SHETRON GROUP - Complete Packaging Company

•The first product - a composite can, was developed for a leading detergent powder manufacturer – Vim of Hindustan Lever. Subsequently, customers like Firestone, CEAT, Corn Products, etc were added and truly marked the beginning of composite can industry in India.

•Immediately, company diversified into manufacture of paper tubes for cloth winding to textile mill customers like Mafatlals, Khataus, Bombay Dyeing and developed special tubes for winding of leather cloths.

•In the 1970s, the dry-cell battery industry players like Estrella, GEEP, Eveready were looking for upgradation to leak-proof batteries to be used in radios and transistors. Fibre Foils leveraged its technical capabilities and power press capacities meant for composite can components to provide a viable alternative suitable for the demanding battery industry. With close technical co-operation between Estrella Batteries and Fibre Foils, components for leak-proof batteries were successfully developed and the product became a runaway success. New customers like GEEP, Eveready, Nippo, Lakhanpal and Toshiba slowly switched sources to Fibre Foils.

•During 1975-76, there was extension of the existing paper product line to cater to the bulk packaging segement in the chemical and pharma industry. The company developed a new concept, fibre drums, which was a boon to the industry who were till then using costlier and heavier steel drums. A new company, Bulcan Fibre Drums Private Limited, was incorporated to exclusively cater to this segment. A state-of-art plant was imported from Germany and commissioned in a new, bigger location in Andheri, Bombay. Subsequently, 1980s, this company was merged with Fibre Foils to give better scale and efficiency of operations.

•As the battery component was growing exponentially year by year, all major players in the Indian industry switched sourcing to domestic suppliers like Fibre Foils and another competitor, Metalbox. With demand from customers increasing, a separate, dedicated company was floated to exclusively cater to the metal battery jackets and components. The suitable location recommended for this facility was Bangalore in southern India.

•The new company was formed in 1980 with equity participation from the Karnataka government and was named Shetron Metals Limited. Facilities were commissioned to manfacture metal jackets for the dry cell industry. The existing metal component business was also transferred from Fibre Foils to Shetron Limited and Shetron became the leading battery jacket and components supplier in the country.

•In the late 80s, southern India had a large food processing industry and faced shortage of can supplies.. Shetron expanded facilities by progressively adding automatic can-making line and allied printing, coating and tool room facilities and became a complete metal packaging company. It continues to focus exclusively on the food packaging industry even today.

•With Mumbai growing rapidly and the urban areas expanding to include Andheri, FFL faced difficulties in expanding the plants and capacities. The Company bought over in Khopoli near Bambay and moved operations to the new facility in 1992. Shetron too, identified land and built a new facility in Asangaon, near Mumbai and transferred the component business into this new facility.

Company’s thrust on quality ensured ISO certification for quality, design and development in packaging.

FFL kept on adding newer product lines to keep ahead of competitors -- FFL added the state-of-art composite can making line in 1990s, well ahead of the food packaging boom and is now ideally positioned to reap the growth. It has now presence in tubes for the metal, paper, plastic and cloth industries; products for the glass fibre industry; composite cans for the food segment and decorative cans for liqour, cosmetics and other allied industries.

•The Group has always been in the cutting edge of technology and the customer base includes leading national and multi-national manufacturers and brands.