Bibby Sterilin has invested £1.2 million in state of the art petri dish manufacturing machines at their plastics production plant at Aberbargoed, South Wales. This investment will enable Sterilin to maintain its long term product competitiveness.

Pioneered by Sterilin over 40 years ago, the plastic petri dish is probably the most widely used product in the microbiology industry. In the last 30 years Bibby Sterilin have produced over 40 billion of the 90mm version which, laid side by side, would stretch around the earth nearly nine times.

The newly installed systems run 24 hours a day at the Aberbargoed plant which is staffed by 330 people. Eight assembled stacked petri dishes are produced every 5.5 seconds - representing a significant increase in efficiency and speed of production.

Substantial investment has also been made in the installation of new injection moulding machines for the Sterilin container unit, and tooling for innovative new product development.

Already established as the UK's leading manufacturer of single use laboratory plastics, the new investment is set to consolidate Sterilin's position still further, and underlines their commitment to the development and production of highly competitive products.