Severnside to rebrand as DS Smith Recycling

Severnside, one of the UK's iconic recycling brand names, is to be changed to DS Smith Recycling in a bid by the company to better reflect its closed loop activities.

Severnside Recycling, based in Caerphilly, South Wales, is the UK's largest cardboard recycling company and is part of the DS Smith Group which also owns St Regis Paper Mills.

Today (December 9), DS Smith's recently appointed group chief executive, Miles Roberts, revealed some of his intentions going forward including the rebranding of Severnside, which is known for its waste paper collection work and, in more recent years, for providing a range of waste management services, particularly to the retail sector.

In a comment today on the group's half year results, Mr Roberts referred to Severnside's rebranding and its success in the retail sector. He said: “We continued to gain share in the UK from a platform of delivering service, quality and innovation.

“DS Smith Recycling (formerly Severnside) continued to grow, gaining new customers with its services to enable retail customers to meet their commitments to reduce or eliminate the use of landfill.”

Mr Roberts continued: “The financial performance of St Regis, our paper manufacturing division, was much improved due to strong demand for our products which supported our programme to recover the substantial input cost increases from waste paper and energy.

“The strong market position of our corrugated packaging division enabled us to recover substantially increased input costs with the usual three to six month delay. New products have enabled us to reduce our customers' supply chain costs, increasing the value we are adding, and therefore assisting our work to recover raw material inflation.”

Brand

Explaining more about the decision to change the Severnside brand, Tim Price, Severnside Recycling's national commercial manager for sales and marketing, said: “This development is very much part of the closed loop service which the company offers. It reflects how Severnside Recycling is an important part of the loop in collecting a range of materials.”

Mr Price added: “We recognise that it will be important to ensure a smooth transition to the new name for our customers. It will be a huge job as a large part of our activities is as a transport and logistics business and we will start rolling out the new brand next year.”

Details of the DS Smith Recycling logo are expected to be released soon. Severnside has traditionally been orange and the colour does form part of the DS Smith logo.

Results

In terms of results for the first six months of DS Smith's financial year (to October 31 2010) the company said revenue was £1,174 million, up 15.3% with operating profit up 19.3%.

And on the waste paper side, the company said: “Average waste paper prices have increased by 49.0% and externally purchased paper has increased by 46.8% compared to the comparable half-year period. Energy costs have increased by £6.9 million to £57.0 million.”