A North East waste management company which is backed by investment organisation BGF has celebrated its 20th year in business by recording its highest turnover to date and increasing pre-tax profit.
Turnover at Hartlepool-headquartered J&B Recycling was up to £15.9m in the year to 31 March 2018, a slight increase of 1.7 per cent.
Pre-tax profit increased by 36 per cent, from £737,684 to just more than £1m.
The company operates three facilities in Hartlepool and Middlesbrough and a depot in Newcastle, processing 162,000 tonnes of materials from local authorities and private companies.
It handles a wide variety of waste streams, including glass, paper, cardboard, metals, plastics, construction waste and hazardous waste.
An investment programme has seen J&B plough £10m into capacity increases, efficiency improvements and acquisitions in the past three years. The company received backing to the tune of £7.5m from BGF in 2014.
CEO Vikki Jackson-Smith said: “The past twelve months has been both an exciting and successful time for J&B with investment allowing the business to maintain its position ahead of the market and maintain growth, even in periods of difficult global trading conditions.
“The key driver in our successful growth has been the adoption of process optimisation across our three processing facilities and our fleet and collection operations.”
“Over the next six months we are investing a further £1m commissioning three expansion projects that will provide the growth of the business into our next financial year 2019/20 and keep J & B as one of the most efficient operators in the region.”
J&B’s results come despite a tough trading environment for recycling companies, with China stricter regulations on the quality of imported recycled material.
“The completion of the first phase of our investment programme has enabled us to withstand these challenging market conditions, which are proving difficult for our competitors.”
“This has resulted in confident stability for us as a business as we can ensure the highest quality of materials is produced to meet the strict demands of the international markets, particularly in China, where materials that do not meet the high specification have been banned.”