A SCOTTISH eco-packaging factory will supply green products to every McDonald's in the UK and create new jobs with a £4.2 million extension to its plant.
Cullen Eco-Friendly Packaging Ltd in Glasgow, which has been operating for more than a century, is Europe’s only combined manufacturer of moulded pulp and corrugated cardboard packaging which it supplies to the likes of McDonalds, supermarkets and the medical industry.
And with the help of a £475,000 grant from Scottish Enterprise, the company has been able to extend its premises to bring in new machinery and increase its capacity.
The move will eventually allow Cullen to provide compostable packaging to every McDonald's restaurant in the UK.
It will also create 34 new jobs and safeguard 20 by ensuring staff have the space they need to work comfortably.
The project marks a £4.2m total investment by Cullen at its 150,000 sq ft plant, which currently employs 189 people.
The project will also see the firm install solar panels to further improve the factory’s sustainability.
Allan Maitland, managing director of Cullen Eco-Friendly Packaging, said: "We’re all really excited to share our factory expansion with the public.
“This additional space will mean that Cullen can manufacture and innovate eco-friendly packaging at an even higher rate, which is paramount given the world’s need for sustainable alternatives to plastic.
“This will continue to keep Cullen at the forefront of the sustainable packaging revolution and will no doubt mean that we can create even more jobs.”
The company takes the offcuts from the cardboard boxes it produces for supermarkets and other worldwide customers and turns them into plastic-alternative moulded fibre products for the medical, food and drink, retail, industrial and horticultural and sectors.
Its latest innovation is a paper bottle for dry goods that replaces plastic alternatives.
The grant was provided to Cullen from the Scottish Government’s four-year £25million Low Carbon Manufacturing Challenge Fund, launched last year.
The fund encourages ideas to speed up adoption or development of low carbon products, services, technologies or processes. It aims to reduce emissions from an industry which supports hundreds of thousands of jobs and accounts for more than half of Scotland’s exports.
Neil Francis, managing director for major projects at Scottish Enterprise, said: “Helping innovative Scottish companies to seize the opportunities in the battle against climate change is a real area of focus for Scottish Enterprise.
“There can be few better examples of this than Cullen, who have been in operation for over 100 years and are now using their expertise to adapt to the industries of the future.”
