87 COMPANY PROFILE Fly high When did you start up and why? Kite Packaging was founded from scratch in 2001 with the vision to be the premier packaging supplier in the UK, with a philosophy of employee share-ownership. This ethos is at the core of our operation; we believe that customer satisfaction matters so much more when you own the business. What challenges have you overcome since the company’s launch? We have recently overcome a very positive problem of seeing an unprecedented amount of orders last year, particularly surrounding Christmas. As online shopping has surged in popularity, the demand for specialist e-commerce packaging continues to climb. In order to satisfy these orders while maintaining our quick turnarounds of 2-4 days, standard delivery, Kite invested heavily into recruitment across all areas of the business. This included hiring new warehouse operatives and customer service staff in addition to continuing our regular graduate and apprentice programmes, Telesales and Field Sales academies. Beginning in January this year, we also enrolled members of our team into the first ever Packaging Professional degree at Sheffield Hallam University to continue growing expert talent within the business. Tell us about your product offering We pride ourselves on having over 2500 stock products to cater toward virtually all the packaging needs a business may require. This includes a vast selection of external packaging such as cardboard boxes or mailing bags, protective internal packaging that either wraps around products or fills voids, in addition to our growing gift packaging offering. With a dedicated New Products team, we are constantly on the search for any new products that may appeal to our audiences to ensure that our website is as inclusive to all industries as possible. What are your most popular products? Innovative eco-friendly designs continue to be incredibly popular as more and more businesses favour paper packaging over traditional plastic methods. Our bestselling Hivewrap is a particular favourite, combining recyclability, biodegradability and an FSC certification with impressive strength and massive space saving capabilities. To illustrate this, we discovered that one roll of 500mm Hivewrap can cover the same amount of products as four rolls of 500mm bubble wrap. We have also recently released a Hivefill version that comes with a dispenser designed to expand and compress the paper into shock absorbent cushions. These paper pads fill empty spaces surrounding a product in a box, becoming the most economic paper void fill on the market. Almost all of our new product launches have an environmental focus to cater toward this cultural shift toward sustainability; we’re keen to do our bit by helping you to do yours. Have any styles taken you by surprise with their popularity? We have been continually thrilled to see how well our new gift packaging range has performed. Within the first month, we were sold out of various colours and have since increased our volume of held stock to ensure that all orders can be speedily fulfilled. The most popular products within the range are our 4mm ZigZag shredded paper and 2mm straight shredded paper in nine vibrant shades alongside soft shredded tissue paper in black or white. These aesthetic void fills are complemented by our tissue papers, available in sheets or as rolls complete with a convenient dispenser. The products marry attractive aesthetics with a consistent focus on efficiency for quickly fulfilling orders without sacrificing a keen attention to detail. We’re delighted to see that our customers are as impressed with the products as we are. Check out part two of the interview next issue. KITE PACKAGING www.kitepackaging.co.uk In part one of our two-part interview with Kite Packaging, Marketing Lead, Adam Summers, discusses the brand’s inception and the popularity of its eco-friendly designs
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