Exciting Times Continue at Winpak

As 2024 comes to a close, and while December results are still outstanding, we can be proud of having achieved the very significant volume growth we targeted for this year. This accomplishment will be especially remarkable in the context of flat grocery consumption and challenging economic times. Winpak’s delivery of unique product performance and our drive to make a difference in the marketplace is paying off.

Our dedication to providing end-to-end solutions is gaining ground with clients. Through our OneWinpak Sales Excellence transformation, clients experience more benefits such as service and agility in combination with Winpak’s resourceful problem-solving ability. That message was emboldened throughout our presence at PackExpo this year, with a new brand experience and a redesigned booth conveying our new narrative.

As I have stated in previous communications, our advancements are driven by our wonderful and resourceful Winpakers. And speaking of Winpakers, our relentless pursuit of Safety improvement continues as THE #1 priority. To that end and as per the leitmotiv of our OneWinpak umbrella, we have concentrated the Safety management into two business unit champions, to develop the best practices centrally and focus on deploying them to all sites. Under our Human Resource (HR) umbrella, we embarked on the DEI (diversity, equity and inclusion) journey last year and are making great strides with training throughout the company, eliminating barriers and bias, learning from the vast richness of cultures and backgrounds that constitute the tissue of Winpak. We are also initiating a number of important wellness initiatives to better serve our employees. The HR transformation has taken a new impetus with the introduction of business partners for our two business groups, to respond to business needs centrally, and to deploy them across all sites. In parallel we are developing the Centers of Expertise (CoEs) to deliver high quality, uniform services to all sites.

Our Operational Excellence transformation also targets OneWinpak standards in our key processes across all sites, fostering best practices sharing, and developing equipment and process strategies on a broader footprint. Expanding upon a machine learning artificial intelligence initiative from Winpak Portion Packaging, our Winpak Heat Seal business unit is following suit with its major production processes. Ultimately, our ambition is to be leading edge in all key processes used across our businesses, thus leading in quality and cost as well as on time in full. Another exciting transformation will begin in 2025 with the first set of our business units embarking on Winpak’s new Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) system, the latest generation of its kind. This will be another example of a OneWinpak implementation, seeking the best possible business processes from across Winpak and deploying it in each site. This will facilitate training, best practices sharing, future upgrades and feature developments, such as client and supplier portals.

We continue our multi-dimensional sustainability transformation from a product standpoint with a new generation of heat resistant, recycle-ready formable and non-formable flexible films. We are also making significant progress in our innovation efforts to provide an alternative to polystyrene in markets we serve, as well as in a new generation mono-material, die-cut lid just to name a few. More and more clients are testing and conducting consumer panel testing with our “designed for recyclability” iconic FlexPod and SqueezePod products, and we are nearing the delivery of our first industrial equipment to manufacture them. We’re reinforcing our team complying with local and international ESG reporting needs, focussing on key elements of our EcoVadis scorecard and Carbon Disclosure Project (CDP) rating with third party validation. In addition, we are developing our trajectory to fulfill our ambitions with the Science Based Targets initiative (SBTi), targeting a global warming impact curtailed under 1.5 degrees Celsius by 2030. We’re constantly broadening our access to post-consumer recycled material to offer our clients the choice of introducing resource circularity in their products.

Alongside strong profitability and cash generation, the above mentioned OneWinpak transformations are key to maturing our organization and business processes, as our pipeline of product launches and new business introductions are at an all-time high and supported by our outsized investment strategy in the next three years with over USD 400 million earmarked for new capacity and new technology, involving all business units.

We can expect new challenges in 2025, and I am proud to look ahead with the best prepared team to harness them.

Safe and Happy Holidays to All!

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