Cleaning and detergent manufacturer RP Adam Ltd (Arpal Group) has unveiled ambitious plans to increase annual production by 50 per cent across the UK and the Middle East by 2020.
The company is to invest more than £2.75 million into its operations in Selkirk, and in Dubai, UAE, in a two-year bid to reach production targets of 12 million litres of liquid and 650,000kgs of powder product to satisfy increased customer demand.
Some 31 new high-end service jobs will be created, mainly at the group headquarters in Selkirk and in Dubai.
This is final phase of Arpal Group’s five-year ‘20/20’ investment programme, launched in 2015 as the fourth-generation family-owned business approached its 125th year in business. So far, more than £1.5 million has already been injected in the global business as part of the 20/20 programme, creating 20 extra jobs.
The company now employs more than 100 people and services customers across a wide range of sectors in the UK as well as operating successful subsidiaries and distribution partnerships across the Middle East – including Oman, Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates.
In the UK, this next phase investment will focus on factory, equipment and warehouse expansion, in particular creating new filling lines for 10-litre laundry drums required to service the UK’s fast-growing care-home sector. Investment in the Middle East will be centred on geographic expansion in new markets such as Oman and Saudi Arabia, as well as meeting increased demand from the luxury hotel sector in the region.
Martin Carroll, Arpal Group’s technical director, believes the next phase investment makes a significant statement of intent for the company. “These are exciting times for Arpal Group both at home and abroad,” he says.
“Our increased production and turnover targets reflect our aggressive ambition to take on the large global competition as well as the smaller ‘no frills’ suppliers by providing significant commercial and customer-service benefits in demanding sectors, where service matters most.”
“The UK remains the engine room of our 20/20 ambition and the next two years will focus primarily on factory expansion at our Selkirk HQ to allow more space for raw materials, packaging, and production lines to meet increased demand – as well as a new purpose-built £500,000 on site warehousing facility.
He adds: “In the Middle East and especially UAE, we are continuing to see growth in core sectors such as the luxury hotel market, airline catering and hospitality but we are also developing new markets with innovative partnership-based business models in Oman and Saudi Arabia. The UAE in particular will be a huge growth area in the run up to 2020 as Dubai gears up for the World Expo, resulting in significant increases in demand for inflight and contract catering cleaning services.”
Central to Arpal Group’s UK expansion strategy will be a significantly increased turnover with national distribution partners – especially in the networks covered by janitorial and catering consumables and foodservice distributors. These include the larger national logistics companies like Alliance Disposables, Brakes & Bunzl as well as numerous smaller regional partners.
Group Sales & Marketing Director Max Adam, the fourth-generation Adam to be involved in the business, added: “We primarily access the UK end-user customer market through an extensive network of regional and national distribution partners.
“Around 90% of end-user business currently goes through a reseller, and this is where our aspiration to reach growth targets can be really accelerated. We now want to grow our UK distributor network, especially in niche markets where our service offering and commitment to customer service provides something a little different and more personal than the multi-national supplier or the ‘cheap and cheerful’ box movers.
“We are focusing focus on what we do best, and that is developing and manufacturing high quality cleaning solutions backed by an outstanding service to end-user business consumers on behalf of our distributor partners. This next investment phase will allow us to increase our resources, production capacities and level of service commitment in this fast-growing sector to the next level – backed by strong values of integrity and trust which underpin everything we do.”