James Cropper, a global market leader in advanced materials, luxury packaging and paper products,
has announced a strategy to accelerate growth across the Group.
Since the appointment of Steve Adams as Chief Executive Officer in August 2022, the Company has
made significant progress in repositioning James Cropper to capitalise on growth opportunities within
its core and emerging end-markets. The fast-growing renewable energy and decarbonisation markets
are creating an ever-greater need for novel and high-performance materials, while sustainable fibres,
and low, or zero, carbon processing are driving growth within paper and packaging.
In order to position the company to accelerate growth, the Group is today announcing three strategic
changes:
- Brand profile: reorganisation and renaming.
- A step change of investment in innovation and systems.
- Streamlining the Paper division to improve productivity and margins.
Brand profile: reorganisation and renaming
The Group will invest in the James Cropper brand by reorganising itself from three separate divisions
(James Cropper Paper, Technical Fibre Products and Colourform) into four market-facing segments,
unified under the Group name:
James Cropper Creative Papers
The Group’s historic business supplying specialist paper markets with a world leading range
of coloured and embossed papers, and unique sustainable fibre options including
CupCycling.
James Cropper Luxury Packaging
Incorporating James Cropper’s multi-award winning Colourform moulded pulp innovation
and the packaging papers made for the world’s leading luxury brands.
James Cropper Technical Fibres
Core technical fibre markets including aerospace, defence, construction and industrial.
James Cropper Future Energy
Incorporating TFP Hydrogen, and including materials and products for fuel cells, carbon
capture, batteries and wind.
The above segments will be managed under two Managing Directors covering paper products and
advanced materials respectively.
The new brand strategy positions the Company across an exciting spectrum from heritage to cutting
edge and leverages the brand value of the James Cropper name across all markets and geographies.
This will also generate a more focused operation and streamlined cost base with greater collaboration
and sharing of functions across the Group.
The reorganisation and renaming will be delivered within the remainder of this calendar year.
Investment in innovation and systems
The strategy will realise greater synergies across the Group, supported by a multi-million pound
investment in the next three years that will simplify processes and systems and combine Group
functions. In turn this will enable smarter access to data and inform leaner working practices allowing
the Group to operate more efficiently.
To drive future growth through innovation, the Board has made a senior level appointment with the
move of Patrick Willink to the new position of Chief Innovation Officer, starting immediately. Patrick
will lead a Centre for Innovation at James Cropper, bringing a wealth of experience to this role, as
former Paper Operations Director, Group Chief Technology Officer, and most recently Managing
Director of Colourform, the Group’s award-winning luxury packaging division.
The Innovation team will be scaled up to play a critical part in ensuring James Cropper will meet the
anticipated demands of future markets and customers, whether technical, environmental or
economic, to drive costs down and volumes up. Activities will include: delivering ambitious plans to
decarbonise the Group’s operations; making ever greater use of recovered fibres; and helping to
create technology roadmaps in emerging markets such as green hydrogen, fuel cells and carbon
capture.
Streamlining the Paper division
Another key element of the Group’s strategy will be significant changes to the Paper division. In order
to create a more resilient and higher margin business that is less exposed to the multiple headwinds
it has faced for many years, the Group is proposing to reduce the number of paper machines in
operation from four to three, with two machines anticipated to be in production at any one time.
Together with the reorganisation and streamlining of Group functions and related investment (as
outlined above), this will lead to a change in overall headcount, and accordingly the Company has
today submitted an advance notification of redundancies, with a 90-day consultation period
commencing with immediate effect. Overall, approximately 10% of employees will potentially be
affected, predominantly within the Paper and Group functions.
James Cropper Chief Executive Officer, Steve Adams said: “We’re a purpose-driven business built on
strong values and announcing potential job loses is not a decision taken lightly. We will work
collaboratively with our employees, unions, and representatives throughout this process. Change is
difficult yet it is essential to ensure the sustainability and growth of James Cropper.
“Our strategic realignment will drive margin improvements by bringing greater focus on our customers
and allow us to take better advantage of our size and remain agile and dynamic in our markets.
Combined with our wealth of manufacturing knowledge, sustainability alternatives and pioneering
abilities we will strengthen our position across multiple sectors as the preferred global partner of
choice.”
Commenting on the Strategy Update, James Cropper Chairman, Mark Cropper added: “The next few
years should see breakout growth in many areas as we truly live our purpose and help the world shift
to a low carbon economy in better balance with nature. Nevertheless, we have become increasingly
aware that this will not be achieved without more robust and efficient systems, greater collaboration
across our different businesses, and a resizing of our Paper business to make it more consistently
profitable and sustainable.”
Website: www.jamescropper.com