76 | T T Hugh de Lacy Packaging solutions for specific needs The Wimpex factory on the Templeton business park’s Innovation Avenue. MANUFACTURING Wimpex Phenomenal annual revenue growth of 343% in the past year has precipitated the Templeton, Christchurch-based food manufacturing and packaging company Wimpex onto the Deloitte Fast 50 list of the quickest growing companies in the country. Founded by principal Vladan Vukovich 15 years ago, Wimpex came in at 44th on the list, and while Vladan sees the honour as milestone, he also sees no reason why the company shouldn’t be able to repeat the achievement next year. To be eligible for the list, an entrant has to be a New Zealand company that has traded for at least three years, has revenues of $1m a year or more, and provides independently prepared financial statements and export revenue. “We’re a big team of people fully focussed on a particular market, packing food into more than 50 dimensions and options for retail customers,” Vladan says. “Our growth has been based on innovation” – indeed the company’s modern factory is on the Templeton business park’s Innovation Avenue – “and adjusting food packaging to the consumers’ demands for practicality and convenience. “If you’re going to use a product in a particular way, it has to be packaged in a particular way, and our growth has come from providing packaging solutions to specific problems. “Our clients are not just buying products: they’re buying solutions,” Vladan says. Wimpex has 75 employees working in 26 different processing areas, and it’s a onestop-shop for everything from stick packs and sachets to pouch packs, cans, canisters and various other forms of both flexible and rigid packaging. It has more than 40 different types of packaging machines and equipment, pumping out millions of retail units a year. In 2019 Wimpex opened its present 4000m2 factory which was big jump up from the 200m2 Sydenham building that Vladan launched the company into 15 years ago, and it added another 4500m2 in 2021 as the Wimpex Hub, from where hundreds of tonnes of New Zealand-made products are exported to more than a dozen countries. The company’s services include packing dairy and non-dairy products for both the domestic and export markets; blending in batches up to 1000kg across five blending units; bag-in-box filling; tin can filling in multiple sizes; fully recyclable laminated bags; pouches with and without a zipper; single-serve sachets; specialty products; repacking of frozen and chilled butter and of clarified butter (ghee); hospitality-sized sachets; health foods, dairy tablets and many more. Aside from its solutions-driven approach to its markets, the Wimpex workforce includes technologists, packaging, technical and quality control staff, and “It’s our ability to pack to the highest standards, and deliver on time and “Our growth has been based on innovation and adjusting food packaging to the consumers’ demands for practicality and convenience.” within budget that keeps customers coming back for more,” Vladan says. Wimpex has established house brands that include Go Milk, which has found its way to seven countries so far, Including China and the USA. Wimpex products are sold into more than 700 supermarkets around New Zealand, 1500 in Australia and 5000 throughout Asia. The company is certified for halal and gluten-free production, organic dairy and nondairy products, and is registered to export to China. Expansion is very much on the cards for Wimpex, with Vladan already looking at putting up another building on a nearby vacant lot to cater for it. “We will be keeping our focus on the same sort of rapid growth that gained us our first Fast 50 listing this year, and we’ll need to hike our current growth by 30-40% in the current year. “I’m not sure if we’re on track for that at the moment, but with the fantastic team of people that we’ve got working at Wimpex, we can’t fail,” Vladan says. WE KEEP YOU MOVING. • FLEET MANAGEMENT • MECHANICAL • SERVICE • PAINT & PANEL • ELECTRICAL • WELDING & FABRICATION • 24/7 BREAKDOWN SERVICE 0800 77 77 21 www.alltruckfix.co.nz Proudly supporting Wimpex Ltd.
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