Retal Baltic Films: increasing turnover and planning new investments

Last year, the sales revenue of UAB Retal Baltic Films, a plastic packaging manufacturer operating in Klaipėda FEZ, reached EUR 47 million, or 2% more than in 2019. Despite the unstable markets, the company grew its sales volume by 20%, increased its profits and implemented investments worth EUR 6 million. This year, Retal Baltic Films plans to invest EUR 8.6 million, part of which will be dedicated to the production of a new product.

The company’s turnover growth last year was moderate, mainly due to a decrease in raw material prices, which have a direct impact on the prices of plastic products. For its part, sales of the company’s main products were driven by the pandemic factors – demand for HDPE caps fell due to a drop in beverage consumption, but sales of food-grade APET film grew by as much as 27% last year. The latter result was driven both by investments and market penetration in previous years and by growing demand for packaged food. In total, Retal Baltic Films sold 17 155 tonnes of film and 4.33 billion units of caps last year, and 95% of this volume was exported, mainly to Germany, Switzerland, Poland, Sweden, Finland and France.

Viktorija Grižienė, Managing Director of Retal Baltic Films, comments that last year was a successful year in the context: production was safe and stable throughout the year, with EUR 6 million of investments in modernisation of equipment, upgrading of administrative premises, expansion of the laboratory, a new warehouse, development of new products and software projects. However, some projects had to be postponed for some time last year due to the pandemic situation.

“This year, we plan to maintain stable production and sales volumes of HDPE caps and to increase sales of APET film by 20%. We plan to invest EUR 1.9 million in the modernisation of our film extrusion equipment, which will enable us to improve production efficiency, increase capacity and allow us to use more secondary raw materials. Significant investments are also foreseen this year in the production of a new product, printed flexible packaging. This will broaden the range of products we can offer to the market and allow us to develop complex packaging solutions that best meet the needs of our customers and the market. The new product is scheduled to be launched in August, which will be an important step in the implementation of the envisaged business development strategy. Finally, taking into account market requirements and the trend towards reducing the environmental impact of plastic packaging, we intend to develop packaging solutions that are environmentally friendly, recyclable and contain a proportion of recycled material, and to work with customers to achieve their sustainability goals,” says Viktroija Grižienė.

With the launch of the new product, the company will create 10 new highly skilled jobs in 2021. In addition to the new product, Retal Baltic Films plans to invest a further EUR 0.6 million this year in new laboratory equipment to develop more sustainable, recyclable, functionally efficient packaging and new cap designs, bringing the total investment to EUR 8.6 million in 2021.

Despite some stabilisation in the markets and optimistic forecasts for this year, Viktorija Grižienė says that this year has also been characterised by a tight situation in the raw materials markets, with shortages and rising prices of almost all types of raw materials, and longer supply deadlines. In this context, Retal Baltic Films is benefiting from both its previously established supply chains and its laboratory, which allows it to quickly introduce new suppliers and test their raw materials. All of this makes it possible to ensure a stable supply to the company’s customers.

The company currently employees 200 employees. Retal Baltic Films is pleased to have had no outbreaks of Covid so far, apart from a few isolated cases.