DS Smith Opens Box Manufacturing Plant

In a single day, DS Smith’s new box manufacturing plant can produce more than 17 million square feet of lightweight recyclable packaging—enough to overlay the entire Indianapolis Motor Speedway, according to an announcement from DS Smith.

The opening of the corrugated plant heralds the company’s latest technology, keeping pace with increasing demands by consumers and retailers for fully recyclable boxes and “fit-to-product” packaging that reduces costs, waste and “packing air” of irregularly shaped items. The facility can produce about 30,000 boxes an hour and 2 billion square feet of recyclable packaging a year.

DS Smith views this plant as a job-creating economic catalyst for central Indiana.

“Our new facility in Indiana is unique to the U.S. market,” said Miles Roberts, group CEO of DS Smith, in a statement. “With our innovative packaging design and focus on sustainable materials, we can support our customers’ needs in a changing world, no matter how sophisticated their requirements. We look forward to serving many of the global brands we work with in Europe, as well as a range of new customers, with their U.S.-based packaging.”

Roberts toured the plant, located in the Lebanon Business Park, on January 24 to mark its formal opening as it steps up full operations.

Made with the lightest possible materials, a widespread practice by DS Smith in Europe, the Indiana-produced boxes will utilize 30 to 40 percent less fiber than what is traditionally used in the U.S. The lightweight material is a key differentiator of the products DS Smith will manufacture at the new facility. These next-generation boxes will enable brands to meet growing consumer calls for more sustainable packaging and a reduction of shipping costs across the U.S., added DS Smith.

The 550,000-square-foot packaging facility was designed to model three cutting-edge DS Smith locations in Europe that are highly automated, customer-centric plants that can accept and process high-volume orders with short lead times—many with same-day turnaround.

"Our new box plant stands apart from the rest in the industry and is equipped with state-of-the-art equipment and machinery that relies on fully automated operations,” said Mark Ushpol, managing director of packaging for DS Smith in North America, in a statement. “Our talent and teams are free to focus on working directly with customers designing custom packaging that reduces system waste, drives sustainability and provides immediate value to the supply chain.”

According to the company, here are some additional details about the plant:

The facility will be certified by the British Retail Consortium, the leading trade association for the U.K. food industry and a globally recognized “gold standard” for food safety. Adoption of the certification in the U.S. is growing and ensures that customer product integrity is maintained during storage and distribution.

The location will serve customers and brands with distribution centers in markets such as Chicago; Columbus, Ohio; Cincinnati; St. Louis; and Nashville, Tenn. Check out this video about the new facility.