THE recently appointed MD of McLaren Corrugate has told Packaging Scotland that the McLaren Packaging family’s ‘one-stop-shop’ offering leaves the business ideally placed to thrive in an increasingly challenging environment.
Jennifer Riddell joined the paper and cardboard packaging manufacturer earlier this year from her role as MD at the multi-site operations of the Logson Group, under the brand names of The Boxshop and Boxes and Packaging in Scotland.
The move followed a reorganisation at Port Glasgow-headquartered McLaren, which saw the creation of two new companies – McLaren Presentation and McLaren Divisions – which join McLaren Corrugate, a newly formed joint venture with VPK Packaging UK & Ireland, to form three distinct divisions.
McLaren Corrugate specialises in retail, e-commerce, and transport packaging, supplying brands across the UK and Ireland with corrugated packaging solutions from shelf-ready and shipping cases to protective mailer packs and trays.
Jennifer told Packaging Scotland she was attracted by the ‘justifiably great reputation’ McLaren has in the industry, and the opportunity to help grow the business. The focus for the first half of 2026 has been on confirming areas of growth and expanding the team with a number of key hires.
“We obviously want to grow the business in line with our sister parts of the company,” Jennifer explained. “We serve a lot of customers through our Presentation (division) and other parts of the business and will use that as a great opportunity to expand our offering to those existing customers and then widen that in the general corrugate market.
“We specialise in offering flexibility, looking at where we can help customers have lower MOQs, excellent quality and service, so that’s a really important feature for how we’ll grow over the coming two or three years.”
McLaren is best known for its work in the drinks sector, supplying a range of packaging solutions including high quality cartons, luxury rigid boxes, and paper-based presentation tubes to some of Scotland’s largest distilleries.
Jennifer sees huge potential for expanding the offering with existing customers and helping the firm to break into new markets by offering a single-source solution that eliminates some of the procurement and supply chain challenges associated with dealing with multiple suppliers.
“We’ve got real presence in the drinks industry,” Jennifer added. “That gives us great opportunities with BRCGS registration to take us into food and drink and other general customer offerings in Scotland. We’ve got all the required skillset and accreditations to deliver that.
“We have a suite of equipment where we can provide multi-colour print – up to six-colour – and more. Most recently, we’ve invested in large format equipment. We also have casemaking capabilities now in the company.
“We dovetail with other parts of the business so can offer both solid board and corrugate solutions. That gives us a pretty diverse range, which is different from lots of competitors.”
One trend across the packaging sector which Jennifer said shows no signs of slowing down is sustainability. McLaren prides itself of offering packaging solutions that are eco-conscious without the loss of functionality.
“A trend we’ve seen is that there’s absolutely a need and a place for high end multi-colour graphics, but there’s also a lot of businesses looking for a lesser range of colour options,” Jennifer revealed. “That’s driven by economics, but it’s mutually driven by sustainability. Consumers have an expectation nowadays to understand: Is this a fully recyclable product? Could it be made more economically? What’s sustainable about it? I think that journey will keep going. And then of course you’ve got the parallel path where, particularly in the food industry, plastics solutions continue to not be wanted by retailers and consumers. It’s a waste stream people want to reduce so we’re still seeing corrugate technical solutions replacing that packaging.”
Jennifer has been impressed by the packaging industry’s response to the sustainability challenge and some of the ‘fantastic’ creative solutions that have emerged in recent years.
One example is McLaren’s part-owned raw material supplier, CorrBoard, which receives its process electricity from a neighbouring anaerobic digester that takes food waste and converts it to green energy – a first in the corrugate industry.
Jennifer believes the corrugate and solid board sector has got even more to deliver, highlighting that design teams have the talent to replicate in sustainable, paper-based packaging formats ‘pretty much everything’ that can be found on the shelves of major retailers.
“There are cold storage and moisture challenges out there, but I think there’s a lot more to give now. That doesn’t necessarily mean it’s economic for people to do that because we know plastics, by unit price, could be less expensive if you’ve got tooling in place.
“I tend to use the Easter egg example. We only have to cast our minds back not that many years and the bigger eggs had a screen film on the packaging, and the case around the egg was a blow moulded or formed plastic. The eggs this year will have no plastics. They are paper-based solutions entirely. I looked at the Christmas offering on sweets and saw the plastic tubs of chocolates replaced by paper-based solutions as well.”
Jennifer touched on some of the ‘amazing solutions’ McLaren has been working on to provide paper-based offerings that offer the same design functionality and premium look.
“Brands are so important and the value of that needs to be maintained in the product offering, so there will always be a need in the drinks industry to have very attractive presentation packaging,” Jennifer stated. “From our point of view, we look at that and say we don’t want to give up the look of that, so how do we design around that? How do we get that it is fully paper? How do we get that it’s got maybe less weight in it but still delivers the functionality? That’s really where I think the solution comes from.”
Jennifer described the current corrugate market as ‘very competitive’, with a surplus of supply over demand. The current global geopolitical uncertainty is likely to make conditions even more challenging for businesses, with Jennifer anticipating that some smaller firms might struggle to sustain the next wave of challenges that emerge in the wake of recent world events.
“Paper prices are about to move again,” she added. “I think there will be further consolidation. The cost of employment and energy continue to rise.
“I think McLaren have a number of abilities to stand out and differentiate themselves. The one-stop-shop offering is a huge differentiator. Being independent really helps the business with the scale of what we can do. Having our own supply security is a huge advantage.
“McLaren has an outstanding reputation of service, customer loyalty, and looking after customers. Others will strive for that, but I don’t think they will have the calibre that McLaren is well known for in the Scottish market.”
