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 addition, through LINPAC Recycling the division operates a major plastics recycling plant at Allerton Bywater (Leeds). This is the largest such facility in the UK – processing more than 34,000 tonnes of waste plastic a year. The division works with local authorities across the country to provide plastics recycling collection schemes.
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 RTP, other products and services offered by LINPAC Allibert in the UK include:
- Production an marketing of recycling bins, street furniture and other rotationally moulded products (LINPAC Environmental)
- Production and marketing of agricultural and water storage products (Paxton, part of LINPAC Environmental)
- RFID design, development and testing (Intellident, part of LINPAC Services)
- Tray washing, tray repair and RTP asset tracking services (Logtek, part of LINPAC Services)
- Printing on metal packaging (LINPAC Metal Decorating)
- Production and marketing of pallet racking and shelving systems (LINPAC Storage Systems).
Production facilities for LINPAC Environmental, LINPAC Metal Decorating and LINPAC Storage Solutions are at Corsham, Gwent and Milton Keynes, respectively. There is also 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.