LINPAC was founded in England in 1959 as Lincolnshire Packaging – and now has its global head office in Birmingham. The UK and Ireland is still the Group’s largest region, with a workforce of over 1500.
The core manufacturing divisions operating across the two countries – LINPAC Packaging and LINPAC Allibert – are responsible for the production of plastic food packaging and returnable transit packaging (RTP), respectively. LINPAC Ropak’s rigid plastic containers are also distributed and sold across the region – as they are throughout the rest of Europe.
LINPAC is the UK market leader in the production of both plastic food packaging and RTP equipment.
LINPAC Packaging, which has its worldwide head office at Knottingley in West Yorkshire, has manufacturing facilities for foam moulded food packaging products at Featherstone (Pontefract) and St Helens (Merseyside). The Featherstone facility also produces clear rigid plastic packaging.
In 2008 LINPAC Packaging invested substantially in new thermoforming and extrusion equipment at Featherstone to support the production of its new Rfresh trays. Manufactured from recycled PET (rPET), Rfresh retains the traditional clarity and thermal stability properties of conventional PET packaging – allowing meat, fish and poultry to be kept fresh for up to 10 days in a conventional chilled supply chain. The division is now one of the UK’s largest producers of rPET packaging, but also processes practically every polymer available – including PS, HIPS, OPS, PP, aPET and K-Resin, plus varieties of each of these.
The Group’s second major division operating in the UK and Ireland, LINPAC Allibert, has also invested heavily in the region during 2008 – establishing an automated production facility and opening a brand new state-of-the-art distribution centre at Winsford (Cheshire, UK). Here some 55 machines are responsible for the production of the latest RTP equipment – including the iconic Maxinest tray, plus attached lid containers (ALCs) and bread trays.
As well as the manufacture of RTP, LINPAC Allibert also offers tray washing, tray repair and RTP asset tracking services in the UK. There is a strategically located network of tray washing/repair and RTP asset tracking facilities at Bridgewater, Crewe, Dunfermline and Spalding, plus offices at Stockport, Kinsealy (County Dublin, Ireland), and Birmingham.