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GRAY COURT, S.C. (June 20, 1:40 p.m. ET) -- Custom film extruder ISO Poly Films is opening a new plant in Vanouver, Wash., and adding additional lines at its Gray Court, S.C., facility.
The expansion will increase the company’s capacity to about 130 million pounds annually and create 20 to 30 new jobs. The total cost of both expansions is about $20 million.
ISO, based in Gray Court, is opening the new plant to be closer to its West Coast customers, said President and Founder Jon McClure in a June 20 telephone interview.
In recent years, the company has seen increased demand for its flexible packaging products, he added.
“We want to grow,” he said. “We think our customers are there and the demands there, so we’re just meeting the demands in the market.”
ISO will move into an existing facility in Vancouver. The plant will have three-layer coextrusion capacity and seven-layer barrier capacity.
The Vancouver plant will start production with two Hosokawa Alpine American blown film lines, but ISO plans to add additional lines “pretty rapidly,” McClure said.
McClure did not disclose the size of the new facility, but said it could support six additional lines and offered plenty of room to expand.
At its Gray Court plant, ISO will add two Windmöller & Hölscher blown film lines.
According to ISO, the 135,000 square foot facility has 110 employees and currently houses 11 film lines, including mono-layer, three-layer, five-layer and seven-layer high barrier co-extrusion lines.
ISO manufactures high-performance specialty films, primarily for food and medical applications. The company had sales of about $100 million last year and could reach $150 million in annual sales by 2013, McClure said.
ISO is a subsidiary of Sigma Plastics Group and the flagship company of Sigma’s multi-layer specialty films division. | 
