Manufacturer to open facility in Shelton

SHELTON — An Ohio company that produces environmentally sustainable, paper-based packaging will open an 80,000-square-foot innovation and automation center next year that will initially employ 35 workers, Gov. Ned Lamont announced Thursday.

The company, Ranpak Holdings Corp., will move into a building located at 57 Waterman Drive. Construction of the new facility will be completed by the fourth quarter of next year. The company expects to expand its workforce to between 80 and 100 workers within two years after the facility opens.

The building will be a multi-purpose facility that will serve as a showroom for Ranpak’s automation and robotics product offerings as well as a center for research and development in automation and artificial intelligence applications. But the majority of the space, about 50,000 square feet, will be dedicated to manufacturing and assembly.

Ranpak Holdings serves the e-commerce sector and industrial supply chains, according to company officials. Omar Asali, chairman and chief executive officer of the company, said Ranpak “is committed to building state-of-the-art technologies to advance (our) mission to deliver automated and sustainable packaging solutions.”

“We look forward to bringing high-quality jobs to Fairfield County,” Asali said in a statement.

Lamont said the company “wanted a skilled workforce and a location that fuels innovation and next generation thinking.”

“They found everything they needed right here in Connecticut,” he said.

Shelton city officials could not immediately be reached for comment on Thursday.

Ranpak employs over 850 people worldwide, including the Netherlands, Czech Republic, Singapore and multiple locations across the United States. The company’s headquarters is located outside of Cleveland.

Donald Klepper-Smith, chief economist and director of research for DataCore Partners, said the lower Naugatuck Valley has long been a hub for manufacturing in Connecticut and has been able to preserve that during the pandemic.

“The manufacturing employment in that area out-strips much of the rest of the state in term of jobs,” Klepper-Smith said.

There were about 470,000 manufacturing jobs in Connecticut in the late 1960s, he said. Now there are about 155,000 workers in the manufacturing sector, as automation has made employees more productive, according to Klepper-Smith.

“The output per worker has skyrocketed,” he said.

In terms of importance to the Shelton area economy, Klepper-Smith said that for every manufacturing job created, there are 1.5 jobs created in other employment sectors.

“And wage growth in manufacturing sector has generally out-paced wages in non manufacturing jobs,” he said.

Peter Denious, president and chief executive officer of New Haven-based AdvanceCT, said Ranpak’s decision to come to Connecticut has the potential to attract other cutting-edge manufacturers to the state. The nonprofit organization works to engage, retain, and recruit businesses and advance the overall economic competitiveness of Connecticut.

“This a really innovative company,” Denious said. “Their technology is focused on reducing waste in packaging and it’s exciting that they are coming to our state to leverage our many strengths.”