Measham, United Kingdom (PressExposure) October 06, 2010 -- Entry into a new sector
The name change reflects a reconciliation of corporate identity for PPS as earlier this year they made a significant acquisition in Grimsby with the purchase of TFA Box Company.
PPS has built a solid reputation over the past seven years, supplying returnable transit equipment (RTE) to a number of sectors in the food industry, particularly the poultry and meat areas. The company specialises in the "integrated loop" system - in other words they supply customers with packaging such as plastic crates, trays and plastic pallets. When the client packs his products into the plastic crates, before despatch he will enter the volume of crates and pallets and the location to which they are being sent onto Enable, the proprietary online asset tracking system developed by PPS.
PPS then arranges collection of used equipment from the third parties and has it returned to one of its own wash plants (more on this below) where it is checked, washed and made ready to enter the system again. This is the integrated loop system or the "full service option" as PPS refers to it.
The customer pays PPS on a "per trip" cost, and this cost includes rental of the equipment, transport costs for collection and return to base, washing and most crucially the actual management of the pool of equipment. PPS prides itself on its ability to collect almost 100% of its own equipment from users in the field. This is achieved by PPS insisting that everyone who handles its equipment signs a User Agreement that stipulates that their equipment must not be abused, misused or lost and should be made ready for collection by PPS at the earliest convenience.
The upshot of the successful implementation of this system means that the PPS customers are now free to concentrate on their core business, rather than devoting time and resources towards chasing errant plastic crates or plastic pallets. In fact PPS has, in many cases, taken over the role of Equipment Controller from the client, thus freeing up manpower and other resources.
Some years ago, as part of its service offering, PPS opened its first wash plant at Measham in the Midlands. Prior to that they had used third party contract washing companies but eventually the company wanted to take greater control of the service package they provided. A deliberate decision was made at that time to purchase washing equipment with capacity greater than PPS had at the time or foresaw going forward. So, PPS sells this excess wash capacity to food companies who require their returnable equipment such as plastic boxes, plastic trays and plastic pallets washed to the highest hygiene standards. PPS is accredited to ISO 22000 (Safety in the food industry).
PPS will wash equipment on a "one-off" basis, or on short- medium- or long-term contracts and numbers blue chip clients as well as smaller business in its client portfolio. They also offer "custom" washing where the customer specifies his level of cleansing, if labels are to be removed etc.
The Directors of PPS are nothing if not ambitious and they eventually started to look at expansion plans for the business. The Measham site is restricted in terms of space available, both internally and outside and this factor contributed to PPS looking farther afield for the next phase of its development.
Having provided their services extensively to the food industry, PPS wanted to stay in this industry, but looking towards other sectors. So, they decided to look at the fishing industry - an area they knew very little about. The UK fishing and fish processing industry tends to be located in or around Grimsby in Lincolnshire and this was where PPS first started to look. Their first intention was simply to look at setting up a wash plant in Grimsby as their research had shown there was only one other company offering similar services to those of PPS. This was TFA Box Company who had been servicing the local fishing industry for many years, providing plastic crates and plastic boxes on a rental basis, collecting used crates and bringing them back to their site for washing - in other words a similar profile to that of PPS.
It was then that PPS decided that rather than go into competition with TFA, it may be better to make an approach to their Board of Directors to sell the business to PPS and combine the joint resources and talents of the respective management teams. So after a period of negotiation, PPS acquired TFA. However they did not do this with the attention of allowing the business to proceed as before, rather it was acquired with a view to expanding operations into sectors other than the fishing industry.
TFA also had issues with lack of available space for any form of expansion at their Dockside site, and so a new, more spacious factory was found on a modern industrial estate in Grimsby where all the wash equipment from the old TFA site has been relocated. On top of this PPS has installed a large twin lane wash line which will allow them to offer considerably more contract wash services to companies who require this in the surrounding areas. PPS has so far made an investment of around £500k in this new site.
Offering only wash services however is only part of the story - PPS now offers food companies in the region their full service option for plastic crates, plastic boxes and plastic pallets.
As mentioned at the start, as part of the strengthening of the corporate identity, TFA Box Company has now been re-named PPS East Ltd. Further expansions for these plastic pallet experts to other areas of the UK are now under consideration.
Director of PPS Iain McArthur said "We have always been an ambitious business and when we wanted to expand we knew we could either do it completely alone or look for a company with a similar profile and with whom we could work. The TFA acquisition has opened the door to another industry for us and we learn more about the fishing sector every day.
PPS strengths were its operational and logistics management, as well as a very forward-thinking sales and marketing strategy. The Management teams from both sides have merged very well and are working as a real coherent team already. We deliberated about the company name change but eventually decided that we wanted to operate separate plants but essentially with the same identity and shared ethos. Also PPS followed by the geographical suffix will make it simpler to name any future expansion opportunities".
All of the services PPS provide are listed on their website. To find out more about what they offer, you can contact a member of the PPS team by calling 01530 515 333.
PPS is an established company that has many years experience within the Returnable Transit Equipment trade. To see how they can improve the efficiency of your business, visit ppsequipment.co.uk.