-January 24,2019-
Italian food packaging company Sorma US has bought land on Sunnyside in the Visalia Industrial Park and will build a 70,000sf warehouse and office this year.Permits to build are in process. The company has been in Visalia since 2012 making food packages and automated equipment to make a variety of packages.
General Manager Tracy Hart says “we will be able to expand since the new building will company-owned and be much larger” than their existing rented warehouse on Ferguson.
Hart says as a result the company is expected to employ around 35 compared to 22 people today.
Sorma has 10 locations around the globe with the focus on servicing the produce industry.
“In California we are targeting the citrus and avocado industries” he says. Packages run the gamut from plastic clam shell to film-based bags to netting for produce like onions and avocados. The Visalia plant has a busy printing machine.
Some packages are recyclable as the food and beverage industry strives to increase the percentage of packages that are recyclable.
For example,Coca-Cola says 75 percent of the bottles it introduces in developed countries by 2020 will be recyclable.Pepsi says all of its packaging will be recyclable, compostable or biodegradable by 2025. They are testing compostable bags for chips in Chile, India and the U.S.
The Sorma Group also offers a full line of innovative, high speed packaging machines.Their equipment is serviced by field engineers located in production areas all over the nation.
Hart says the company sources their material from all over the world encouraging competition to keep cost down.