Avon Packaging Convertors fills space left by FPC
A SURPRISING and impressive turnaround is taking place at Avon Packaging Convertors in Pretoria.
Avon emerged following the purchase by Avon Packaging, also a Gauteng-based fi lm and bag manufacturer and supplier of Flexible Packaging Convertors in late 2024, after the latter went into business rescue. A decade earlier, FPC was one of South Africa’s leading flexibles manufacturers with substantial turnover in the region of 2,000 tons a month, probably being in the top four for material throughput in the country, and a leader in the market.
However, by mid ’23, momentum was lost, and turnover fell to an estimated 250 tons/month – 10% of its former turnover – with many customers disenchanted or lost.
Enter Avon Packaging, established by Sangiro, a chicken processing business that’s part of the Avon Group, to manufacture and supply film and bags for its own use in 2017. Sangiro was an FPC customer, using its cling film and bag products. As one of the country’s top suppliers of fresh chicken, they process an estimated one million birds a week.
Avon Packaging began producing film and bags for its own and customers’ use, and remained an FPC customer. In the interim, FPC was purchased by a Pakistani consortium in 2015, and the business’s fortunes significantly diverged.
A combination of factors, including Covid, may have led to the loss of momentum at FPC, and by early 2023, the company was mired in debt, with volumes falling and morale deteriorating.
In 2024, the managing owners of Avon Packaging – brother-sister David and Kristin Wilkinson – spied an opportunity that led to the purchase of FPC’s assets from business rescue. In October 2024, the agreement was signed, and the business was renamed Avon Packaging Convertors (also involving a minor change to its logo). The company is now managed by the Wilkinson siblings. APC is part of the same group as Avon Packaging, Avon Chicken and Sangiro, run by father Andrew Wilkinson and oldest sister Legh Wilkinson since 2012.
Huge installed capacity
Since then, the company’s resuscitation has been underway. Tough decisions were made, including retrenching almost half the staff, but the fundamentals were exceptional – a production plant comprising top-fl ight machinery, including Reifenhäuser and Windmöller & Hölscher extrusion lines, top-of-the-range printing lines and bag-making, slitter rewinder and related equipment. The plant’s production capacity is a substantial 1,500 tons/month and possibly more.
With low production at the end of ’23, Avon spent considerable time and effort regaining the loyalty of former customers, which has paid off now in volumes increasing almost fourfold to 900 tons/month (920t in July to be exact). This suggests that APC is now operating at about half the capacity it was before 2015, which in itself is a substantial turnaround.
A big factor is the installed production capacity that allows for high-speed, high-volume production, something few other manufacturers in the Highveld possess. The reality is that many of the high-volume customers had to contract work outside of Gauteng as their requirements needed high-volume output, but this nevertheless suggests that the APC is busy regaining customer confidence.
Another factor that has appeased formerly disgruntled customers is that APC produces an astounding range of film and bag products, including shrink films, standard films, shrouds, FFS (form fill seal) films, wicketing bags, wicketed bags, embossed films and actually even more, so it retains significant appeal in the packaging market out there.
Not many business rescue processes end successfully, so there is noticeable relief at the now revitalised APC plant, with compliments to the founders of the company for having the vision to install high-performance equipment and create the winning culture, and obviously to the Avon team for having the belief and commitment to buy what was a failing venture and turn it around and regain lost momentum. The outlook is positive for APC.
