Updated: April 26, 2021
manufacturing excellence awards
Manufacturing Awards: US Pack is becoming more self-sustaining
Photo | Courtesy of US Pack
US Pack in Leominster is a woman-owned custom formulating blending and packaging company run and co-founded by its president, Svetlana Aptekman.
The manufacturer, which specializes in engine additives and cleaning formulas, produces a wide range of products, including everything from motor oils to household cleaners, janitorial products and hydraulic fluids, just to name a few. Perhaps most iconic to the company, which is quietly nestled near the Mall at Whitney Field, is the Hi-Gear cleaning products brand, which is owned by Aptekman and which US Pack makes and distributes.
“What US Pack does for itself is we private label for all our other customers,” said Eric Longo, the company’s director of operations.
But aside from balancing a unique brand and a customer base with its own separate set of needs, the company has made green initiatives part and parcel of its operation.
“When they installed this building, they put as much solar on the roof as they could,” Longo said, adding the same was true for its warehousing facility in Fitchburg.
The result, he explained, is most of US Pack’s power comes from solar energy.
According to in-house metrics, the Leominster solar facility alone has generated 2,396 megawatt hours in its lifetime. With Fitchburg added in, that figure is 13,299 megawatt hours, enough energy to power a search engine data center for 404 days.
By another measure, according to US Pack, that's a cumulative gasoline offset of 1.8 million gallons.
All of this is in conjunction with ongoing lean manufacturing efforts, which include efforts to drive waste out of the company’s processes, Longo said. It’s a strategy not just good for business, but the environment, he said.
“In this very trying time, right now it's very difficult, with the supply chain, getting products to and from wherever you go, whether it's just trucking in the U.S. or getting containers across the ocean,” Longo said.
By focusing on green manufacturing principles, he said, ultimately costs are reduced both for US Pack and its customers.
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