Here are the 20 key facts:
1. We celebrated the 1 year anniversary of our Ready 2 Recycle range of sustainable packaging solutions, including BOPP Woven, Pouch, Flat Bottom, Quad Seal and Paper bags
2. We exhibited at Global Pet Expo in Orlando (Florida) in February, which brought us a successful few days but little did we know what was around the corner
3. We went into lockdown in March due to the pandemic crisis which had now gone global but for us it still meant business as usual, supplying packaging to key food industries
4. Despite the very challenging times, we managed to get through the year without having to make any redundancies or furlough any of our staff
5. Actually 3 new staff joined us in 2020 – Samantha Gill our Purchasing Manager, Sarah Lewis our Social Media Manager, and most recently, Paul Booth our Quality Manager
6. However, we said an emotional goodbye to Kevin Langan and wished him a well-deserved retirement!
7. In May, we were unable to travel to Germany for the Interzoo pet trade show, which got postponed to 2021 in the hope of a better and bigger exhibition
8. Working at home provided some of our team members with a steep learning curve as we remained fully operational with skeleton staff in the office to carry out the day to day activities
9. Case studies are incredibly important for us and we managed to complete 20 case studies this year – a real credit to the team efforts to make sure that projects were launched on time
10. We continued to provide flour, rice and pet food packaging for these essential products despite some challenges with freight
11. Our lead times were still only 12 weeks from order and including transit despite the various Coronavirus restrictions
12. Almost 50 million bags were supplied to all our customers globally across 4 continents
13. We have retained 96% of our customers and gained 12 new accounts
14. Our partner manufacturers never stopped producing bags despite being busier than ever
15. We even on-boarded 1 new supplier to expand our products portfolio
16. More than 20,000 trial bags were tested to validate the product specifications required by our customers
17. Social media platforms became very important tools for our growth again, with 40,000 unique visitors to our website and an increasing number of marketing leads
18. We successfully renewed our BRC accreditation with the top “AA” grade
19. As an international business, we put all the measures in place to be Brexit ready from 1st January 2021
20. Finally, we made a company donation to our charity of the year, Alzheimers Society, and also helped out our local food bank with a contribution to Chelwood Foodbank Plus
We can’t say that it has been easy but it is great to reflect on what we have achieved with the support of our suppliers and customers.
Of course, there is still a long road until going back to some sort of normality but we are ready to help with your new projects and wish you all every success for 2021!
