Vanden has appointed Stephen Fieldhouse as General Manager of its expanding Peterborough facility.
Fieldhouse will progress the Peterborough facility, increasing the throughput of materials and develop a reliable source of UK recovered plastic to meet growing manufacturing demand.
With more than 30 years' experience in the plastics sector, Fieldhouse has a significant understanding of the current challenges facing retail packaging designers, producers, material reprocessors and the wider plastics sector, says Vanden.
Vanden
Vanden Recycle Stock
Stephen Fieldhouse
He spent 28 years with Sealed Air Corporation, joining as a graduate and gaining experience in the field technical team where he was responsible for solving customer and retailer problems and developing new products.
Later he spent nine years as General Manager of Sealed Air Products' Poole rigid thermoforming plant, where he turned the loss-making enterprise into a business with a £25million profit and was responsible for 155 people.
When the business was sold to Faerchplast which was then owned by the private equity house EQT, he helped manage the integration, but was made Site Director at Faerchplast Sutton.
"I spent a considerable amount of time at Sealed Air Corporation trying to put in place a polypropylene recycling programme. But the time wasn't right. The plastics industry and retailers pushed hard for it, but society didn't have the vision. That is no longer the case,” said Fieldhouse
"As soon as I met the team at Vanden I was impressed and excited by their vision - both for the company and their approach to the recycling sector.”
David Wilson, Vanden UK Managing Director, added:"Our strategy is to bring in talented people from outside of the recycling sector, and Stephen brings a skillset and contacts book that will enable us to improve our capacity to provide a range of high quality recycled polymers to manufacturers from our UK recycling facility."