Packaged deal

The Canmaker
August 2006

Six months after Impress bought Alcan's Sutton canmaking plant in the UK, Printz Holman went to see how the diverse operations were being integrated into their new owner's strategy

Of the two recent deals signed by Impress - world leader in seafood cans, possibly on the way to becoming Europe's leading aerosol canmaker and chasing Crown for food can ascendancy - buying the plant at Sutton-in- Ashfield in the UK is the more intriguing, though logical nonetheless in that part of the package included a key customer account.

It's had a chequered history covering almost a century and although one of two centres in Europe for making DWI steel food cans, found itself in the hands of Alcan Packaging, the leading flexibles producer and became jokingly known as its World Metal Foodcan Headquarters.

Things are very different now, almost a year since the deal was first hatched, but managing director of Impress Sutton, Tim Clarke, is full of enthusiasm for the change.

"Our previous owners were very supportive," he said, "but they were not canmakers, so we developed and executed our own strategies. To be a part of Impress was a natural progression for our business. We are now part of a major canmaking company and everyone here is delighted by the interest that our new owners have shown.

"I am genuinely pleased by the skill and expertise that exists in the food cans division. It gives us the opportunity to talk about things on a group basis and we can share best practice, which is better for all of us."

Although the DWI food can facility often draws most attention, there are other key elements that are an integral part of the factory. Impress Sutton has 15 lines dedicated to producing decorated cans. These lines make cans for products such as biscuits and teas, as well as cigar containers for Imperial Tobacco.

But although a coming ban in the UK on smoking in public places might hit the cigar containers business, decorative can production is thriving at Sutton, with the company focussing on a number of regular customers with consistent demand.

"Some of the companies that we supply decorative cans to have seasonal and special designs that may be classed as shortruns," said Clarke, "but we do not really cater for companies that are looking for a one-off design for a single project; that is not our market. We produce decorative packaging for dedicated packaging companies and are tied into long-term relationships where we work in partnership with our customers."

Operations at Sutton have been expanding too, with the transfer of equipment from the now-closed Impress plant at nearby Grantham. To avoid lost pro-duction, the company set itself a target of six weeks to strip out the first three-piece line, transfer it to its new home, refurbish it, install new electrics, control panels and safety systems and commission it. The work, which was carried out in-house, was successfully completed a week earlier than planned with the standard of refurbishment exceeding expectations. Sutton now has five three-piece welding lines producing eight height and diameter combinations. These complement three metal decorating and four lacquering lines.

Also on site are five end-making lines, one of which produces peelable foil membrane ends, currently for export to Russia for use on coffee cans. Impress feels that their ease-of-opening has wider market potential on sterilisable food cans. Said Clarke: "I do believe that there is room in the future for this type of device. Although it is a little more expensive, it is much easier to open, is safe and offers the possibility of adding a new dimension to food cans."
But what made the Sutton plant attractive to Impress is its DWI steel food can line and the nearby key customer in the pet food business it supplies. Its existence came almost by chance back in 1977 when Masterfoods, part of the Mars group, was investigating the use of the then-new two-piece DWI cans.
It set up a project team with the newlyformed management at Sutton and with technical help from Krupp in Germany (see story in The Canmaker, December 2005) a new line was running in 1978.

Other pet food manufacturers quickly followed the lead and now DWI steel food cans are also used for a wide range of human foods as well, with Sutton making several million two-piece cans a day to service this market.

The 73mm-diameter cans are produced on a line with a group of CMB bodymakers which feed spray coaters, CMB beaders and flangers before shipping.

By strictly controlling and planning the production process, all but ten percent of the cans supplied to Impress's largest customer are shipped straight to its filling line, without the need for warehousing.

It is an arrangement that works so well, that nobody had ever queried how successful it really was.

"Several years ago we were asked to supply figures regarding quality and late delivery as part of an accounting audit," Clarke said. "When we trawled back through the previous year, we found that of the hundreds of million of components that we had supplied, there had not been a single complaint. Beyond that, nobody could recall when or if there had been one. It was a system that had been put into place with the intention of working and we did not realise just how successful it was until its efficiency was challenged.
"It is not just a question of terminology, it is one of culture," Clarke said. "All of the standards were laid down at the beginning of the relationship, so we knew what was expected and worked to those criteria." It was a philosophy that paid off. Sutton has grown its business in both the pet food and human food markets in the face of market decline.

With Sutton's unusual mixture of three-piece, two-piece DWI and decorative cans, there were those who questioned how it would fit into the Impress group. But although it was a successful operation when Alcan owned it, the very nature of its business meant that it was far removed from that company's core operations.

The change of ownership has been a refreshing change for everyone, drawing the plant into the very heart of a company that sees it as an important part of its structure. Today, the facility not only allows Impress to offer a wider range of products, but it also gives it the opportunity to supply its existing UK operations with can ends that it previously had to import from its plants in Europe. And by retaining the same management team and staff, Impress is able to draw on an expertise that had already proved to be right for the customer base that it inherited.

With the lines from Grantham integrated into the Sutton plant, the challenge is to ensure that the newly-installed equipment runs smoothly. Alongside that is the prime objective of ensuring that those customers previously supplied from Grantham are transferred without any disruption to their businesses and that existing customers are supplied in the usual way.

Once this has been done, Clarke knows that it will not be a case of sitting back and relaxing. "Before we were acquired by Impress, we had to be creative to ensure our survival," Clarke said. "The skills, drive and determination are still here, further encouraged by the enthusiasm of Guy Ducrot [managing director, Impress Food Division].

"We have a wealth of innovative ideas that we are working on and, whereas we could not easily progress these through lack of canmaking R&D facilities, we now have doors open to us. Impress has an excellent R&D establishment at Crosmieres, and we can link into it to ask detailed questions and know that we will get the right answers.

"But Crosmieres is much more than that; it is a catalyst for ideas that are being generated within the group and it offers a two-way flow of knowledge that we have never had before. Impress is really well positioned to move forward into a different arena and we will see some interesting developments in coming years."

Packaging in the blood
Tim Clarke left school at 15 with aspirations to become a professional golfer but realising the quality of the competition at that time, he took a job as a trainee accountant within the fashion industry before moving to a plastics packaging manufacturer in 1986. He later began studying for his accountancy exams and worked for four years in corporate finance with a retail company, before realising that packaging was in his blood. He returned to the industry as commercial director of Lawson Mardon at Sutton in 1992 and has been there ever since, progressing through several changes of ownership to his current position as managing director of Impress Sutton. Although Clarke never turned professional, he remains a scratch golfer and still plays for Nottinghamshire. 

Impress
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