EDITOUR PETplanet Insider Vol. 23 No. 06/22 www.petpla.net 24 In-house innovation and ingenuity While other businesses have divested from ‘non-core’ activities, Measom Freer has kept design and toolmaking in-house. It designs its own bottles and even closures, which means that it is well-placed to fulfil customer needs for bespoke packaging. “We use quite a range of materials, including PVC, LDPE, MDPE, HDPE and PET-G – PET with modified glycol, which makes it workable in extrusion and injection moulding,” said Anne Freer, Finance Director. “We’ve managed to source a supply of recycled polypropylene (PP) so we can now make caps with 100% recycled material. The demand for recycled is going up so strongly, with the arrival of the Plastic Packaging Tax in April this year.” PVC is declining in market share although its glassy visual appearance and its resilience in use is still in demand for some cosmetic, personal care and beauty bottles, she explained. Markets and customers Measom Freer’s customers are spread across a number of markets including personal, home and vehicle care, as well as specialist areas such as museums, who use its partitioned boxes for samples; healthcare and pharma laboratories; and hobbies – Anne highlighted some small bottles used for dyes and inks. “We also now make a special postbox bottle, which fits in a thin box that can be posted through a domestic letterbox. That’s been very popular,” she said. Measom Freer manufactures for stock as well as to order. The impact of Covid-19 “When the pandemic hit, the warehouse was pretty full. It was emptied very quickly because of demand for hand sanitiser bottles and other personal and healthcare products,” said Andy Freer, Managing Director (MD). “We found that our customer base expanded very rapidly. Manufacturers of gin, for example, switched to making alcohol-based gel. They all came knocking on our door.” The fact that the company offers bespoke manufacturing meant that it already had the agility to swing over to new products. “Having our own toolmaking capacity is very useful. Our toolmakers are, obviously, right on the spot if there is an issue with any machines. People come to us with some interesting and quite unusual ideas and we are always prepared to try our best,” Anne said. “We have been getting a lot more interest in custom moulding generally and are beginning to see demand for toolmaking come back to the UK, both because of supply chain vulnerability and because they want to produce things more locally. That’s all to the good, for us.” Personal touch and customer care Measom Freer’s customers are brand owners, as well as contract manufacturers. They are predominantly in the UK but there are some in North America and a growing number in the Far East. “I think people come to us because we are very professional and very experienced,” she continued. A lot of the company’s 24 employees (including the management team) have been there for a long time; several started as apprentices. But all the knowledge and experience in the world is nothing without the ability to get the message across. “As a smaller company ourselves, our communications are very good, which means that we are able to give that higher level of customer care. From the moment they make contact with us, through the website or on the phone, we can maintain it, from initial quote to delivery of the finished article.” Recycling and market responsiveness While the Covid-led surge in demand is an exception, Measom Feer was also faced with an ongoing need for higher output. It has stimulated the ongoing reviews of equipment, processes and working practices into a higher gear. “We now use around 40% recycled material and regrind across all our activities,” said Andy. “Some of it is from our waste recovery program, in which we collect our own offcuts and put them back into the process. Unfortunately, that isn’t counted as recycled, for the purposes of the Plastic Packaging Tax.” He could send it off down the road to be reprocessed, bring it back and then include it but Andy does not believe that doing so would be ethical or morally responsible. “However, we can source 100% recyclate for injection moulding and all our products are themselves recyclable.” Talking to customers about recycled materials can be difficult because it can be more expensive to process, can require more energy and there is a lot of checking involved. “We have to be sure that recycled materials are food approved, rather than, say, recycled battery casings,” Anne explained. “We tend to put all our materials through food approval because we make for stock and we don’t know where it may end up.” It’s best to be sure. “Recycled material used to cost a lot more than virgin material but we have seen some genuine reductions,” Andy added. Quality issues are improving, as well. “We are seeing more professional recyclers coming on line, with proper data sheets and backup. They can provide recyclate in pelletised or whatever form we require and with consistent quality but availability remains a problem.”
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