Member Article

Innovative pallet manufacturer RM2 sets sights on growth in 2015

One year on from its IPO, Luxembourg-based innovative pallet manufacturer RM2 has high hopes for 2015.

RM2, which has its UK base in London, is pioneering a new and innovative pallet design, an alternative to traditional wooden panels.

In December, RM2 announced it secured seven long-term, scalable contracts for the supply of pallets.

The company is also currently deploying pallets under provisional agreements with a further six companies.

Despite ending the year on a positive note, RM2 faced several challenges in 2014. Ruari McGirr, VP planning and investor relations, told Bdaily: “When we originally came up with the idea for BLOCKPal in 2006, we wanted to create a product that was better than the traditional wooden pallet in every single respect, except perhaps capital cost, since the substantially better durability allows the cost to be spread over more trips.

“When talking to big companies, we discovered that there is an incredibly high demand for pallets and there certainly was a gap in the marketing for a high quality, mass-manufactured product.

“We were forced to change production process and trialling pallets with customers took several months, resulting in a knock on effect.”

The contracts announced in December are expected to generate approximately 450,000 pallet trips per year, with a stated intention to grow the level of deployment during 2015.

McGirr said that building trust with new clients is the most important aspect of marketing BLOCKPal: “Businesses can be cautious about changing their pallets as they have relied on wooden pallets for so long and their shortcomings are built into the system.

“There is an element of trust when businesses take on our product, as we must ensure our pallet can transport their goods with minimal risk.

“We are currently working with numerous additional companies to pilot our pallets and are building relations with further clients.”

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Ellen Forster .