26 April 2012 --- Constar International LLC, a leading global producer of plastic containers for food and beverages, is adding new capacity for its specialty widemouth jar business. According to Grant Beard, CEO, “Constar has been a leader in the widemouth jar business for over three decades on the strength of its ability to consistently deliver the strongest and lightest weight PET jars for food applications like peanut butter and mayonnaise.” The expansion announced is attributed to demand growth for food containers from both existing customers and new business.

Combined with Constar’s capabilities in high heat applications and oxygen barrier technology, the company is uniquely positioned to serve food customers who are thinking about conversion to plastic from glass. “We are in the market with a widemouth PET jar that delivers two years of shelf life for products like pasta sauce and salsa. We believe that more conversions from glass are on the horizon for these applications, so we intend to be in a position to respond quickly with available designs, technology, and capacity as it breaks,” according to George Caplea, Commercial EVP of Constar.

Constar has not disclosed the location or capacity of the new machine, but according to Matt Dauzvardis, VP of R&D, “the machine platform fits in to all of our new thinking about platform flexibility and the ability to change over rapidly and inexpensively between jar sizes and designs.”