We recently met Surya Food & Agro and Surya Global Films’ director Shekhar Agarwal, who has led the group’s establishment of the Surya Global Flexi Films plant in YEIDA, just a couple of kilometers from the new airport just south of Greater Noida. The state-of-the-art world-class plant conceived in October 2020 was built on the immense 40-acre campus in a record time of 18 months despite having to reinforce the sandy soil with considerable engineering inputs for the 300-meter-long biaxial film line structures.
The Surya Global Flexi Films project is extremely ambitious not just in terms of what it has already accomplished but also in terms of its expansion plans in the coming three years. With the background of the Surya Food & Agro Ltd businesses that manufacture Priya Gold biscuits, chocolates, juices, and noodles, Shekhar Agarwal speaks of the economy with the understanding that comes from the FMCG food processing and packaging business. He says that the new Surya Global Flexi Film plant is committed to the latest technology and automation for producing value-added films to global standards. “As newcomers to the industry with all the others senior to us, we want to be the best. We want to shape the future with value-added products.”
Our team visited the modern plant to see the two running biaxial film lines from Bruckner and Dornier, the Bobst metallizers, and the Kampf rewinder slitters in action. We received a good overview of current industry developments and were shown around with detailed explanations of each aspect of the operations, by SGF’s vice president of Project and Operations Dharmendra Sengar. We were shown the third biaxial film line, which is under installation – a Bruckner 5-layer hybrid line expected to be commissioned in the second week of July.
Food & Agro and Surya Global Films
The existing manufacturing, service, and office buildings occupying the 40-acre plot of land are professionally and purposefully designed, keeping in mind the automated flow of incoming materials and smooth flow of finished goods from the plant.
Environmental precautions for the air quality and dustproofing of the biaxial lines have been taken care of in the film manufacturing and processing areas, while safety and fire precautions and infrastructure have been placed in the surrounding service areas. A 6 MW rooftop solar plant is already operational with more panels and infrastructure to be added as newer lines are commissioned.
The first line commissioned and running at the SGF Yeida plant since December 2022, is a 3-layer Bruckner BOPP line for producing polypropylene films with a width of 8.7 meters at speeds up to 525 meters a minute. Here, the three extruders feed the melt to a die and the initial film is elongated 5 times in the MDO and then laterally stretched 10 times in the long TDO and delivered to the winders.
We saw the line running at nearly full speed on our visit with photo sensors transmitting a visual profile of the film’s characteristics. Next to the line, there is a control room with complete visualization of the automated sensors and controls at each step. At the end of the line, there is a Kampf prime slitter rewinder for producing the finished rolls. Alongside there is a 2.85-meter-wide Bobst Expert K5 hi-res metallizer.
The second SGF biaxial BOPET film line is from Dornier for producing 3-layer polyester films with a width of 8.7 meters. It runs at a speed of 650 meters a minute, and was commissioned in October 2024. Extruded from a 2.75-meter-wide die, the film is first elongated 4 times in the MDO unit and subsequently stretched laterally to reach a width of 9 meters, yielding 8.7-meter-wide jumbo film rolls. The jumbo rolls are slit and rewound using the Kampf slitter rewinder to customer-specified widths. The Dornier polyester line is also accompanied by a Bobst 2.85 meter-wide metallizer.
First Bruckner hybrid BOPP and BOPE line for India
The third line, which is currently under installation is the 5-layer hybrid BOPP and BOPE Bruckner biaxial line meant for producing ultra-high barrier films with an inline coater. Apart from producing 8.7-meter-wide high barrier films, this line will have a 2.85-meter-wide Bobst Expert metallizer with Alubond technology.
On our visit in the second half of May, installation of this line was in the final stage and alignment and expected to start in two weeks time. This will be the first biaxial hybrid Bruckner line installed in India and with its hybrid and high-barrier capabilities, it will produce both BOPP and BOPE films.
Shaping the future
Expert K5 hi-res metallizers at SGF.
Photo PSA
The fourth biaxial line – the third from Bruckner at SGF – a 10.4-meter-wide 3-layer BOPP film line for high output at speeds of 600 meters a minute is expected to arrive at the end of 2025 for installation and commissioning in the middle of 2026. Alongside this line, a Bobst 3.65-wide metallizer with Alox technology and coater will be installed.
The fifth biaxial line has also been also ordered and is expected to be delivered by Bruckner to SGF in Yeida in the middle of 2026. This will be a 10.4-meter-wide 5-layer film line to run at 650 meters a minute. SGF has already thought about and planned for the installation of its sixth and seventh lines in the Yeida campus, which should come in the 2027-28 financial year.
There is no question that the Surya Global Flexi Film plant is as daring as it is modern and ambitious. It is absorbing the latest automated biaxial lines from Bruckner each accompanied by a Bobst metallizer and Kampf slitter rewinders. Each metallizer has its own Kampf slitter rewinder as well. There is a world-class laboratory with film testing equipment that can measure the quality parameters of each product including barrier properties of metallized films.
Operations Dharmendra Sengar
The SGF plant is run by a team of experienced industry veterans who have established a modern quality system. Distribution and sales are rising as is capacity utilization. As Agarwal says, this is primarily a B2B enterprise with the group’s FMCG businesses and packaging plants only consuming about 15% of the output of SGF. He adds, “With our state-of-the-art lines and high-value product mix including sustainable films, we are competitive. And since we are new comers, we want to be the best.”
While the current structures look after the third biaxial line that is nearing installation and completion the campus and infrastructure can accommodate the fifth 10.4-meter-wide 5-layer BOPP line, the sixth 8.7-meter-wide 3-layer thin film line, and the seventh biaxial capacitor grade film line grade as they continue to arrive sequentially in the coming years. The company aims to be a major supplier in the flexible packaging industry, with a focus on sustainable and value-added products.
Apart from his experience and understanding of the Indian food processing and FMCG industry, Agarwal shows great confidence in the growth of the Indian economy and its need for packaging and value-added and sustainable films. He also talks about the export opportunity, saying, “We are inherently competitive in global film manufacturing.”
