PPS East, formerly TFA Box Company, was established in Grimsby nearly 30 years ago to service the local fishing industry, providing returnable plastic crates, bins and boxes to handle and transport fish from ship to shore; reducing costs, lower carbon emissions and ensuring no packaging waste.
A research and development grant of £140,000 from the Regional Growth Fund is helping PPS East to develop smaller 3kg and 5kg re-useable boxes for use by local companies who supply, process and retail fish fillets. PPS East are starting the initial designs of the small boxes and the money from Regional Growth Fund will fund the tooling for box production and help support this £200,000 research and development programme to trial the new boxes within the seafood industry.
The company is also planning to expand its core business to include other food sectors in Lincolnshire, providing storage solutions for produce from field to factory and from factory to retail store. The second Regional Growth Fund grant of £120,000 will form part of a £400,000 project to purchase a new crate and pallet washer for agricultural produce, which together with the purchase of a pool of new plastic crates, will allow the new service to be launched.
Through both of these exciting projects, an additional 12 jobs will be created at the company over the next three years, with five in the new agricultural crate servicing area, and seven research and development jobs. A further two jobs will be safeguarded.
Kate Williamson, Business Development at PPS East said, “These are very important grants for us, which will help us to expand and grow our business in different sectors. The service PPS East is now able to provide has relieved each individual local processing company from having to make their own major investment in a pool of crates/boxes, storage, managing and maintaining the hygienic standard of its own pool of products. PPS East Ltd are delivering financial and environmental benefits to food processors and hence, to the North East Lincolnshire region in general.”
David Moore, Assistant Director, Economy at North East Lincolnshire Council, said, “We are very pleased to be able to support this company through the RGF grant. The company has been a mainstay of Grimsby for nearly thirty years, and we are delighted to be able to support its growth. The beauty about this service is it will reduce the financial burden for many local producers, in terms of storage needs and transportation costs, so the local economy as a whole will benefit. I wish the company well in its future growth.”
