“We’re not going to stop” – Paul Barber, Managing Director of James Cropper Paper & Packaging on its 180-year quest for excellence

“We’re not going to stop.”

The message from Paul Barber is simple, but the success of James Cropper’s commercial transformation means he has earned the right for it to be taken seriously.

It’s a success story that is all the more extraordinary given the many challenges facing businesses across the world in today’s market, ranging from rising energy costs to supply chain issues and labour shortages. And the growth of the Lake District-based papermaker has particular significance for British businesses, laying down a model that manufacturing businesses can follow as they aim to adapt and thrive in a changing market.

The most impressive thing about James Cropper Paper & Packaging’s turnaround, however, is that it’s far from over. For a company with a lot of history, James Cropper’s focus is firmly on the future.

It’s a challenge every business faces, if it exists for long enough. How can it continually innovate, adapt, and reinvent itself to meet market demands, but without losing any of the valuable traditions or experience accumulated over the decades?

Fortunately for the James Cropper team, the company’s history is one of bold innovations. Founded in 1845, the company was the first to produce coloured paper. Over 170 years later, in 2017, it was still breaking new ground with its CupCycling™ system being another world first, turning coffee cups into specialty papers for print and packaging.

No business can spend that length of time charting new territory without running into a few challenges, and James Cropper has overcome its fair share over the years. Some are more major than others. In 1886, for example, a fire destroyed its Burneside, Lake District mill and threatened to take the business with it. The company’s response to this would prove to be characteristic of its approach to adversity, and reconstruction of the mill commenced immediately. Within three years, its output was stronger than ever.

The challenges the company faces today may be less dramatic, but they are certainly more complex, and the threat they pose to the security of the business could be just as great. Rising costs, supply chain disruptions, and new regulations are just a few of the issues radically reshaping today’s paper and packaging markets. Paul Barber’s role as Managing Director of the Paper & Packaging division is to reshape the company’s strategy along with them.

That means being unafraid to be self-critical and ruffle feathers when necessary. He is blunt when describing his introduction to the company in March 2025. “18 months ago, I think it was a rudderless business that didn’t quite know which way it was going,” he says. “We’ve got a clear, strategic five-year plan now, and a process that is now in place for investment in the plant.”

“That is happening now. It’s not something that we’re just talking about doing in the future. The journey has been quick, and it will continue to be.  We’ve created stability through the business in terms of revenue, operations, and our customer base. We’re a long way from being perfect, but now, if you put a challenge in front of us, we have the foundations in place that enable us to deliver.”

The strategy has evolved, but the spirit of James Cropper has remained the same – unbowed, unbroken, and thriving even in the face of a testing market.

According to Paul, this is just the first step in the ambitious five-year plan that begins, rather than ends, with James Cropper’s recent spectacular upturn. “The turnaround was never the destination,” he said. “I want this business to be one of the leading paper and packaging companies in terms of EBITDA. Everybody’s bought into that plan, and each of our departments is starting to activate it.”

The results speak for themselves. James Cropper plc FY26 report highlighted a 3.6% growth in revenue to £102.9m, a 33% increase in Group Adjusted EBITDA to £8.9m, and a nearly £5m reduction in debt, with net debt now sitting at £8.1m.

One of the headline stories behind these numbers was the return to profitability of the Paper & Packaging division. This was achieved in the second half of the year following a wide-ranging shake-up.

The company has undergone a cultural and operational shift, implementing new decision-making processes, risk management systems, and stepping up its continuing investment in manufacturing technology. “We’re not looking at today’s capabilities; we’re looking at where we need to be in 10 years. Our heritage is important, but so is embracing new things and blending them with what worked in the past,” Paul added. “But by far the biggest change is cultural – the people in the business have bought into the new ways of working that we’ve implemented.”

This has meant making a concerted effort to align customers more closely with day-to-day operations, restructuring relationships to be more collaborative. “I’m a big believer in ‘what’s ours is yours,’ because we’re nothing without our customers,” he continued. “The whole relationship-building process now brings them into the fold, so it feels much more open. Our top customers speak to me personally every week. Taking that layer of middle management out of the business has been the biggest success we’ve had. The response time, decision-making, and understanding are much clearer across the business today.”

Closer customer relationships are only one part of the new model. Another is the ability to anticipate risk and respond before a challenge becomes a crisis. In an unpredictable market, Paul believes resilience comes from accepting uncertainty rather than pretending it can be removed.

“I worry. I have sleepless nights, and I’m not going to hide away from that,” he said. “But it’s not about worrying over what has happened. It’s about what we’re going to do to solve the problem.”

That distinction has already shaped several important decisions. When external events pushed costs upwards, James Cropper resisted the temptation to impose a blanket price increase based on assumptions about where the market might settle. Instead, the business used temporary surcharges, monitored the situation closely, and kept customers informed as it changed.

“Nobody knows where the market is going,” Paul explained. “Rather than going out with a six, seven or eight per cent price increase, we said we would work through it with our customers. It became something we dealt with together, rather than a problem we simply passed on to them.

The same change can be seen among its people. Employees are increasingly taking ownership of decisions, accepting accountability, and moving projects forward without waiting for every answer to come from the top. Responsibility is also being shared across broader teams, reducing reliance on a small number of individuals and creating a more resilient base of knowledge throughout the business.

Paul is openly proud of that progress, although he is unlikely to spend much time celebrating it. His instinct is always to ask how the company can take the next step, develop its people further, and turn the current rate of progress into sustained, sustainable growth.

With further investment planned, a stronger FY27 expected and the division continuing at a profitable EBITDA run rate, the turnaround is becoming a platform for a much larger ambition.

“I’m not going to stop until our EBITDA is leading the way within the paper industry, and when we reach that goal, I’m going to keep going. By that point, it’ll never be enough – the plan is to keep growing.”

This mindset crystallises why James Cropper continues to thrive even after 180 years, its mill a fixture of quality and cutting-edge innovation as the world around it evolves from the Industrial Revolution to Industry 4.0 and beyond. In a sea of change, James Cropper has always been an island of stability that its customers can rely on. At a time when almost everything seems to be a variable, the company has always adapted to ensure it can be a constant.