The decision may also reflect the fact that UK-based sales of the company's products are 'receding', according to Superfos, which said at its interim results that it was expanding its activities in Eastern Europe to tap into the fast growing pharmaceutical packaging markets there.
The 2,100-square metre plant, located at Sevenoaks in Kent, will be closed down by the end of this year, and production will be transferred to a new site at Haarby in Denmark that the pharmaceutical business recently took over from Superfos' food division.
The company has been investing heavily in new production facilities after suffering a period of restrained capacity that stopped it meeting demand for its products. The Haarby facility is Superfos' second pharmaceutical unit in Denmark after its existing Vaerlose site, and started production in June 2005. It covers a ground of 11,000 square metres, adding to the 12,000-square metre capacity at Vaerlose.
Superfos put its pharma business on the block towards the end of 2003 on the grounds that it represented a fraction (6 per cent) of the company's total turnover. But it abandoned the plan the following summer after failing to secure its asking price, and after growth of its pharma products outstripped those of its food and industrial lines. Pharma packaging sales in the first half of the year grew 26 per cent.
Superfos said the equipment at Sevenoaks would be transferred to Haarby, and the 14 employees at the plant would be helped to find new jobs. The company's UK presence will now be confined to a sales office
Superfos specialises in injection moulding, injection blow moulding and blow moulding processes for the pharmaceutical industry.
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