Finnish plastic films manufacturer Rani Plast has had its own production facility in Russia since 2012.
Founded in
1955, Rani Plast is Finland’s biggest manufacturer of plastic film. The
family-owned company has exported its products to Russia since the 1960s, and
during the following decades, an idea of an own production facility in Russia
began to take form.
"We had dreamt
of a Russian factory for long, and in the 1990s we even had far-reaching plans
for it. Unfortunately the plans were never fulfilled at that time,” says Mikael
Ahlbäck, Rani Plast’s Group CEO.
A couple of
years later, Ahlbäck was sitting in an airplane when he by coincidence read an
article about Finnish company Lemminkäinen and their plans to build an
industrial park in Kaluga outside Moscow. He realised that this was the chance
that Rani Plast had been waiting for.
"I teared
out the article and brought it with me home. We started the planning work
immediately.”
The
building of the factory in Kaluga was started in 2011, and already next year,
the first machine was up and running in the factory. Today Rani Plast produces high-quality
plastic packaging films for the Russian market on several machines in its
Russian factory. The Kaluga factory also has a printing machine, which means
that customers can get their films printed if needed. Most of the raw materials
used come from Western Europe.
"I am proud of our Russian staff that has learnt the processes fast and efficiently. We see great potential in the Russian market and our aim is to continue growing,” says Ahlbäck.