldon, U.K.; Mundra, India; Neuville-en-Ferrain, France; Tarragona, Spain; Terno d’Isola, Italy
Asia: Nanhai, China; Suzhou, China
Processes
Spunbond, meltblown, SMS, carded, composites, through air bonded, adhesive bonded, resin bonded, thermal bonded, spunlace, airlaid, aperture film, film laminates, sonic laminates, extruded laminates, thermal laminates, APEX, SPINLACE, MELTEX, REEMAY and other proprietary fabric forming, surfacing and binding systems, nonwoven and film printing, multi-layer blown film extrusion, and cast film extrusion. Note: in addition to these specific roll-good technologies, Berry Global also offers one of the world’s leading rigid and flexible packaging portfolios for both consumer and industrial applications.
Sales of Berry Global’s Health, Hygiene and Specialty business were reported at $2.4 billion in 2020, driven higher by strong demand in healthcare and consumer goods products. “Our products proved indispensable as critical materials in the production of surgical gowns, face masks, hard surface disinfecting wipes, filtration media and hygiene products,” says Mark Siebert, EVP & general manager, US & Canada, Healthcare & Specialties.
At the start of 2020, as the world’s largest producer of nonwoven fabrics, Berry was well positioned with new capacity additions in China and the U.S., which had preceded the start of the pandemic. These assets were deployed immediately to support fabric requirements in healthcare personal protective equipment, surface disinfection and air filtration markets to help combat Covid-19. Additionally, Berry shifted the focus of a number of its assets throughout the world to support healthcare and hygiene demand and rapidly deployed capital to retrofit, update and invest in new lines to support demand for meltblown fabrics for use in facemask/respirator media which were running within months after the start of the pandemic.
Within meltblown, Berry quickly and aggressively expanded its global footprint in response to demand for face mask material and had new assets up and running just months after the global pandemic was declared. The company now has meltblown production—capable of supplying the N95 face mask market—in virtually every world market. Additionally, Berry now has nine meltblown lines operating globally and is able to supply this material locally in all four world regions.
In addition to nonwovens investment, Berry has forward integrated into mask production through the installation of nine mask machines including one in China, one in Europe, five in the U.S. and two in the Latin American region. The combined capacity is capable of making more than 20 million masks per month.
Along with these investments, Berry has extended its Synergex range of products, developing Synergex ONE, a new media design for face mask applications. Engineered to initially meet the new face mask categories for general population, the aim is to quickly bring the media up to EN 14683:2019 standards for surgical masks. The newly introduced Synergex ONE provides a multilayer nonwoven composite product in a single sheet, as an alternative to traditional face mask layer structures.
“We purchased a number of dedicated meltblown assets to support our strategic customers in many cases with government support as suppliers localized facemask production,” says Siebert. “All were supported with long term agreements. We also elected to invest in dedicated facemask production primarily to support our team members as essential workers in the production of these critical materials.”
Berry will continue to operate its dedicated meltblown assets to fulfill long-term supply obligations to healthcare equipment producers but expects that some of this capacity will eventually transition to support air filtration demand. The internal face mask production will likely be idled once Berry no longer has internal requirements dependent on local and national regulations and operating guidelines.
Meanwhile, in other investment news, the company has new lines in Nanhai, China, and North Carolina, which continue to operate at full nameplate capacity. The Nanhai asset—which is a Reicofil 5 spunbond line—was constructed to serve the super-premium hygiene market with first-to-market hi-loft bico nonwovens; while the North Carolina asset was built for the purpose of supporting hard surface disinfecting wipes. Both assets continue to serve these high growth markets and the company has recently announced further expansion in nonwovens in both Nanhai and North Carolina to meet the sustained growth post-Covid.
In Nanhai, Berry’s new Nanhai Reicofil 5 asset will produce high-performing SMS medical fabrics to support premium healthcare products in the region and around the globe and will provide incremental capacity to serve the fast growing Asia healthcare markets. The investment is targeted to meet forecasted market and customer growth and will be focused on high performance applications in the desired healthcare markets. The nonwovens investment supports Berry’s strategy to further its leadership position in healthcare, primarily through the production of surgical drape and gown material.
Berry’s Nanhai facility is strategically positioned to serve customers in the rapidly growing Southeast Asia region. Current projections are for startup in the third quarter of 2022.
Berry will be the first company in the world to operate two state-of-the-art R5 assets in China.
Meanwhile, Berry’s latest Spinlace line is being installed in North Carolina, where it completed work on a third Spinlace line in January 2020. The new investment will expand the company’s proprietary APEX imaging capability with current polypropylene based material with the ability to be retrofitted to accommodate sustainable future materials. This line is also expected to begin operating sometime next year.
“Berry has been an industry leader in the supply of hard surface disinfecting fabric with our patented Spinlace fabric and our Chicopee branded towels for food service and industrial cleaning for decades,” Siebert says. “Our scale and performance have served industry leading brands in hard surface disinfecting and continue to provide the best balance of value and performance in this high growth market. Our Chicopee branded towels have and continue to be the preferred choice for sanitization with traditional synthetic as well as full compostable options.”
In addition to a new Spinlace line, in North Carolina, Berry’s wipes business will benefit from the addition of a new spunlace line in Europe, increasing the company’s capacity there by more than 300 million square meters. This line, which was announced in March, is expected to be commercially available in September 2022.
The global wipes market is expected to grow 5-7% from an already elevated base, making it clear that new investments are needed.
“Both the Spinlace and spunlace investments were supported with long term supply commitments from industry leading brands in both the U.S. and Europe,” says Siebert. ”The demand in consumer, travel, and hospitality disinfecting has shifted post-Covid driven by the need for convenient, individual sanitization of hard surfaces.”
Both investments will also increase Berry’s natural offerings to the global wipes market. The European line will be able to make sustainable wipes by incorporating biodegradable or recycled materials immediately while the new U.S. line will be upgraded to support sustainable materials after completion. Both lines should be able to make sustainable substrates specifically targeting the surface disinfectant wipes category as early as 2023.
As one of the world’s largest plastics converters, Berry recognizes the valuable role plastics play in consumers’ daily lives in support of healthier living. “Plastics have been and will continue to be the lowest energy material option. However, we also recognize we must conserve the resources needed to produce these unique materials and minimize the waste generated through their life cycle,” Siebert says.
With that in mind, Berry has committed to a global reduction of energy, water and waste with aggressive targets that the company expects to exceed by 2025. As a founding member of the Alliance to End Plastic Waste, Berry is committed to the development of sustainable waste management to capture and recycle single use disposable plastics. The company recognizes these challenges must be addressed today through collective and collaborative engagement.
From a product standpoint, this focus on sustainability has resulted in products that can help Berry’s customers reduce their carbon footprint through reduced product weights across a number of applications. These include the Sof-flex ultra-breathable hygiene backsheet film enabling light-weighting and the first and only externally certified compostable J-Cloth bio wipe for surface sanitization.