Contract Services
Blending solutions 20th November 2017
By our Editorial Team
An interview with Russel Argo, President, and Richard Ward, COO, of Brenntag UK & Ireland, about Brenntag Blending Solut
Richard Ward: The great thing is that we’ve actually designed and built it from scratch – it’s not a modification of an existing plant. It’s been designed from the ground up to do exactly what we want it to do. And that design essentially came from the research that we carried out in the market, asking our customers – but also our suppliers – what they expected from us and what they would like us to provide them with in terms and offering. Using that feedback enabled us to design the highest quality, state of the art facility which we think would give us strong growth from now right the way through to the future.
Russel Argo: Lutterworth is our ninth facility of this type. It was a great opportunity for us to invest in one of our larger and probably one of the most futureproof sites, to start adding more value to the customers, particularly in that region but to also add some new capabilities into our offering as well to the market. The evolution of our blending business has been in the more traditionally industrial bases in the north of England and the north of the UK. So the location of the site in Lutterworth which is right in the middle of course of England gives us a really strong base from which to grow our business throughout the Midlands and further into the south… We have recognised that there is a cost to logistics and a cost to distribution, so the location of Lutterworth is a perfect situation for us to start to offer all of these added value services to the whole of the UK.
Russel Argo: The new blending tanks that we’ve put in place are larger than some of the others that we have operated before – that gives us better batch control and batch quality control, in particular to give a much finer and finished product for the customers. It also allows us to make blends that we weren’t actually able to make before in other locations and so we’re adding new products onto our portfolio. I think the great thing about the Lutterworth facility is the flexibility it gives us to move from manufacturing customers’ own formulations to now also offering our own off-the-shelf formulations in certain industry sectors.
Russel Argo: The industries that we supply demand a high quality of products and of operation. We have invested in additional laboratory and quality control equipment in the site as well, to back up the investment in the manufacturing plant. The feedback we’ve had from of our customers so far is that we’ve made the right level of technical investment which will enable them to buy from us in confidence.
Russel Argo: We think that is one of the key things that differentiates Brenntag from the competition in the market – the absolute added value we can bring so attention to detail and an understanding that a customer needs to be looked after on a local basis through our local network as well as having access to all of the strengths and benefits that being part of a global organization brings, so that combination of offering and skills is probably one of the key things to success.