Doing more with less
Since the start in 1955, the family business Rani Plast has developed into an international group with nine factories in five countries. The company offers a comprehensive range of packaging solutions in the fields of agriculture and industry. Rani Plast has also developed a number of high-quality welding and printing processes for converting the films they produce.
At the end of 2016, Rani Plast inaugurated a new 16-million-euro production line in the home village Terjärv, Finland. Based on the latest technological innovations and high-level automation, the production line is unique on a global scale as it can produce wide film in seven layers at widths up to 22 metres. The new production line mainly manufactures films for the agriculture business sector.
According to Mats Albäck, Product Development Director at Rani Plast, sustainability and circular economy are currently hot topics in the plastic film business. Rani Plast’s new production line offers new development opportunities in terms of optimizing raw material usage.
“Recently we have been able to reduce the thickness of the so-called clamp film, while at the same time enhancing the oxygen barrier of the film. This has been done by extruding a thin barrier layer in the middle of the film structure,” Albäck explains.
This is a great example of Rani’s sustainable way of working, as the renewed film remarkably reduces the raw material usage. At the same time the film, used in agriculture, improves the quality of the feed and thus raises the efficiency of ever growing farms.
Rani Plast strives to involve sustainable thinking in all company processes. For many decades, the company has worked determinedly to increase the energy efficiency and to both reuse and minimize the amount of material in production.
“We can make thinner and thinner films with better mechanical properties thanks to new and advanced raw material qualities, and also thanks to improvements in film blowing technology. The result is savings in the whole value chain”, says Albäck.
Rani Plast also actively carries out research regarding raw materials derived from renewable resources such as bioplastics.
