The company
Polyprint was founded in 1988 by Jonathan Neville and Brian Pitcher. Today the company employs 55 staff, and is a leading printer of mailing films and envelopes, as well as packaging for the food industry and other sectors. Its commitment to the environment is one of the key things the company prides itself on. Environ-mental initiatives include working to solve the problem of polythene waste not being recycled by local authorities by recycling customers’ polythene waste themselves, pioneering thinner films to cut down on resources used and the impact of transportation, and recycling other companies’ waste inks.
The aim
For a long while, Norwich-based Polyprint’s main clients were publishers wanting to package their magazines, along with promotional leaflets, supplements and free gifts, in polythene bags. But when recession really began to bite in 2010, Polyprint found that less and less of this type of work was coming its way.
"Some magazines were going out of business while others were having difficulties finding advertising," says managing director Jonathan Neville. "They were sometimes amalgamating with another magazine or cutting back on promotions, and a lot of magazines went into using unprinted
polythene."
Neville realised, then, that the business would have to add another string to its bow if it was to weather the financial storm. And most lucrative to branch into by a long stretch was food packaging, an area which Polyprint had already dabbled in, although only to a limited degree.
The method
Polyprint’s initial plan of attack was to start processing work from other printers who needed overflow capacity. As a lot of this work was food packaging, the company quickly got a feel for what was involved with this sector, and decided that more lucrative than completing work outsourced from other printers, would be to deal directly, if possible, with those commissioning food bag
printing.
"We didn’t want to be working for other printers because there are too many people in the chain taking a cut, so we began to work very closely with the company Four04 Packaging, which has a huge presence in the market, producing food packaging that ends up in the supermarkets," explains Neville. "To move into food packaging and not spend years building up a client-base, it was necessary for us to work with someone who was already in that market."
Of course, printing materials that preserve the quality and, most importantly, sanitary condition, of food, is a whole different ball-game to wrapping magazines. The company had to embrace a whole new way of working, reports Neville, to achieve a British Retail Consortium (BRC) food safety standard and make this venture a success.
"We already had ISO 9001 and 14001 and those are incredibly difficult to get so working towards achieving another standard wasn’t too onerous for us," says Neville. "But for someone new to these kinds of accreditations it might be difficult, because everything has to be documented in a huge way and it’s been a massive culture change."
"Everybody has to wear overalls and hair nets or a cap," he adds, revealing that this took some getting used to for some of the guys. "We then can’t have shutter doors open, we’ve got to make sure that we have full records on rodent control and have bait boxes inside and out, and that we have electrocutors for insects in case one ever happens to get in."
So to achieve this rigorous BRC standard, Polyprint enlisted the help of an external consultant, and Neville would suggest that anyone going through a similar kind of revamp does the same. "I would definitely advise getting a consultant in, because they know what they’re doing and can help with things like writing manuals," he says. "It’s like a good driving instructor who knows the examiners as well and so can tell you what they’re looking for. Not using a consultant is like trying to go through a driving test without having had any lessons whatsoever."
The result
Branching into food packaging has proved vital in ensuring Polyprint has continued to thrive, reports Neville. Although turnover has stayed static for the last couple of years, this does not reflect the fact that the amount of work being processed has actually increased dramatically, but this extra revenue is being offset by volatile and, of late, escalating polythene prices.
"The amount of food packaging we process varies month by month, but this month it has made up around 50% of our business," reports Neville. "We knew that if we didn’t move forward we wouldn’t have sufficient work to fill all of our machines. And we didn’t want to contract as a company, we wanted to expand, and that’s exactly what has happened."
The speed with which Polyprint’s kit line-up is growing is testament to how branching into food packaging has not only ensured the survival but expansion of the business.
"We put in a bag-making machine back in 2010 which went in ostensibly for the mailing industry, but is now used for manufacturing bread bags in a big way and we now also have a second machine and that’s producing bread bags at a rate of about five a second," says Neville, adding that the firm has just switched from a double to a triple shift system to cope with demand. "And we invested in a new press in 2010 to help us cope with the extra workload," he adds.
But the most impressive marker of the success of Polyprint’s foray into food, says Neville, is the fact that kit has been installed to develop new innovations in the food packaging field. Neville explains that, as part of Polyprint’s flourishing relationship with customer Four04, the firm has entered into a partnership with this client whereby they have invested jointly in new kit to develop and test out a new form of laser-perforated packaging.
"We’ve done some R&D into new food packaging materials but we’ve also done a joint venture with Four04, which is for a laser perforation unit," reports Neville. "The new materials we’ll be developing on that are mainly to do with bags that have holes of about 70 microns perforated on them, to let water from produce expiration out while not letting too much oxygen in. The laser unit will configure holes designed for a particular product, to suit the fact that potatoes, for instance, let out different amounts of water depending on the time of year and what country they’ve come from.
"Several companies do laser perforation but we believe the company we’re working with has got a much better scientific approach to the whole venture and I think that will pay dividends in the end," adds Neville. "We provide our personnel and machinery free of charge on the basis that if this works we’ll get even more business coming our way."
The verdict
Adding food packaging to the Polyprint business model has been key to the business’s survival, says Neville: "If we had not faced up to the situation we would probably only have had sufficient work to fill three out of our five machines. Now we have a huge future opportunity with this company and that’s an opportunity we could not let go by."
But those considering going down a similar route will have to make sure they have the right mindset to make this work, cautions Neville.
"Our enthusiasm is noted more than anything else by the people we deal with," he says. "We’re proactive, which is the attitude Four04 wanted and weren’t getting from the other companies they were dealing with. We’ve taken our innovation mindset forward into food packaging, so it’s not just going and doing what everyone else is doing, because the market continually changes, and you have to stay ahead."
And the nature of the Polyprint model has played a large role in making the venture a success, says Neville. "There are some huge producers out there, but because they’re so big they’re far more cumbersome and it’s more difficult to get things done quickly, whereas because we’re a relatively small company we can be highly responsive and flexible," he says. "So if a supermarket comes along and wants something produced in 25 hours, generally we can do it."
And at the end of the day, the success of this approach is revealed by the amount of food work now coming Polyprint’s way. "We recently exceeded our previous record of how many bags have been processed by our bag-maker in a month, and this month is going to be the biggest throughput of bags by far, probably in the millions," says Neville.
"And we got through really because of our mindset," he reiterates. "We wanted to do it."
COMMENT
Philip Thompson, head of BPIF Business
Our industry is evolving at a fantastic rate with developments in technology opening up new market opportunities and potential customers and improved processes leading to faster turnarounds and delivery. Customers are also evolving and are increasingly looking for bigger and clearer ROI. As a result, companies need to adapt both in terms of investment and management in an effort to keep up with the market and place their business in a position where it is able to address the threats and exploit the new opportunities.
