A conversation with Paula Birch, Group Managing Director at Parkside Flexibles
Tell us about your career history, and its evolution to your current role?
I’ve been at Parkside for over 25 years now. I started in customer service, before working in account management and then various senior sales roles, becoming Sales Director in 2016. I spent nearly five years in that role before moving to Malaysia to become the General Manager of Parkside Asia, where I helped establish our Kuala Lumpur site as a major player in the APAC region.
This experience helped me transition into my current role, which is MD of our global business. To say I’m Parkside through and through would be an
understatement! It’s been an incredible journey that has shaped me into the person I am today. During my time here, Parkside has grown into a truly global business, and I’m proud to have played my part for so many years.
Focus on Parkside and highlight where your role fits in the business?
Parkside is an innovative flexible packaging solutions provider specializing in sustainable materials – mainly paper, monopolymer films, and compostables. We’ve developed market-leading technical expertise, particularly including our ParkScribe™ laser scribing technology capabilities, and we’re supported by a strong global supply chain. This means we can create innovations that no other flexible providers can, and we pride ourselves on providing solutions, no matter how complex the challenge!
My role as MD is to lead the growth of the business by setting our long-term strategy and future focus. We have enjoyed some strong results in what have been tough trading times over the last few years, and ultimately my job is to ensure that this can continue.
What is at the top of your agenda at the moment – new products/investments/expansion for example?
Packaging is a fast-evolving business, so our innovation pipeline is always near the top of the agenda. This enables us to ensure we are hitting our customers’ packaging goals, whether that’s sustainability, consumer convenience, pack functionality or shelf standout.
As our business grows on two continents, expanding our sales team in the UK and Asia is also a key part of our strategy. This means we will continue to provide customer service excellence across the world, combining local market knowledge with a global supply chain.
Tell us more about the business’ dedication to giving women a platform in the industry and to diversity?
I’m aware that I’m in the minority as a female leader in a very male-dominated industry. It’s a point of pride that we see so much female representation at Parkside, especially in senior roles. Following our recent management restructure, over half of our senior management is female. This isn’t the result of any specific policy of ours, we simply believe in giving people a platform to show what they can do, regardless of their gender or any other characteristic. Our success has been built on including diverse perspectives from people of every background.
How do you create and maintain a winning culture within Parkside?
We have a highly collaborative open-door policy where anyone is free to share ideas with anyone else. It fosters a positive culture where employees are always consulted and supported in terms of their health and wellbeing, but also in terms of their careers and development. We continually work to upskill our team through training and new qualifications, while also supporting new blood in the industry through apprenticeships.
Most importantly, we always try to celebrate both individual and team successes whenever we can. Once you have the fundamentals of safety, happiness, and wellbeing taken care of, the winning culture just falls into place because employees can bring their whole selves to work every day. And, going back to our commitment to diversity, people know they will be given a platform to succeed here regardless of their background.
Looking ahead but more generally, with your expertise, what do you think is next for the packaging sector?
Sustainability is the longest, most important consumer trend, to the point where many in the industry don’t consider it to be a trend at all – it’s just the new norm. There’s no denying that packaging has a huge part to play, but the many sustainable innovations the industry is producing every day need to become more widely used to make an impact. The need for legislation and recycling infrastructure changes will become more pressing, as the packaging industry has innovated and is ready and waiting with solutions like recyclable monopolymer films.
Other emerging trends include AI, which has all sorts of potential applications for optimizing packaging design and supply chains. More sophisticated smart packaging is another future trend that we will see at some point in the future. The market isn’t quite there yet, although we have seen some interesting applications in the luxury and pharmaceutical packaging segments.
If there was one critical insight from the packaging sector you’d like a reader to take from this piece, what would it be?
The purpose of packaging is to prevent waste by preserving its contents – not to generate waste itself. While technology allows paper to ‘be more plastic’ by adding extra durability and barrier properties, plastic will always have a place in packaging. What’s more important is to focus on how plastic is created, used, and recycled. It’s easy to lose sight of this when attempting to reduce plastic use. This is a worthwhile aim in many cases, but over-correcting can lead to an increase in food and product waste caused by unsuitable packaging, which has an even bigger impact on the environment than plastic waste.
As a pioneer of compostable packaging solutions, we would love to see it become more widely used. Trials by the Compostable Coalition, which some of our solutions were part of, have shown that it is viable at a local scale, and we hope that further trials and studies can make a case for more composting facilities in the current infrastructure plans.
Are there any other areas that you consider important for the sector and that you’d like to include?
The packaging industry is built on partnerships. Businesses that choose a collaborative packaging partner that offers excellent customer service, as well as innovation, are often the ones best placed for success.
Parkside is an innovative packaging solutions provider specializing in compostable, recyclable, paper-based and innovative plastic flexible packaging solutions for the food, personal & household care and tobacco sectors. Established for over 40 years, the company is a global supplier with manufacturing sites in both the UK & Asia and is headquartered in Normanton, West Yorkshire.