The Samuel Grant Group, which includes Samuel Grant Packaging, is delighted to announce that Clingfoil has joined the Group.
Based in Stockport and with £7M of annual sales, Clingfoil are one of the North West’s largest independent distributors of protective packaging materials and stretch film product solutions, providing goods to a wide range of customers across distribution, e-commerce, and manufacturing markets.
By bringing Clingfoil’s manufacturing capabilities into the Group, Samuel Grant will be able to combine their expertise with their own, and actively seek out new innovations and products that can deliver improvements and efficiencies for its customers. The acquisition will allow the team to further develop and research 30% recycled machine and hand stretch film for pallet wrapping. In the light of the recent plastic tax being introduced, the ability to research and develop new films in house will add a huge amount of value to Samuel Grant’s stretch film and pallet wrapping proposition.
Clingfoil was established in 1982 by brothers, Mark and Paul Kenyon, and has grown organically over the years, driven by the brothers’ strong focus on partnerships and customer collaboration, evidenced by a significant number of longstanding relationships within its customer base and an excellent reputation across its networks. The brothers have now reached retirement.
There are an overwhelming number of similarities between the two businesses in terms of culture, family values and the support they give their employees, all 21 of whom will continue to work there when the merge happens. They will also retain their office, warehousing and manufacturing facility. Whilst Paul Kenyon has already retired, Mark will stay within the business to facilitate a seamless transition for the company and conduct a detailed handover of operations.
Andrew Grant, Samuel Grant Group’s Joint Managing Director said: “Given the challenges of international supply that we are finding, adding a UK manufacturing arm to our business will help hugely with continuing to provide our customers with the best possible service. It will also allow us to conduct in-depth research into more environmentally friendly alternatives to virgin polymer stretch wrap, and help us to introduce effective stretch-wrapping solutions with increased recycled content to help reduce the impact of the plastic tax.”
Park Place acted as lead advisor to Samuel Grant Group on the transaction. Ben Peacock, Partner at Park Place, commented: “We are delighted to have advised on bringing these two family businesses together. Samuel Grant will be an excellent home for Clingfoil and alongside their new 30,000 square foot distribution centre in Leeds will support the Grant family’s significant growth aspirations for the group.”
Andrew Bradley and Victoria Innes of Knights provided legal advice to Samuel Grant Group. Funding for the acquisition was provided by NatWest. Dave Wilson from Spinnaker Corporate Finance advised Clingfoil, with Mark Heppell, Sara Bluston and Abigail Gallagher from JMW Solicitors acting on their behalf.
Michael started his journey with Samuel Grant 11 years ago as a Coordinator after working in construction and realising it just wasn’t for him. Through hard work and eagerness to gain knowledge in this new industry his role has since developed to Internal Sales Office Supervisor, which he sees as one of his biggest achievements so far.
Through the support of everyone around him, Michael has progressed massively during his time at Samuel Grant and has attained a great amount of knowledge in an industry he originally knew very little about.
When we asked Michael what his favourite things about working at Samuel Grant are, here is what he had to say:
“I love the diversity of what we get involved with, we work with many industries from heavy industries to home furnishings. It’s great to create different solutions for our customers which keeps me very interested.”
When talking about the future of Samuel Grant and of packaging as a whole, Michael said:
“I can’t wait to carry on being part of a team that continues to innovate. Everyone wants to go greener at the minute with their packaging. This is something we are going to continue to focus on so we can find solutions for our customers and concentrate on taking new environmentally aware products to market. At Samuel Grant we have the experience and resources to achieve this ahead of our competition.”
Lastly, Michael would encourage anyone considering a role in packaging to go for it because of how interesting it can be. It provides a challenge and a variety of things to do day in, day out – “it isn’t repetitive at all!”
The future of pallet wrapping is 30% recycled – but not today
News of the Government’s forthcoming Plastic Packaging Tax has attracted criticism and praise in equal measure. While some – including Samuel Grant – see it as a commendable move towards more sustainable practices, it’s important not to overlook the bigger picture.
A good example is Stretchfilm – a wrapping plastic used to stabilise pallets for logistics. Samuel Grant specialises in recommending the most environmentally sustainable wrapping materials for clients, such as Samson Nano film.
This is a high-performance film designed to reduce overall plastic consumption and reduce the carbon footprint.
However this material does not contain the 30% recycled plastic required to avoid the new Plastic Tax and we need to explain why this remains the most environmental and cost effective way to wrap pallets.
High performance stretchfilms are manufactured using only the highest performance extrusion equipment, with the highest grades of virgin polymer. Unfortunately even the purest recycled material available today could not be processed by this machinery without causing damage.
This means that in order to include recycled material into stretchfilm you must use lower performance machinery that can cope with the contamination in the recycled polymer.
The end result is a stretchfilm containing 30% recycled material and 70% virgin polymer that has 50% lower performance than our Samson Nano film.
In other words, in order to use the 30% recycled material to wrap pallets you will not only consume more plastic but you will even consume more virgin plastic.
By using extra virgin polymer and valuable recycled polymer in greater quantities the increased costs are far more than the £200 saved by avoiding the tax.
So with such a negative message about recycled stretchfilm why do Samuel Grant Group strongly support the Plastic Packaging Tax?
1. Firstly the tax and the resultant increase in the value of waste plastic will take waste from landfill and introduce it into the recycling stream.
2. We are adding many plastic based products into our range that do benefit from the inclusion of recycled polymer such as polythene bags, pallet covers, polythene sheeting, recycled strapping and many more.
3. Most importantly, the demand for high grade recycled polymer is creating a whole new industry – the chemical recycling industry.
The majority of plastic recycling is currently done by mechanical recycling in the form of sorting, chopping up, washing, pelletising.
The new chemical recycling industry uses various innovative methods to reduce mixed plastic waste into the precursors for polymerisation – it turns plastic back into an equivalent to Oil.
The BBC have a good article on this here:-
The world’s first ‘infinite’ plastic – BBC Future
A good example of this is the new Recycling Technologies plant in Perth.
Innovate UK invests £1.2 million in chemical recycling technology | Resource Magazine
For now, the optimum environmental choice is to take advantage of high performance virgin films to reduce the amount of plastic used, resulting in minimum CO2 emissions and of course recycling the waste film into other plastic products.
When the plastic chemical recycling industry is working at scale Samuel Grant will be the first to bring 100% recycled high performance films to the market.
In the meantime our advisers are on hand to give the best possible advice to continue to get goods to their destination in perfect condition, using options that focus on performance, the least possible environmental impact, as well as advising on the best way to recycle virgin materials.
Samson Nano are looking forward to exhibiting at Intralogistex on stand 212 this year. It’s firmly cemented as the favourite show of the year and we’ve missed it!
So what’s new? Well, having been at the very forefront of pallet wrapping technology since its launch in 2013, hence winning the Queen’s Award for Innovation, the Samson Nano’s ethos is to keep it simple.
Aside of the simplicity of the costing model, where all the film, machine, servicing and maintenance and ongoing involvement of the Samuel Grant Packaging experts are all included in a fixed price per wrapped pallet, the controls are kept simple too. Trained specialists do a full analysis of the pallets that are needing to be wrapped, and pre-set the machine stopping any risk of human error or override.
In a time when polymers are at an all-time high cost-wise, and the environmental impact of plastic use is under more scrutiny than ever before, using the smallest possible amount of film to wrap pallets and have goods arrive at their destination in perfect condition has never been more important. By analysing the weight, height and dimensions of the pallets, the specialists pre-set (sometimes a variety) of push-button operations, meaning the machine always works at optimum capability whilst using as little film as possible.
The removal of operator judgement saves time, money, wastage and reduces any risk of badly wrapped pallets causing the damage of goods in transit. The Samuel Grant team take everything into account: weight, size, height, pre-stretch, speed of carriage, rotation speed and reinforcement banding. Nothing is left to chance. Grant’s remain fully involved on a daily basis, monitoring for any changes or issues – failed wraps aren’t paid for by the customer. This commitment is unique to the Samson Nano. The film is perfectly matched to the machines, which even re-orders more itself when needed.
When polymer and film was cheap, Samson Nano was the best option. With price increases coupled with the introduction of the £200 plastic tax, there has never been a better solution. In addition, the heritage of Samuel Grant Packaging’s 130 years in business and their impeccable reputation amongst suppliers means they have maintained a reliable supply chain throughout this year’s shortages, which haven’t affected their clients.
Samson Nano offers a one-stop-shop turnkey pallet wrapping service, backed up by unrivalled levels of expertise, a simplicity that can’t be matched, and an ongoing obsession with reducing carbon footprint by using and wasting as little film as possible.
www.samuelgrant.co.uk/wrapping
Samuel Grant Packaging are delighted to announce the launch of the Samson Nano Slingshot, which makes their pallet testing laboratory the only EUMOS certified centre for horizontal pallet load security testing in the UK.
This type of pallet stability testing machinery is already making an impact in Mainland Europe, but the Slingshot is the first of its kind to be installed in the UK and unique to Samuel Grant Packaging. The Samson Nano Slingshot replicates the inertia of a vehicle and whether the load will potentially displace. The machine can initially test at 0.1G and work up to the EUMOS standard of 0.8G. From the pallet data entered, the maximum deformation of the load is calculated to create a pass or fail.
Revered in the transit packaging industry for their own pallet wrap system the Samson Nano, for which the company received a Queen’s Award for Innovation, the investment in the Slingshot machine seemed an obvious progression for the company. Pallet stability and safety are crucial to manufacturers, who not only want their goods to reach their destination in perfect condition, but also need to keep their warehouse teams, logistics operations and the wider public, safe from displaced loads.
EUMOS is the European Safe Logistics Association, of which Samuel Grant Packaging are proud members. EUMOS are aiming to reduce the number of fatalities to Zero by 2050 instilling safer working practices throughout the supply chain and have created standards which are industry recognised. By using the Samson Nano Slingshot, Samuel Grant Packaging can guarantee compliance with the EUMOS:40509 2020 safety standards.
Julia Allen, Managing Director of Samuel Grant Sheffield said, “We are proud to be part of EUMOS and offer the Slingshot in the UK to provide the highest safety possible to clients’ loads tested to EUMOS:40509 2020 standards. Not only does this offer peace of mind in getting goods delivered in an ‘as despatched’ condition, but also helps logistics companies and manufacturers avoid the cost and damage to reputation associated with claims or governing body investigations if loads are shed or damaged.”
Lidia Maestre, from Safe Load Technologies who supply the machine, said: “ Safe Load Testing Technologies is member of the EUMOS association to support research and contribute to the development of new standards and test methods related to cargo transport safety. Being members of the main associations and research groups such as EUMOS, ISTA, IAPRI or CEN is part of Safe Load’s contribution to society. Safe Load Testing Technologies provides innovative packaging optimization and validation solutions to leading companies, such as Samuel Grant, to provide safer and optimized packaging solutions for their customers.”
For more information, watch our video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m-JQJwAJsBM&t=73s or visit www.samuelgrant.co.uk/test
You can also read more on the official EUMOS website: https://eumos.eu/the-uks-only-eumos-approved-pallet-stability-testing-centre/