NEW ORLEANS — Today, Gov. John Bel Edwards and Iriapak executive Jeffrey Crevoiserat announced the company will make a $7 million capital investment to establish a packaging film manufacturing facility in eastern New Orleans. An Italian company founded in 1978, Iriapak manufactures packaging for home paper products, such as paper towels and tissue. The New Orleans mill will be the company’s first North American location.
Iriapak will create 25 new direct jobs with an average annual salary of $38,953 plus benefits. Louisiana Economic Development estimates the project also will result in 28 new indirect jobs, for a total of 53 jobs in the Southeast Region of Louisiana.
“From Boeing’s work on NASA’s Space Launch System to the recent return of Dixie Beer, New Orleans East has been trending as a center of advanced manufacturing,” Gov. Edwards said. “We are happy to welcome another international investment to the region with the arrival of this Italian company. Our skilled Louisiana workforce and the state’s strong support for manufacturing industries should make this an ideal location for Iriapak’s first production plant in North America.”
The company will occupy a New Orleans industrial site that had been vacant since it was badly damaged by a February 2017 tornado. Located just off Old Gentilly Road in the New Orleans Regional Business Park, the building was once a Lockheed Martin facility.
“I worked in Louisiana for 15 years after graduating from Tulane University, and I have long had a desire to find my way back to Louisiana and to contribute something to the state that was so influential in my life,” Crevoiserat said. “Our location in New Orleans East offers incredible access to the entire East Coast of the U.S.; an immense labor market; a regulatory infrastructure that wants to work with us and welcomes us; and exceptional port facilities for us to import materials and export product.”
