Packaging

A conveyor that runs perfectly in a Derbyshire parcel hub would struggle to pass a hygiene audit in a Nottinghamshire food processing plant. The principle is the same in both, moving product from one point to another without people carrying it, but the engineering brief could hardly be more different. That's the part that often gets lost when businesses first look at automation. It's tempting to treat conveyors as a commodity: pick a belt width, a length and a speed, and orde

From April 2026, the fees UK producers pay under Extended Producer Responsibility for packaging stopped being a flat rate per tonne and started depending on how recyclable the packaging actually is. Packaging is now assessed under the Recyclability Assessment Methodology, given a red, amber or green rating, and charged accordingly. Red-rated packaging pays a premium over amber. Green-rated packaging gets a discount. Nearly all of the coverage of this has been written for comp

The manufacturing landscape in Nottinghamshire is undergoing a quiet but significant transformation. As we move through 2026, the local industrial sector—spanning from food production in Mansfield to pharmaceutical hubs in Beeston—is facing a "triple threat" of challenges: rising energy costs, acute labour shortages, and the stringent sustainability targets set out by the 2025 UK Plastics Pact. For many facilities, the solution isn't just "more machines," but rather smarter m