EDITOUR PETplanet Insider Vol. 23 No. 01+02/22 www.petpla.net 16 Tour Sponsors: household, industrial and agrichemical products. Its geographical focus is on the UK and Ireland at present. We met on 13 December 2021, the second anniversary of Chris Phelan’s appointment as CEO. The immediate past two years have seen a lot of changes in structure and direction. Stability and viability The objective is for First Circle to be a profitable operation and it is not intending to go for volume at any price. “The immediate priority was to restabilise the dairy business, which had been operating at a loss, and to get the finances and commercial model under control. One of the first targets was waste. We are interested in growing profitably, rather than building turnover at any cost” said CEO Chris Phelan. “We were seeing 16% waste in production runs,” he continued. “While we can reprocess a lot of our waste internally and reuse this, its costs energy and money, so it was not sustainable.” Waste has been brought down dramatically, to less than six per cent, but Chris isn’t resting on any laurels. The business continues to review its cost base and ensure it manufactures its products in the most cost effective and efficient way. In contrast to the decision to focus on domestic markets it has scoured the world for raw material suppliers, both to ensure security of supply and to address cost issues. This was bound to happen, as part of the strategic expansion into new markets, but Covid-related disruptions highlighted vulnerabilities within the supply chain – the company had only two main suppliers when it was acquired by Greybull – and threw into sharp relief those businesses that wanted to work collaboratively over the longer term, and those with narrower horizons. Expansion into PET – from a low base “Our products have previously been exclusively HDPE and prior to the acquisition the business had been totally focused on the dairy sector,” he said. “We are reviewing the current machine landscape in the factory to enable us to operate more efficiently, along with installing new machinery and equipment – some engineers from ADS (Acme Drinktec Solutions, an Indian single-stage mould manufacturing company) have been on-site supporting the installation of new toolsets, which will be totally dedicated to PET bottles.” PET is currently a small proportion of First Circle’s overall bottle output but it is currently engaged in a big programme of investment. The first PET bottles are scheduled to roll off the new machinery in January 2022, so there was a buzz of urgency and focus about the place. ADS was selected in preference to other suppliers because of its quality and speed of delivery time. From a complete standing start, First Circle expects PET to reach over five per cent of total output during 2022. The first customer to engage with the new line is MyFabulosa, based in the north-west of England, which makes a range of ethical and vegan household cleaning, laundry and air freshening products. The packages First Circle is making for them are heavier than for food or beverage, which is appropriate for a container that will be handled a lot. They have a high-gloss, glass-like finish, and contain around 30% rPET. Recycled material is not a new thing for the business; it has been heavily involved in rHDPE for some years, initially introducing it in 2007, into milk bottles it supplied to Marks & Spencer. First Circle is fully dedicated to single-stage production of bottles. Its raw material is HDPE pellets (and a rising proportion of PET), with a finished bottle at the end. It is not involved in preforms at all. Realigning the factory floor Greg Ward led us on a tour of the factory floor. The facility is spread across three adjacent units in an industrial estate on the outskirts of Newport Pagnell. Its main machinery suppliers are Nissei ASB; Nissei PET single stage, Magic and Uniloy EBM. The Magic EBM all-electric large capacity HDPE machines will mostly be dedicated to large industrial packaging containers. Building One houses its EBM Uniloy machines. Finished bottles from there go into Building Two, for semiautomatic palletisation into stillages. Building Three previously had eight Uniloy dairy machines. Just two were there during PETplanet Insider’s visit; they are shortly to be relocated to Building One, which will then be purely for dairy packaging. The change in machine landscape will enable more efficient use of space, with an additional 30% of warehousing, within the same footprint. Building Three will then be devoted entirely to non-dairy packaging, with production from its Magic machines repurposed to personal care and household, plus Nissei ASB PET machines. The power and support infrastructure is already in place for further investment. “Plant services and high-pressure system has been installed to support additional Nissei machines. If we could buy some more PET machines we would do so, tomorrow,” Chris explained. “The hydro-electric four-pump system has been removed and is being relocated to the Livingston plant. As well as new machinery, Newport Pagnell has been equipped with new flooring, new lighting and ABB robotic orientation and alignment, trimming and packing equipment.” Return on investment All the investment is already starting to pay off. Production and business management systems are also being upgraded, with a new MMS (manufacturing management system) and ERP scheduled to be installed during 2022. The productivity improvements have been pretty immediate and quite significant. “The business has gained real traction over the past 24 months and this continues with it moving into the PET space, although we still have a way to go in delivering our long-term strategy,” Chris Phelan concluded. www.fi rstcircle.group
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