Packaging Southern Opening Ceremony

Oji Fibre Solutions (OjiFS) celebrates new $100M packaging facility in Christchurch, "Packaging Southern".

Oji Holdings Corporation President & CEO, Hiroyuki Isono, local MP, Megan Woods, Ambassador of Japan to NZ, Koichi Ito, OjiFS CEO, Jon Ryder, and Director of the Consular Office of Japan, Tsuguyoshi Hada, officially open the Packaging Southern facility with a traditional sake barrel ceremoney 'Kagami-Biraki'.

Last week we officially opened our $100 million sustainable packaging facility. The state-of-the art cardboard box plant development in Hornby, Christchurch, will allow us to grow our packaging service to the South Island primary produce sector and other food producers.

The new facility was officially opened by local MP, Megan Woods, supported by the Ambassador of Japan to New Zealand, Koichi Ito.

Speaking at the opening, OjiFS’s parent company (Oji Holdings Corporation), President and CEO, Hiroyuki Isono, who travelled from Japan for the celebration, said "the event also marked fifty years of Oji Group investment in New Zealand. We started here in 1971, when we first invested in Pan Pac Forest Products near Napier”. Since then, Oji Holdings Corporation has invested considerably in New Zealand, including the purchase of Oji Fibre Solutions (OjiFS) in 2014.

Many subsequent OjiFS investments such as the recent upgrade to the Tasman pulp mill at Kawerau, which reduced greenhouse gas emissions and improved water quality, have been driven by the Oji Group’s environmental values.

Packaging Southern will modernise OjiFS's operations in Christchurch and provide scale for the growing demand for sustainable packaging products, as producers move away from plastics.

The facility includes high tech automation, energy efficient operations and uses paper products produced by our OjiFS Kinleith and Penrose mills in the North Island, adding value to forestry wood residues and wastepaper. Investment in the new Packaging Southern facility has also retained over 75 direct jobs in the region.

Mr Isono said, “we are pleased to be able to efficiently produce sustainable packaging products for our customer’s fantastic world-class primary produce, grown in the ‘clean green’ South Island of New Zealand”.

Megan Woods noted the project "was a good example of the Japanese-New Zealand relationship and congratulated the Oji Group for its contribution to New Zealand".

The ceremony commenced with a welcome and blessing from Te Ngai Tuahuriri Runanga, followed by speeches from Dr Jon Ryder, OjiFS CEO, Mr Hiroyuki Isono, President and CEO Oji Holdings Corporation, Mr Koichi Ito, Ambassador of Japan to New Zealand, and Hon. Megan Woods, MP for Wigram.

Other proceedings included planting a Sakura (Cherry Blossom) tree and a traditional Japanese custom of Kagami-biraki, where participants break open a sake barrel with wodden mallets and share in the ceremonial sake.

We want to take this opportunity to thank everyone involved in "Project Sakura". Building a new packaging plant during a global pandemic certainly through up some challenges! We can now look forward to an exciting future for our Packaging Southern facility, as it goes from strength-to-strength supporting South Island industries and contributing to the circular bioeconomy.