Launched 1 July, the new Carton Board division will have Townsend’s son, Michael, as head of sales.
The Townsends became tightly linked with Denmaur in late 2020, when the £100m-plus turnover group took on Townsend Board as exclusive agents, effectively bringing the company into the fold as a de facto division.
Under the new arrangement, both Townsends have become employees of Denmaur: Clive at the head of the Carton Board division, and Michael as head of sales for both the Carton Board division and Denmaur’s bespoke board service, Reel Fast.
After four years as agents, it made sense to formalise the arrangement and give the Townsends the free access to suppliers and customers that being an employee would allow, according to Danny Doogan, Denmaur’s marketing and sustainability director.
“We knew we’d see benefits for the supply chain and customers to actually have them in as employees, and they felt the same way,” he explained.
“The timing made sense for us, too, for our Reel Fast division [launched in late 2023], which is geared up towards board products.”
Denmaur’s Reel Fast service delivers customised sheet sizes of paper and board from Denmaur reel stocks within five days of ordering, and is aimed at converters needing bulk orders of unusual stock sizes, something that Doogan said was increasingly common.
“Whereas in commercial print, most things work off the SRA or A4-sheet size, sustainable packaging is often all about smart design – so you’re reducing the size of packaging, and that dictates more bespoke sheet sizes.
“It just made total sense for us to highlight the Carton Board division along with the Reel Fast division, it’s terrific timing,” Doogan said.
“The campaign against single-use plastics and P-line boards is only going to gather more momentum, and it’s opening up more space for paper fibre to come in and solve those problems.”
To celebrate the board division’s foundation, Denmaur has added a new stock to its Reel Fast cartonboard offering, Formakote Spectra, as exclusive UK distributor.
FSC-certified, the new stock is a food-grade coated kraft-back hard-sized board, manufactured by the Whakatane mill in New Zealand, suitable for can and bottle packaging, and suitable for chiller and freezer end-use applications.
Clive Townsend said: “I’m delighted that Whakatane has chosen us as their UK distributor. We recognized an opportunity for this grade in the UK, and as a Reel Fast product, it fits perfectly with our strategy.”
Michael Townsend added that multiple orders had already been processed and delivered: “Building a Reel Fast portfolio revolutionizes the cartonboard market by offering guaranteed products in any size with a minimum order quantity of 500kgs, all in a fraction of the time typically required for mill orders.”
He continued: “With this exceptional level of service and high-quality products such as Formakote Spectra, I am excited about the tremendous potential for expanding the Denmaur brand into the cartonboard market.”
While the stock is milled in New Zealand, transportation of paper and board as a reel is more carbon efficient than transporting it as palletised stock, according to Doogan; Denmaur likewise offers clients carbon emissions data for all stocks, and offers Carbon Balancing through the World Land Trust (WLT). It has sold more than 200,000 tonnes of Carbon Balanced Paper since its partnership with WLT in 2016.
