The South African paper packaging industry is growing at a rate of 4% a year, which is largely being driven by growth in per capita consumer goods consumption as a result of the increasing socioeconomic shift in population groups and the growing middle class. While this growth has been beneficial for all companies operational in this industry, Durban-based corrugated packaging company Corruseal has been particularly successful in leveraging off this market growth to the extent that the company has grown by more than 25% year-on-year for the last decade. In an interview with Engineering News, Corruseal MD Anand Govender elaborates that this growth can be evidenced in that the company’s turnover has increased from R14-million in 1996 to approximately R500-million this year. Govender says that, apart from the obvious growth in the packaging market, the expansion of the company has been the result of investment in state-of-the-art technology and equipment, continual innovation, and an emphasis on low-cost but quality production. In fact, Corruseal has invested more than R250-million in packaging equipment since the com- pany’s inception in the 1960s, most of which has been imported from Europe and Taiwan. The latest addition to the com- pany’s asset portfolio is a R7-million fully-automated flexo-gluing machine imported from Taiwan. Corruseal director and cofounder Baba Mehta tells Engineering News that this state-of-the-art machine, which was commissioned earlier this month, is able to print, fold and glue corrugated boxes at high speed. Mehta elaborates that it was a loan of R9,5-million from the Industrial Development Corporation that allowed the company to buy the new equipment. In fact, the relationship between Corruseal and the IDC has been ongoing for the last three decades and was first initiated when the State-owned financier loaned the company R300 000 to build its first production facility in Clairwood, Durban, in the early 1970s.

According to IDC wood and paper strategic business unit head Rentia van Tonder, since 1972, the IDC has approved 26 facilities to the Corruseal group, which is an example of its continued commitment to black empowerment and the development and growth of this industry.

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