Kenya Packaging Industry: Performance Delivery, Technology Leadership and Circular Economy by Silafrica

Akshay Shah, Group Executive Director of Silafrica, a leading manufacturer of quality packaging for various industries in Kenya and East Africa, explains what makes Silafrica stand out from the competition, mentioning three pillars: performance delivery, technology leadership and circular economy.

“We always emphasize three things that we stand for. The first is performance delivery. That basically means having the right systems, people, and culture. That is a minimum standard that any company must have in order to serve their customers the right way. We really invest a lot in people, processes, and systems to make sure that when we make a promise to our customers that we honor it. It is very rare that we default. Sometimes, there may be actions that happen outside of our control, but all our manufacturing operations have multiple levels of redundancy. Even if there is a power failure or fuel shortage or anything else unexpected, we always have enough backup to be able to continue to supply our customers. We are known in our market for being the most dependable supplier. If our customer is running their filling line and they do not have enough packaging, the knock-on costs to the entire value chain are much higher than just the cost of our packaging. The second thing we focus on is technology leadership. In this market, whether it is looking at the stability of the product in our packaging as it goes through the value chain, looking at how the product can attract consumers through better branding and packaging design, even for us to continue to be relevant to our customers through better economic value for our products and being competitive without compromising on quality, all that comes from investing in the right technology. Every year, we spend millions of dollars to upgrade our technology, our plant, our systems. Right now, one of the things we are doing to make sure we remain relevant is investing a lot in IoT industry 4.0 so that we can move towards a smart factory operation. Some of the technology that we have invested in in the last couple of years is a process called injection compression molding. This enables production to be done with a much lower energy and material footprint which is also making us more sustainable. The third pillar is circular economy. Circular economy is the new way of looking at sustainability in a more holistic manner. In the past, we used to recycle plastic waste. Now, it is much more of a holistic, systemic issue. If the packaging design is not compatible with circular economy, then we are always fighting upstream against the packing design. The first step is to start looking at sustainable materials whether it is plant-based polymers or recovered polymers from the post-consumer value chain, designing packaging that is easier to recycle, and engaging in conversation with our customers to rethink and relook at the value chain. We are looking at how our product can be transported from our factory to the customers in returnable packaging over one-way packaging. How can our customers get their product to their last mile retail in a more sustainable way with returnable packaging? With the actual product itself, whether it is a shampoo bottle or a beverage bottle, how can that potentially move to refillable, returnable, reusable, and reduce the amount of plastic that is being used? Most important is to actually reduce the number of different components that are used to manufacture that packaging. The definition of “100% recyclable” is that 95% of the weight of an entire pack has to come from one material and the remaining 5% must not hinder the recyclability of that 95%. That is not a reality of today’s packaging design. We have made a commitment that by 2025 all the packaging that we are producing for our customers will be 100% recyclable”, says Akshay Shah.

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