Visy shatters records as production surges

Packaging producer, printer and recycler Visy achieved record growth in August, driven it says by consumers switching from plastic packaging to carton, aluminium, and glass.

Visy says its sales in August were up by a third on the same month in the previous year, and by 28 per cent over the July figure. The company says it was the highest month-on-month growth since the death of founder Richard Pratt in 2009. Since then the company has been run by his son, Anthony Pratt.

Pratt was reported as saying that lockdown meant consumers were not drinking beer out of plastic cups at events – but were drinking it out of glass and aluminium at home and having it delivered in cardboard packaging – and that all contributed to the record rise in revenue.

Visy offers flexo, litho and inkjet printing, its Campbellfield site houses one of the world's biggest pre-print flexo presses, which it uses to transform plain carboard into the high-gloss multi-colour boxes, seen particularly in the beer and wine segments.

August was the first month with figures from Visy’s glass business, which it recently acquired from Owens Illinois (O-I), but these numbers did not account for most of the surge. The O-I glass business is a fraction of the size of its new parent; it earns about a tenth the revenue of Visy.