The European Road Show goes British

While the North of England and pretty much all of Scotland and Northern Ireland were ravaged by Storm Arwen – some areas still hadn’t got power back, nearly two weeks later – the weather for my trip to Newport Pagnell in Buckinghamshire, 80 km NW of London, was changeable but reasonably mild. One minute: bright sunshine; the next: rain. It added up to a lot of road spray and a water bottle in my trusty Volvo that needed complete recharging by the time I got back home to Salisbury.

Newport Pagnell, just a few miles from the Formula 1 British Grand Prix’s home at Silverstone race track, was once home to the Aston Martin car company. The first time I visited the town, some years ago, I had to stand on the brakes as a factory engineer walked out into the middle of the main road and stopped the traffic, to allow a trolley carrying an Aston Martin chassis to be pushed across the street, from one part of the factory to the other. Yes, really! Aston Martin has moved on to better things and factories that don’t have main roads running through them!

This time, I was there to visit First Circle Group, whose factory is on the southern outskirts of Newport Pagnell, handily placed for the M1 arterial motorway. I met with Greg Ward, HR Director, and Chris Phelan, CEO. Chris was celebrating his second anniversary in the role on the day we met. It has been an eventful couple of years. As well as Covid and the effects of Brexit to cope with, First Circle has been engaged in restructuring, rebranding and refocusing its business.

Previously known as Nampak, it has a reputation as a specialist supplier of HDPE packaging to the dairy industry. We discussed the reasons for repositioning into PET packaging, as well as HDPE, and the investment that is making it possible. I had a tour round the factory floor that is being rearranged for new machinery, new lines and more efficient production.

It’s a fascinating story; one to look forward to.

Yours

Ruari McCallion
Editor-at-Large