By Dominic Manecke, Building Kentucky
Kruger Packaging team members and Elizabethtown Mayor Jeff Gregory visited the T. J. Patterson Industrial Park today to get an exclusive “first look” at the interior of the new Kruger Packaging E’town Plant. Construction on the cutting-edge facility was completed last month and the plant is currently in the start-up phase.
“The City of Elizabethtown is beyond excited to welcome Kruger Packaging to our Industrial Park,” said Mayor Gregory. “Kruger checks all the “boxes” we are looking for when recruiting quality industry. They are a well respected, highly diversified, century-old Canadian company that has already shown the desire to be a great community partner. We want to congratulate the Kruger family for their newest investment and thank them for placing their trust in Elizabethtown.”
The $114 million state-of-the-art facility will manufacture environmentally sustainable packaging products, creating nearly 150 new jobs and supporting countless more in Hardin County and across Kentucky. Once fully operational, the 475,000 square-foot packaging plant will produce over 2.4 billion square feet of 100 percent recycled corrugated boxes—the equivalent of over 40,000 football fields.
Kruger Packaging E’town General Manager John Keith led the tour, highlighting the facility’s vertical WIP (work-in-progress), corrugator and high-speed converting lines. These unique pieces of equipment make the E’town plant the company’s first-ever American packaging plant to utilize robotic and automated technology to help build better boxes.
“The transformation is simply stunning,” Keith said. “In less than one year, what once was an undeveloped plot of land is now home to the most advanced manufacturing facility in the United States. All of us on the Kruger team are ready to hit the ground running and help deliver sustainable packaging solutions for Kentucky businesses big and small.”
In total, the Kruger Packaging E’town Plant took more than 280 construction days to complete and is composed of 26,000 cubic yards of concrete. A ribbon-cutting ceremony will be held in the coming months to celebrate the momentous milestone.
