A Visit to Newport Feeds Ltd, Liverpool By Andrew Mounsey
My first impression on driving into the brand new Bulk Powder Terminals dockside facility in Liverpool was of its sheer scale. Huge twin silos rose up into a darkening sky which threatened heavy rainfall from an unseasonably deep weather front. Host for my visit Andrew Smart, a Director of Newport Industries Ltd and head of its Feed Division, suggested we delay our interview in his office and instead that he should first show me around the facility, before the inevitable downpour. Naturally, the tour involved a climb to the top of the silos. Neither
one of us with a great head for heights, we bravely forced ourselves to continue all the way to the top and across a steel mesh walkway, where Andrew posed for a photograph with a backdrop of a vessel being discharged, a couple of hundred feet below. He tried to look unperturbed while I struggled to get my camera to focus in one shaky hand, without releasing my tight grip on the handrail with the other. From such a height, the continuous stream of fork trucks labouring to unload the vessel moored alongside the quay below appeared no bigger than Tonka toys, and even the 15,000 tonne deadweight ship looked like a large scale model.
A Little History Safely back into the office, having completed the tour just as the first drops of rain began to fall, Andrew began by giving me some information about the history of the company. Newport Industries was founded in 1997 as a one-man trading operation in Ealing, West London; the company’s head office is now based in Richmond and is home to the logistics and accounts team. Initially trading generic fine chemicals, the company grew organically and began to specialise in raw materials for particular niches including the glass industry, adhesives and animal feed. Newport Feeds was founded eight years ago as a part of Newport Industries and has become its fastest growing division, increasing turnover from just a few hundred thousand initially, through the £10 million mark and now heading towards £20 million per annum. For most of this time, the products imported and sold by Newport Industries, including its Feeds division, have been handled by third party port operators. Then, a few years ago, the decision was taken to invest in infrastructure to introduce innovative and streamlined ways of handling and packaging the products. This operational capability was placed under the umbrella of Bulk Powder Terminals or BPT, a sister company to Newport Industries, with both being part of the Newport Group.
The Liverpool Facility The first (and likely, for the foreseeable future at least, to remain the largest) facility operated by BPT is the one at Liverpool. The site, totalling five acres, was originally man-made and used as a terminal for the export of Welsh coal; indeed the rail tracks can still be seen in
Pictures on this page: (top) unloading a vessel moored at the dockside facility in Liverpool; and (left) Andrew Smart, Director of Newport Industries and Head of its Feed Division
PAGE 34 SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2019 FEED COMPOUNDER
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56 |
Page 57 |
Page 58 |
Page 59 |
Page 60 |
Page 61 |
Page 62 |
Page 63 |
Page 64 |
Page 65 |
Page 66 |
Page 67 |
Page 68
