This Maybole-based company is on the road to becoming more environmentally friendly!

Written on behalf of South Ayrshire Ambition Programme.

Tucked away in the Redbrae area of Maybole, a team of over thirty Interpak workers have been making presentation packaging fit for a king!

Half a million beautifully presented boxes made their way to the King’s Warrant Holding medallist for award to Service personnel to commemorate King Charles's coronation. This was under the King’s express wishes that the boxes be environmentally fit for purpose and made in the UK.

Fulfilling this commitment without fault is just one of the many accolades under the Interpak roof, a company where FSC accreditation is the latest to appear on the wall.

Interpak has been a staple part of Maybole’s industrious landscape for over fifty years. American founders, the Kilmartin family, were considering Southern Ireland or the West of Scotland for their business extension plans in 1967 and Maybole won the day.

Now under the impressive leadership of CEO Alan Garry, Interpak continues to manufacture bespoke packaging products for jewellery, coins and metal products, is a supplier to The Royal Mint and exports to over 25 countries in the EU and beyond.

Alan had previous experience of support from Business Gateway and made contact again at the right time for Interpak. With the company moving toward more cardboard and paper products and some significant investment planned, this initial contact led to a generation of lots of ideas honed down to some specific opportunities via South Ayrshire Council’s Ambition programme.

Interpak went on to receive support under South Ayrshire Council’s Ambition To Grow programme offering training with the Scottish Manufacturing Advisory Service (SMAS). Training topics included lean awareness, process flow map, workplace organisation and visual management.

In addition, Interpak received an Ambition Productivity Grant allowing the team to order a single pass digital printer. Not only will the printer print direct to packaging, replacing a manual time consuming process, but it also replaces the non-recyclable foil process with that of full colour soluble inks, making each piece of packaging recyclable and therefore better for the environment.

Alan was keen to point out that communication with his Business Advisor Lorna had been ‘phenomenal’ and that the support had been a catalyst for improvement.

“The support we received through the South Ayrshire Ambition programme has initiated a speedier investment to our Maybole production facility from our US head office. Furthermore, the highly beneficial lean training we received would just not have been possible without Ambition. This will make a real difference to the way we work”

Continuing upon the progress achieved so far the Interpak ambition now is for the company to transition further towards an efficient environmentally friendly UK based product and we wish them all the very best!

This case study was written on behalf of https://www.ambitionprogramme.co.uk/