With Serbian glassmaker SFS Paracin slated to join its portfolio early next year, Steklarna Hrastnik is moving ahead with its strategy of focusing production at its Slovenian headquarters on premium glass packaging.
Slovenian glassmaker Steklarna Hrastnik is in the process of acquiring SFS Paracin, a glassworks in Serbia with two furnaces, a total production capacity of 300 tons and a staff of 550. The site manufactures mainly for the food and beverage markets in Serbia and southeastern Europe. The Serbian company was in insolvency.
With this deal, the Slovenian company continues to drive its strategic focus on glass packaging namely for the drinks segment at its site in Hrastnik. The supplier ceased its tableware production in 2020. "As the demand from our customers for premium glass packaging products is outpacing currently available capacities, in the short term, a limited scope of carefully selected standard projects will be gradually transferred for production to SFS Paracin, thus enabling extra capacity for premium projects at Steklarna Hrastnik," the glassmaker tells Luxe Packaging Insight.
The Paracin factory will continue manufacturing for the local food and beverage industry, while "the majority of Steklarna Hrastnik’s exports will still be focused on the strategic markets of Western Europe and on premium and super premium glass quality,” affirmed CEO Peter Cas in a statement.
At its headquarters of Hrastnik, the supplier is currently building a dedicated glass decoration facility; the investment includes automated lacquering and screenprinting lines with metallization at a later stage. Additionally, a new hybrid B furnace for extra-white flint glass is planned for next year. Investments at the Slovenia site are estimated to reach €34m in the coming year.
Steklarna Hrastnik’s holding company, GlobalGlass, has earmarked €100m to modernize and expand operations at both the Serbia and Slovenia sites.
