Fletcher Insulation is among Australia’s largest manufacturer of insulation and related material. The Australian Sisalkraft company began manufacturing packaging, wall wraps and building membrane products in the 1930’s. In the 1940’s foil was added to the “Sisalkraft” paper, the result of which was ‘Sisalation’ – Fletcher Insulation’s now hugely popular reflective wall wrap product. Shortly afterwards, in the 1950s, ACI Australia started to make glasswool insulation and developed insulation batts, while most of its competitors were still supply granulated rockwool. The ACI advertising campaign of the 1970’s, featuring the Pink Panther, propelled Pink Batts to becoming the well known brand name it is still today.

 

Yet another business, Insulco was established in 1979 and gained market share throughout the 80’s and 90’s with its own branded products - Fat Batts and Vapa-Chek. In 2003, Fletcher Building of New Zealand bought Insulco and in 2005, ACI Insulation, (now named Insulation Solutions) was also acquired. Thus Fletcher Insulation was born, effectively merging several successful brands into one company with good prospects for future success.

 

Fletcher’s were hit hard by the termination of the governments Home Insulation Rebate scheme, which resulted in an unpreceded plummet in demand and a correspondingly vast, nation-wide over-supply of insulation batts. In March 2010, the company suspended operations at its Sydney plant, and in April 2010, announced they would be scaling back production in Dandenong. It would be another 5 year before the Sydney plant would restart batt insulation production again. In 2016 the Victorian plant moved to Scoresby.