In our latest sponsor profile, we chat to Eleanor Gray who heads up the new Kite Packaging logistics and warehousing facility on Follingsby Park in Gateshead.
Kite Packaging, an employee-owned business, is an EMCON silver sponsor and is actively looking to grow its North East customer base.
Tell us more about Kite Packaging
The company was founded in 2001 by some of the industry’s most talented people and from the moment Kite Packaging was founded, it was established as an employee-owned business.
Over the past 18 years the business has grown organically – our turnover now stands at £80m and we are now the premier packaging supplier in the UK.
We provide industrial packaging solutions, basically everything inside and outside of the box across a range of market sectors and have the expertise to provide large users with bespoke packaging.
We deliver unique value-added services to assist in driving out costs in our customers’ packing operations and help them to be more environmentally friendly.
The North East is the seventh Regional Distribution Centre you’ve opened. Tell us more about your decision to expand into the region.
Our Regional Distribution Centres across the country were performing particularly well, but our most northern facility was in Rotherham and therefore we have expanded our regional presence to support our growing customer base in North East.
We believe location is crucial in being able to provide unbeatable levels of service and we therefore looked at opening a facility that could enable us to tap into the vast business community within the region and from October last year we started planning how and where we would do that.
We chose Follingsby Park in Gateshead for its location, within two miles of Nissan and accessible by both major road links to support the entire North East region. The facility also gives us the option to expand our footprint if growth happens the way we’d like it to.
You opened your facility in July. How is it going?
Very well. Now having the infrastructure in place, it has certainly provided our customers with the confidence that they are in safe hands and our sales momentum has accelerated as a result having secured significant long-term contracts.
One of our unique selling points within our North East facility is that we have three field-based packaging technologists with key specialisms including corrugated design, load retention and in-the-box solutions. This means if our customers have a packaging issue, we can be on site very quickly to help them solve it. It is really valuable to have the technical expertise based locally.
As we establish ourselves over the coming months, we will be recruiting to further grow the team, including field sales, commercial and warehousing.
What’s your target market/sector?
Large industrial customers including automotive manufacturers, companies within the aerospace and defence sectors, food & drink manufacturers and those with general fulfilment requirements.
You’ve come on board as silver sponsor of EMCON. What do you hope to get from the event?
As we’ve not long been in the North East, we’re very keen to let people know we’re here.
We’ve already secured several contracts with companies in the region but know there is so much more we can do, but until people know we’re here growth will be that much harder.
EMCON is the perfect platform for us to showcase our mobile test facility with our team of packaging technologists on hand to demonstrate a variety of the latest solutions.
We look forward to welcoming new customers on board.
For more information visit kitepackaging.co.uk and come and visit them at stand H32.
