Saica Group announced the construction of its first North American corrugated packaging manufacturing facility in Hamilton, Ohio, US, in July 2020.

The company is expected to invest around $72m in the facility, which will create 64 new jobs in Ohio. The construction is expected to be completed in March 2022.

Saica’s investment in Hamilton is expected to be supported by the state and local incentives. The state of Ohio approved a Job Creation Tax Credit in June 2020, while JobsOhio is providing an economic development grant and and workforce grant to support the project.

The new facility will be located in the Hamilton Enterprise Park, around 42km from Cincinnati in Ohio.

Hamilton has been selected as the preferred location as it is easily accessed from the rest of the Midwest. The state of Ohio also offers the required infrastructure, supply chain, talented workforce and advanced manufacturing capabilities, as well as being close in proximity to potential clients.

The state-of-the-art production facility will cover an area of 350,000ft² in the Hamilton Enterprise Park.

Squire Patton Boggs provided advisory services to Saica Group for the project. The group collaborated with REDI Cincinnati, JobsOhio, the City of Hamilton and the Ohio Development Services Agency for the development.

Founded in 1943, Saica Group (Sociedad Anónima Industrias Celulosa Aragonesa) is a packaging material manufacturing company based in Zaragoza, Spain. It is one of the largest European companies in the development and production of recycled paper for corrugated packaging.

The group has more than 10,000 employees across France, Spain, Portugal, Italy, UK, Turkey, Ireland, the Netherlands and Luxembourg.

Saica Group diversified its business through the acquisition of cardboard packaging (Saica Pack) and integrated waste management (Saica Natur) plants in 1975, and flexible packaging plants (Saica Flex) in 2015.

In December 2017, Saica introduced Monoflex, a 100% recyclable transparent tray and cover. It is produced from polyethylene terephthalate (PET) solely to maintain and enhance the functional properties of the cover with improved transparency for greater visibility to customers. The company also introduced GreenHeart, the first flexible recycled low-density polyethylene film (LDPE) plastic packaging for industrial use.

In October 2018, Saica Natur collaborated with Repsol to maximise the use of LDPE waste. The main objective of the collaboration was to achieve long-term sustainability. The company launched a detergent tablet pouch, which was developed using 45% recycled polyethylene for waste management in June 2019.

Saica Group opened its first biomass plant in Venizel, France, in September 2019. The new equipment in the plant has contributed to a 71% decline in CO₂ emissions while reducing the natural gas consumption of the plant by 89%.

In December 2019, Saica collaborated with Iveco and Carreras for a pilot project to use liquefied natural gas (LNG) as fuel for long and mid-distance cargo transportation. The project is a part of the Lean & Green initiative, which hopes to decrease the CO₂ emissions of the supply chain by 20% in five years.

Saica Group also expanded its Nature Kraft product portfolio, a 100% recycled and sustainable paper range of the company, in July 2020.