Caps Cases

INSUSTAINABLE

CapsCases manufacturesqualitycardboardpackagingat competitiveprices anddeliversacrossmuchoftheUK.The companyoffersawiderangeofproducts, includingdrinkspackaging,e-comdelivery boxes,subscriptionpacks,cardboardboxes, RetailReadyPackagingandapatented rangeofarchivestorage solutions.There areavarietyofdigitalprintingandin-house designservicesonoffer,too.TrevorBissett, ManagingDirector,explainedmoreto Hannah Barnett.

According to Caps Cases Managing Director Trevor Bissett, the Covid pandemic and subsequent lockdown had a significant impact on the packaging sector; the requirements that have developed as a result have both driven and enabled the company to develop its sustainable ethos.

“It supported and strengthened a lot of the trends we were already seeing,” he said. “The moving away from the high street towards e-commerce, the push for more branding and on-box advertising, a greater requirement for personalisation and a desire to communicate brand messaging through an enhanced unboxing experience.

“All of these things were accelerated by the events of 2020 tenfold. We jumped from a £20 million business to becoming a £30 million business in two years.” As demand has soared, Caps Cases has seen a 30% increase in the square meterage of boxes and packaging it produces. Mr Bissett stated that the company is targeting sales of £35 million in 2023. A family-run business, Caps Cases is one of the largest independent, multi-site manufacturers of corrugated cardboard packaging in the UK. It was founded in 1982 by Charlie Bissett, Trevor’s father, and his partner Peter Bush. Their forenames make up the ’C’ and ’P’ of Caps Cases, respectively. And the close-knit, family ethos

Managing Director Trevor Bissett

remains. “Currently, 18 of our employees have over 25 years of service with us. That’s over 500 years of combined experience,” said Mr Bissett.

With manufacturing sites in Newmarket, Suffolk, a newly established factory in Northampton and one in Baillieston, near Glasgow, Caps Cases supports customers nationally and locally.

Digital sustainability

The shift towards a modern and sustainable workforce is reflected by the company’s investment in new machinery. In March 2022, Caps Cases became the first business in the world to acquire the EFI Nozomi 14000 LED Digital Corrugated Press, a 1.4-metre-wide, ultra-high-speed digital press designed for mainstream,

high- volume packaging production. The newly launched single-pass UV LED inkjet press brings enhanced productivity, reliability, value and flexibility to the industrial packaging segment.

“It’s helped us produce high-quality printed packaging digitally, so the turnaround speed is much faster than via older technologies,” explained Mr Bissett. “You don’t have to wait for printing plates, there’s no need for colours to be signed off; it’s enabled us to move straight from being sent a digital file electronically to printing directly onto the box. There’s no wastage, and so in that respect, it’s also a more sustainable process.”

That is not the only thing about the Nozomi 14000 that makes it an environmental step forward. “We don’t have to

buy in printing plates, and it’s very efficient in terms of its power consumption,” Mr Bissett said. “The ink is cured via an LED lamp, meaning our machine consumes a fraction of the power of others that are currently available.

“It’s helped us become more effective with our older equipment, which we now use to manufacture the higher volume elements of our work mix. It takes away the pain of spending hours setting up highquality graphic work on our flexo printing presses and allows our cus tomers to change design from one run to the next with no extra costs associated.”

Physical sustainability

Another way the company is making its mark as a sustainable business is with its focus on bespoke packaging, which means using the minimum amount of material, avoiding shipping fresh air and doing

away with the need for unnecessary void fillers used for filling wasted space inside the pack.

“Instead of pigeonholing customers into something that is off the shelf, we are able to design packaging to fit the product they’re trying to sell,” explained Mr Bissett “We try to make sure that everything we do is sized suitably and we encourage customers not to buy huge inventories of one particular size.”

Alongside that, Mr Bissett stressed that maintaining a sustainable supply chain is a key facet of Caps Cases’ company ethos. “All of our suppliers use FSC certified materials. And we’re FSC certified ourselves. We’re also ISO 140001 accredited, and members of the ethical trading platform Sedex,” he said.

The company’s established presence in the packaging industry means it can take a discerning approach to its key

Production Director Mark Bissett

partner ships. “We are one of the largest buyers of corrugated sheet board in the country,” Mr Bissett said. “As an independently owned company, we’re able to choose who we work with to an extent We’ve worked very closely with our suppliers over a long period of time. We are very loyal to them, and I think we have excellent relationships with them all because of that.”

Practical sustainability

There are other small, practical, steps the company is taking to become more sustainable. For example, by switching the type of waste compactor it uses to a larger one, the number of waste collections has reduced by 50%.

As Caps Cases has sites across the UK, the amount of mileage its lorries cover is high, (320,000 miles in 2021), so the

company has taken steps to decrease that, too. “We’ve invested in a case machine in our Scottish factory, to make the prod ucts the customers in Scotland buy locally As a result, we’ve taken more than 100 artic loads that were previously travelling from Newmarket to Scotland off the road,” said Mr Bissett.

The company is also pioneering renewable ink, which replaces solvents with plant-based alternatives. “We actually mix our own inks on site and treat all of the waste back to water, so we’re having minimal by-products collected from the site as a result of that,” Mr Bissett said.

Working in close partnership with the local authority, the Newmarket site now has a total of 1,802 solar panels affixed to its roof. This generates 30% of the overall power consumption for Caps Cases.

While the present seems to be going smoothly, what does the future have in store for this innovative, sustainable company?

“We want to establish ourselves as a point-of-sale provider with our new digital technology and continue to grow in the e-commerce and subscription packaging sectors, whilst still providing high- quality products and an excellent level of attention to detail and customer service,” Mr Bissett reflected.

“Personally, I think I’ll always enjoy finding new ways of doing old things. Then it’s all about trying to make sure that our team has a clear sight of our shared objectives and goals, which we hope helps keep everyone here engaged and motivated. If we can continue to do this sustainably, then I believe the future is bright for Caps Cases.” n

Commercial Director Jamie Bissett