ABOUT JAMES CROPPER

• Founded in 1845, James Cropper is a British luxury paper-making company headquartered in Burneside, UK.
• It has owned its Burneside mill since its founding date and now operates across more than 50 countries, with sites in the UK, US and China. Its sales teams, R&D sites and partners have expanded to countries including Australia, South Africa, the UAE and Norway.
• Three companies sit under the James Cropper Group: James Cropper, which produces speciality Paper; Colourform, a custom moulded pulp packaging solution; and TFP, which produces non-wovens and electrochemical materials.
• Within the fibre and paper-based arms of the group, James Cropper focuses on working with renewable and recycled fibres. Its virgin materials include Cotton and wood pulp, which is sourced from sustainably managed, FSC and PEFC-certified forests, while its roster of recycled materials includes FSC and PEFC-certified post-consumer waste, used office paper and paper offcuts from manufacturing.
• The company offers bespoke speciality papers and Moulded Fibre products for a wide range of applications, such as clamshell containers, second skins for fragile bottles, paper bags, greeting cards, perfume boxes and premium books.
• The company’s innovations are manifold, underscored by its status as the producer of specialist paper for the manufacture of the UK’s Royal British Legion’s Remembrance poppies. It began producing the iconic pins in 1978, when the charity sought to switch from fabric to biodegradable paper.
• James Cropper is one of the first paper mills to upcycle used textiles as a fibre source for luxury packaging paper. Its Rydal Apparel range, launched in May 2022, is manufactured from 20% post-consumer denim fibre and 80% recycled fibre from sources including used coffee cups. The material can be recycled in standard waste paper streams.
• Coffee cup recycling is another of James Cropper’s own innovations. Its CupCycling technology was developed to recycle disposable paper cups on a commercial scale. Working with supply chain partners, such as McDonald’s, Costa and Selfridges, the company strips any plastic from the fibre and converts 95% of the cup waste back into paper, using it to create products such as shopping bags and gift boxes. Its recycling plant has the capacity to recycle 500 million coffee cups each year and to date, the company has recycled 150 million coffee cups. The fibres produced in the recycling process are also the basis of GF Smith’s Extract range.
• The company has an on-site colour lab and is capable of producing or recreating any colour. Its palette includes 184 shades of black and 62 shades of white – and everything in between.
• The company is working towards building better closed-loop systems and energy efficiencies within its organisation. Currently, 100% of all its purchased electricity is renewable and its on-site hydro and solar energy creating systems produce 1000MWh of renewable energy per annum. Where it can, the company says it recycles its water during production processes and the company’s water is managed in partnership with the Environment Agency.
• James Cropper claims there is zero waste to landfill from its mill site, with everything being recycled. Dried waste is approved by the Environment Agency as fertiliser for local farms.
• The company is a signatory of the New Plastics Economy initiative set up by the Ellen MacArthur Foundation in collaboration with UN Environment. It is also a signatory of Walpole’s Luxury Sustainability Manifesto, which pledges luxury brands such as Burberry, Chivas Brothers, Harrods, Mulberry and The Savoy to incorporate circular practices and create solutions collaboratively.
• In the 52 weeks to 26 March 2022, the company generated GBP 104.9 million (USD 125.5 million) in revenue. Its speciality paper business led with revenue of GBP 70 million (USD 83.8 million), while Colourform and TFP generated GBP 3.4 million (USD 4 million) and GBP 31.2 million (USD 37.3 million), respectively. The company experienced 33% revenue growth across the group, above pre-Covid levels.
• In 2019, James Cropper won the inaugural Sustainability Impact Award for Circular Economy from the Institute of Environmental Management and Assessment. In 2022, the company won a Design Week award in the 3D structural packaging category for its Second Skin case made for champagne house Maison Ruinart.