Alpha Packaging, a leading manufacturer of plastic bottles and jars for the nutritional supplement, pharmaceutical and personal care industries, has announced it will add a third manufacturing facility in July 2004.

The new plant will be located near Salt Lake City, Utah, and represents the third major investment Alpha has made in new facilities in three years.The new plant will give Alpha an additional 80,000 square feet of manufacturing and warehouse space to serve customers on the West Coast. According to Dave Spence, president of Alpha Packaging, the plant will be in production by July 15, 2004, and will produce both high density polyethylene (HDPE) and polyethylene terephthalate (PET) packaging.

"We have a large customer base in western North America," Spence says, "and work through an extensive distribution network. By adding a plant in the western portion of the country, we can serve those customers better and offer next-day deliveries to the companies who need that level of service."

Alpha expects to invest about $5 million in the new plant during its first year of operation, continuing a recent trend of capital improvements and expansion. In 2001, it dramatically increased manufacturing capacity with the addition of an East Coast location, and in 2002, Alpha moved its main offices and largest manufacturing operations into a 220,000 square-foot facility in St. Louis.

In addition to manufacturing, Alpha Packaging has tool-making capabilities, from unit body cavity molds to complete high-cavity production tooling. It also offers in-house design on CAD/CAM systems, serving as a strategic industrial design partner for customers in a variety of industries.