Dow Packaging and Specialty Plastics, a business unit of The Dow Chemical Company (dow.com), announces a series of planned improvements to its West Alexandria, Ohio, and Ringwood, Ill., facilities. Upgrades are targeted at the Company’s adhesives and functional materials product line to meet the needs of global customers and reinforce Dow’s prioritized focus on enabling ongoing growth in strategic end markets.

“Dow sees immense opportunities and value in the laminating adhesives industry and is excited to work with our customers to improve packaging that people use every day,” states Courtney Fretz, North American product director, Dow Adhesives and Functional Materials. “Updating vital assets to create state-of-the-art facilities further strengthens our industry-leading innovation pipeline. Whether our customers need blemish-free surfaces for condiment packages or they need to create tough flexible packages and laminates for industrial use, these timely facility improvements will allow us to provide customers with reliable, cutting-edge technologies.”

These improvements further reinforce Dow’s commitment to anticipating and serving customer needs, enabling competitive advantage and delivering differentiated technology solutions to its customers. Updates are targeted at further enhancing product reliability and accelerating the creation of new solutions.

At the recent PACK EXPO Las Vegas 2013, Dow showcased the newest additions of high-performing products including two new grades to the ADCOTE™ Adhesives and Coatings family, MOR-FREE™ L82-105/C33 Adhesive and LAMAL™ 90-103 Adhesive. These new offerings improve a variety of applications that span from industrial applications to food and snack packages for meats, cheeses, chips, coffee, snacks, sauces and more.

In addition to the customer-focused upgrades to the Company’s West Alexandria, Ohio, and Ringwood, Il., facilities, Dow’s newly launched Pack Studios, located in Freeport, Texas, will also provide customers with expanded facilities with commercial-grade testing equipment, Collaboration Rooms virtually linked to other Pack Studios around the world, as well as on-site technical specialists to further enhance collaborative synergies.

 “Investing to create safer, more efficient facilities and exploring innovative technologies to meet customer needs affirms our dedication to furthering the adhesive market,” explains Fretz. “Through updating our facilities with high-quality equipment and an unparalleled team of technical support, we have all the components needed to help our customers tackle the toughest adhesive challenges.”