Tokyo-based Tahara Machinery, Ltd., has licensed Graham Packaging Company, L.P., to manufacture its electrically driven blow-molding machines and market them in Europe.
Tahara President Katsutoshi Saeki said his company would collaborate with Graham Packaging to consolidate Tahara's position as a cutting-edge producer of electrically driven blow-molding machines. Tahara introduced the first electrically driven blow-molding machine in 1994.
Under the licensing agreement, Graham Packaging will manufacture the machines at its Graham Poland factory and market them in Europe through a Warsaw company, Muehsam-Elektromech Jan K. Muehsam i Wspolnicy Spolka Jawna.
Graham Packaging, based in York, Pennsylvania, is a worldwide leader in the design, manufacture and sale of technology-based, customized blow-molded plastic containers for the branded food and beverage, household, personal care/specialty, and automotive lubricants product categories.
The company has an extensive blue-chip customer base that includes many of the world's largest branded consumer products companies. It produces more than 20 billion container units annually at 84 plants in North America, Europe, and South America and had sales of $2.56 billion in 2008.
Graham Packaging is a leading U.S. supplier of plastic containers for hot-fill juice and juice drinks, sports drinks, drinkable yogurt and smoothies, nutritional supplements, wide-mouth food, dressings, condiments and beers; the leading global supplier of plastic containers for yogurt drinks; a leading supplier of plastic containers for liquid fabric care products, dish care products and hard-surface cleaners; and the leading supplier in the U.S., Canada and Brazil of one-quart/liter plastic motor oil containers.
The Blackstone Group of New York is the majority owner of Graham Packaging.