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EPP Team, d.b.a. Empire Precision Plastics (EPP), has been sold to Kouza Management, an affiliate of Kouza Capital, a family office based in Troy, MI, specializing in recapitalizations of lower-middle-market companies within the diversified industrials, technology, and consumer verticals. Founded in 1992 and headquartered in Rochester, NY, EPP manufactures complex, tight-tolerance injection molded components serving the firearms, medical, electrical, industrial, and consumer markets. The company utilizes data-driven scientific molding to…

We were recently alerted to an innovative spin-out tracking technology, called ReCon^2, for what appears to be a breakthrough for the  direct quantification of recycled content in plastics and plastic packaging. ReCon^2 is being developed by a team from Manchester University led by Michael Shaver, professor of Polymer Science and director of the Sustainable Materials Innovation Hub, and  Natalie Mera-Pirttijarvi, the project manager at the University of Manchester Innovation Factory. Photo Credit: University…

Global packaging supplier TricorBraun announced today that it has acquired the UK rigid packaging company Neville and More. Financial terms were not disclosed. Neville and More provides glass, plastic, and aluminum packaging to household brands across multiple end markets, including healthcare, pharma, personal care, and food & beverage. The 70-year-old company is based in Southwater, near Horsham in West Sussex, and maintains a sourcing office in Shanghai. “Our acquisition of…

What if the pellets stopped flowing? Market conditions in the 1970s discouraged investment in monomer and resin production—until the industry was caught by surprise by surging demand and an oil embargo. Could we be headed that way again? (Photo: ExxonMobil) In my blog of March 16, I referred to the Arab Oil Embargo of 1973-’74, which was accompanied by a quadrupling of crude-oil prices and widespread shortages of most major…

You won’t find a Lego figurine of Ukrainian President Zelensky at your neighborhood Lego store or on Amazon, but if you were lucky, you might have been able to nab one at Citizen Brick. The Chicago-based business creates custom Lego mini figures with the mission of making “things Lego won’t the way others can’t.” On March 5, it kicked off a one-day fundraising campaign by selling mini-figs of President Zelensky…

At least twice within living memory, international crises sounded alarms for plastics processors about where they would get materials to put in their hoppers, and at what price. (Photo: Matthew Naitove) How many of you remember the Arab Oil Embargo of 1973-’74, when crude oil prices quadrupled in just five months and plastics supplies became hard to find? Or the second big Oil Shock of 1979, when oil prices jumped…