More than £3 million has been invested in a new manufacturing plant for a northern Lincolnshire business, with 100 more jobs eyed as it aims to double revenues.
Omni-Pac has just opened a new 60,000 sq ft site in Scunthorpe, a third major phase of expansion for the company that started out as Moulded Fibre Products in Flixborough just over a decade ago.
Two buy-outs later and the £18.5 million business is part of a European group, supplying the NHS with sustainable single use equipment, while providing packaging to industrial, horticultural and produce suppliers, as well as a range of niche industries. The UK head office is also moving to the overhauled site on Foxhills Industrial Estate, which offers 26,000 sq ft of production space and equal warehousing.
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Having initially launched in a single unit by the River Trent, it added a neighbouring new-build to accommodate growth, taking it to eight different lines, before the latest addition - first mooted in late 2021. And while it will see lines nine to 12 introduced, with the ninth immediately operational, the scale will allow for much quicker growth with higher volumes and more automation.
James Gallacher, the UK managing director who has overseen more than a decade of development, said: “We are delighted with where we have come from. We still have big ambitions, we are looking to expand further. It is exciting, it is all about sustainability and the circular economy, and we are all about being biodegradable, recyclable and compostable. We have so much to offer as the obvious alternative to single use plastics and expanded polystyrene. There’s just no need for it in the sectors we serve.”
Omni-Pac currently employs 150 people across the sites, less than four piles apart, and in easy reach of its principal raw material supplier, CorrBoard. It takes trimmings, pulping and reforming using its in-house tooling operation on ever-larger lines, before baking in a process that sees a unit a second completed.
Further additions at Foxhills include complete water reclamation and heat and steam reuse.
“I am super proud we are remaining in North Lincolnshire,” Mr Gallacher said. “We could have gone anywhere with this expansion, but we have kept it local, and I’m delighted with that, and happy to create more jobs in Scunthorpe. It is perfectly placed when you think about all the food produced in south Lincolnshire and the fact that one of the NHS’ biggest logistics bases is at Normanton.”
Having been launched by Hertfordshire-based LeisureGrow Group in 2012, it was brought into the Omni-Pac operation in 2020, before Latour Capital swooped in 2021. The UK business sits alongside plants in France and Germany.
Mr Gallacher welcomed key customers and his group chief executive, Pablo Libreros, for the launch, with exports to 50 countries sitting alongside the contract to produce 80 per cent of the NHS’ needs for the likes of bed pans, trays and bowls.
Mr Libreros said the group is investing a further £10 million to increase capacity in the UK, France and Germany, with automation and environmental efficiency at the fore.
“There are not that many companies of our size who can invest so much in so little time,” he said. “It is very much full steam ahead, we’re in growth mode and there is still a lot of space for us to grow organically in the sectors we serve.”
One impressed customer was Ronan Lynch, managing director of Gloucester-based Evesham Specialist Packaging. The company supplies imported and UK-grown fruit and vegetables into major retailers Tesco, M&S and Sainsbury’s.
He said: “What they are producing is first class. They now have phenomenal facilities, with service second to none.”
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