Italian Inn-Flex completes acquisition of Serbia’s Papir Print

The packaging firm acquired a Balkan competitor to expand its regional holdings.
Plastics manufacturing firm Inn-Flex, which makes packaging for the pet food industry, has completed a takeover of Papir Print, which produces food and beverage packaging products in Serbia.
Based in the Italian region of Friuli-Venezia Giulia, 154 km south of Venice, the company already operates 2 subsidiaries, Vopachel and Fox-Pac, in Serbia. Adding Papir Print will further expand Inn-Flex’s production capacity in the country. According to the plastics industry publication Polimerica, Papir Print is valued at €13 million ($13.4M).
Supporting expansion and innovation
While final pet food bag products will not be produced at the Papir Print facility, plastics made there will be used to produce pet food containers at the company’s other Serbian plants. CEO David Tomasin says this would help the company stay ahead as the region’s pet food market grows.
“This partnership allows us to reduce production costs by sharing resources, expand their market reach into untapped regions and accelerate innovation to stay ahead in a South Europe pet food growing market,” he explains to GlobalPETS.
Tomasin confirmed the acquisition was completed in December. Papir Print will continue to operate independently.
Growing market for a growing company
Founded in 2006, Inn-Flex has grown in recent years. Preliminary numbers show it expects to generate an aggregate turnover of €75 million ($77.2M) in 2024.
The company currently covers about 35% of the Italian pet food market, but 67% of its revenue is generated abroad, with Serbia being its only foreign manufacturing base.
Trade advantages
Serbia’s pet market is growing as its economy recovers from the devastation of the 1990s, and many European companies face barriers to entering the country.
According to Statista, annual revenue in the country’s pet food market totals $97.90 million (€95.04M), with a projected compound annual growth rate of more than 4% through 2029.
There are trade advantages to the expansion as well. Serbia is not a member of the EU but is a party to the Central European Free Trade Agreement (CEFTA), which includes the surrounding states of Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Northern Macedonia, Moldova, Montenegro and Kosovo.
Manufacturing in Serbia helps open these countries’ markets. Inn-Flex is already facing competition in Serbia, as another Italian packaging company, IPV, expanded in the country in 2022.