Wisconsin Film & Bag

Written by Eric Slack

From Paper & Packaging International

 

Founded in 1973, Wisconsin Film & Bag has become a recognized regional manufacturer of custom specification, single-layer, polyethylene film and bag products for industrial and food applications. After committing to an expansion effort in 1993, the company has been able to grow and provide products made with standard FDA resins as well as products made with its internally produced ECO Blend resins made from post-consumer film scrap. 

“We sell through packaging distributors in the Midwest and the Eastern U.S.,” President Jim Feeney says. “We ship products to 38 different states, but our marketing efforts are focused on supporting distributors in the 20 to 25 states in the central and eastern part of the country.”

STRONG STRUCTURE

Wisconsin Film & Bag sells to local, regional and national packaging distributors who sell a wide bandwidth of packaging supplies to commercial end-users. The packaging distributor is a skilled solutions provider offering an array of products to meet an end-user's packaging requirements. In fiscal year 2014, the company produced 50 million pounds of polyethylene film and bag products at its Shawano, Wis.-based blown film and extrusion operation. 

The company also has a plastic film-recycling center in Shawano, which each year processes more than 20 million pounds of postindustrial and post-consumer film scrap. The resin pellets produced at the recycling center are used in making industrial application, film and bag products for the ECO Blend product line.

“We have 10 regional sales managers who work closely with the packaging distributors in their assigned geographic area,” Feeney says. “They are our employees and live in their area of responsibility. They are familiar with the distributors in their area and often make combined sales calls on the end-user with the distributor sale rep.”

In Shawano, a team of account specialists works with their assigned regional managers to provide immediate and complete support to distributor sales and purchasing people. This process provides the distributor with fast and easy access to order entry, price quotes and order inquiries. 

“Our distributors know they can expect a response to a quote request within two hours and oftentimes within 30 minutes,” Feeney says. “This is one of the numerous reasons we have become recognized as the easy-to-do-business-with company.”

All of the company's products are custom-made to meet a customer's precise specifications. Fast, accurate response is at the heart of effectively supporting a packaging distributor who is selling many different packaging products and is continually pressed for time. Experienced customer service people have the authority to make decisions in support of distributors' needs. 

INVESTING IN INNOVATION

Wisconsin Film & Bag has continued to look for ways to invest in its operations. In 2010, the company embarked on a major development project to learn how to recycle clear, post-consumer film scrap into high-quality resin with strength properties similar to virgin resin. The result was three U.S. patents for a process to clean post-consumer polyethylene film scrap.

“Many people believe innovation comes exclusively from very large companies, but in reality it is the small and medium-size companies like us that must take risks to remain competitive and offer new products to their customers,” Feeney says. 

Investing in innovation has helped the company keep up with demand for packaging with post-consumer content, a trend which Feeney says is growing each year. 

“Our ECO Blend product line of post-consumer content film and bag packaging products has been the company's fastest-growing product line and has fueled a continuing double-digit growth trend,” Feeney says. 

“At the core of ECO Blend's success in the market is its strength properties and parity in pricing with virgin resin products,” Feeney continue. “While companies want to offer green products that support their sustainability initiatives, they have clearly demonstrated an unwillingness to accept inferior performing product that costs more than the virgin resin alternative. ECO Blend more than satisfies their price and performance requirements.” 

In the past 18 months, the company built its fourth expansion and added two additional extruders. In 2015, Wisconsin Film & Bag plans to add two more extruders. 

Wisconsin Film & Bag will focus on continuous improvement in both the post-consumer recycling and extrusion processes. This will allow the company to position its products with its distributors so they remain competitive in terms of both price and product offering.

“Our priority is to remain focused on growth of both our business and our distributors' business,” Feeney says. “We will continue to invest aggressively in equipment for both the recycling operation and the extrusion operation.” 

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