Group president Ole Rugland called the plant "the pride of the group" when he opened it last month.

"Our belief in the plans of [Skanem Cardiff managing director] Colin Stafford has been key to the recent investment in plant, machinery and staff development," said Rugland. Over 2m was spent on a new factory and 650,000 on refurbishing existing facilities.

The capacity boost follows the group's acquisition in May of Polish firm Introl, which added Polish and Russian factories, giving it a presence in central and eastern Europe.

With the two Introl plants Skanem has 12 factories across Europe making it the second largest label packaging specialist in the region.