A Glasgow-headquartered packaging group that distributes protective packaging across the UK, Ireland and Europe and designs and makes packaging for high-value goods.
Macfarlane Group is a packaging business with two parts. Its larger part, Packaging Distribution, supplies protective packaging materials to business customers in the UK, Ireland and Europe, and accounts for 87 per cent of group sales. Its smaller part, Packaging Design and Manufacture, accounts for 13 per cent of sales and designs and makes packaging for high-value items that need strong protection, for example electronics and aerospace parts. Its customer sectors include internet retail, logistics, electronics, aerospace and automotive.
The company says it was founded around 75 years ago and has been listed on the main London Stock Exchange market since 1973. In April 2024 it published a press release marking its 75th anniversary. Its headquarters is in Glasgow, Scotland, where it is registered. The group reports that it serves about 20,000 customers, handles 300,000 orders and works with about 1,000 suppliers, and that its vans and lorries cover about 3.4 million delivery miles.
We could not find a mission statement or list of values on the pages we were able to read, so we have not invented one. The company describes a decentralised model in which sales and operations are run locally, supported by central teams for buying, logistics, IT and finance. This means many employees work in local depots and offices rather than only at the head office, which can suit people who want to stay in their home region.
In the UK, distribution runs through regional distribution centres and manufacturing centres spread across the country, though the page we read did not list each town. The group says it has more than 1,100 people in one place on its site and more than 1,000 in another, so we give the figure as roughly 1,000 to 1,100. We have no company statements about culture to quote. The company also says its customers include internet retailers, which explains why protective packaging for parcels is such a big part of what it supplies.
The jobs match the two halves of the business. In distribution there are customer service and account managers, buyers, warehouse operatives, drivers and logistics planners; in manufacturing there are structural packaging designers, machine operators, production planners and quality staff; across the group there are IT, finance and HR teams. If you like design and technology, maths or problem solving, packaging design is a creative engineering job, because a good pack has to protect the product, cost little and avoid waste.
Website: www.macfarlanegroup.com
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