Q & A with Adam Taylor of Taylor Packaging

Founded in 1973, Taylor Packaging is a leading provider of intelligent and innovative bespoke packaging solutions. A family-owned business, the company prides itself on its industry knowledge, resources and facilities in order to produce the right packaging for its customers.

Here, Adam Taylor, managing director of Taylor Packaging, talks to Horizon Works about the highlights and challenges of 2021, reflecting on lessons learned and changes in industry trends, whilst also providing insight into his vision for 2022.

How would you summarise 2021? 

It was a difficult yet successful year for Taylor Packaging, as we faced many industry challenges throughout the year, such as problematic supply issues and rising costs of raw materials.

Despite the forementioned challenges, we saw the business grow throughout 2021 with the majority of our customers doing well. At the beginning of the year, we were unsure if this was going to be possible, particularly when the January lockdown was put in place in the UK. Therefore, it feels like a great achievement to have overcome these challenges and to still have achieved business growth.

Is there a business lesson you’ve learnt in 2021? 

With so many external factors affecting businesses within the industry, we have learnt the importance of regularly reviewing business costs in detail, such as the cost of raw materials, in order to stay up to date with the latest changes and keep trading successfully throughout the year.

This past year has highlighted the importance of being flexible and the ability to diversify and adapt to meet our customers’ needs and the ever-changing marketing landscape. For example, with the demand for e-commerce packaging continuing to surge, we increased our product portfolio, this involved creating a new e-commerce category on our website and the introduction of new products such as moulded pulp paint tin fitments.

What industry changes or demands did you witness in 2021?

As well as seeing raw material prices increase significantly, we also experienced longer lead times on supply and deliveries due to a number of global factors, including increased demand for materials such as wood and paper and container shipping delays.

At the beginning of the year there was also a shortage of LDPE, which is used to manufacture a wide range of products, including grocery bags, plastic wrap and film, flexible packaging materials, and injection moulded parts. This made planning and purchasing more difficult as we had to plan much further ahead in order to manage stock and supply of our range of products.

What role does marketing play in your business?

Our marketing strategy is in line with our objective of further raising our profile as a leading provider of intelligent and innovative bespoke packaging solutions to the North East of England. This strategy drives all our marketing and ensure it helps us meet our sales and business objectives.

Our key markets include automotive, engineering, manufacturing and construction. To help us to further strengthen our presence in these markets we are a member and actively engage with the North East Automotive Alliance (NEAA), the Advanced Manufacturing Forum (AMF) and Engineering and Manufacturing Network (EMN). As part of our marketing activity this year, we will be attending key events including the NEAA Expo and EMCON and looking forward to forging new connections in our target markets.

Another core business objective for Taylor Packaging is lead generation. To help us achieve this we invested in a new website with a focus on the customer journey and data capture. In addition, we utilise a breadth of marketing channels, including social media, email marketing, public relations and content marketing.

What industry changes/trends do you anticipate for 2022?

I expect many of the same difficulties to still be apparent in 2022. For example, the demand for paper-based products will continue to increase, also many of the same supply issues will continue to impact the industry.

Sustainability will also continue to be increasingly important in 2022, especially with the introduction of the new Plastic Packaging Tax on the 1st April 2022. This is to encourage the use of recycled plastic rather than new plastic within packaging and will in turn stimulate increased levels of recycling and collection of plastic waste. Therefore, things like returnable systems and environmentally friendly materials will be hot topics of conversation and hopefully adopted by many more businesses within the industry.

Looking ahead, what will 2022 bring for Taylor Packaging?

Sustainability will continue to be a major part of our business in 2022 and we’ll continue to learn about and adopt new materials and packaging systems in line with our customers’ needs and remain flexible to adapt to any industry changes that may occur.

To find out more about Taylor Packaging click here.