Vanden has appointed Markku Tikkanen as director of business development – flexible packaging. This global role is dedicated to growing the business’ new recycled resin division, providing a consistent high volume supply of quality recycled resins to manufacturers of flexible packaging.
Vanden’s natural expansion into the recycled resins market sees it optimising the use of recycled plastics in flexible packaging films and resins. The new division will offer outsourced procurement of recycled resins with a diversified supply chain.
Vanden’s expertise means the new division will also provide technical assessments, supply source validation and technical advice advisory in recycled resins and feedstock.
Markku joins with nearly 15 years of experience of packaging value chains working with prime/virgin based packaging solutions including commercial roles eg with a major global prime polymer supplier.
Damien van Leuven, CEO, said: ‘Markku’s the first of several global directors of business development recruitments we are making in the coming 12 months that will be dedicated to helping converters and plastic manufacturers across the world, access a reliable supply of recycled plastics to meet their legislative and CSR targets.
‘We are confident Markku will deliver a great deal of value to the flexible packaging industry, helping producers to navigate the relatively unchartered waters the sector is entering with recycled content requirements. His customer focused approach and technical knowledge will help make Vanden a leader in the supply of recycled plastics to the flexible packaging market.’
Markku added, ‘We have multiple target segments where we can increase the usage of recycled resins in flexible packaging, including industrial, consumer and agriculture to name a few and are continuously exploring new applications. We want to give the valuable recycled feedstock multiple lives as recycled plastics in a wide scale of applications by utilising our long expertise in recycled feedstock management. We are building on this knowledge to improve the quality of recycled resins with the unique Vanden processes that have been tailored for recycling businesses.’