As Newport Recycling approaches our 28th birthday, Newport Recycling’s Managing Director Matthew Hoare has been reflecting on our journey so far.
Newport Paper (as it was then) was formed by my father, Ashley Hoare. He started the company on his own in 1993 and was working from the old barns behind our family home in Shropshire. He started by trading office-grade papers and OCC, and steadily expanded his client base to include paper mills from across the UK and Europe. With his ethos of quality service and long-term relationships, Ashely gradually grew Newport and took on his first staff member Laura Walker in 1996.
It was in the early 2000s that he moved the business to our old offices in Newport; initially taking on an office suite above Barclays Bank, before moving again to new offices behind a tobacconist and estate agent on the High Street. These moves were necessary to accommodate the increased staff needed to service the newly acquired contract with the new Stora Enso Langerbrugge Mill in Belgium. It was at this stage in the journey that I joined Newport Paper.
Having come aboard in 2003, I gradually migrated to the role of MD in 2004 as Ashley started to wind down his involvement in the company. With an ever-expanding team, we left the old offices in 2005 and moved into our current office in the Springfield Industrial Estate where you can still find us today.
The business has grown from what was initially a small operation, to nowadays providing services across the whole of Great Britain and Ireland with sales domestically as well as to Europe and Asia. Our first significant export contract was to the Stora Enso Langerbrugge Mill in 2003 (a big reason for me leaving Aylesford Newsprint to join Newport). I think it stands as a testament to the Newport team and our approach to business, that we are still working with Stora Enso to this day.
Through engaging with and learning from our customers, we have developed an open and collaborative culture across all our business relations and in doing so, we have been able to create one of the most trusted voices in the recycling industry. It is thanks to this voice and approach to business that over the last few years we have been able to partner with the Midan Global company, a specialist company that represent the interests of a number of East Asian end-users. This partnership is something of which I am hugely proud, as I know all of the Newport Recycling family worked extremely hard to bring this relationship to fruition, and it has allowed us to further improve our services to our UK suppliers.
Due to our diversification into purchasing other types of recyclate, 2019 saw another chapter in our story as Newport Paper became Newport Recycling. After a long-term effort from all of our team, we diversified our offering to include numerous possibilities for plastics, glass, and metals, leaving the original company name in need of an update. With the rebranding in place, I am glad to say that we have taken on the role of a complete recycling brokerage and we now meet the recycling needs of hundreds of different customers each year.
2020 saw another major step into international trading with the opening of our office in Amsterdam; a move which helped facilitate the smooth transition into the post-Brexit export market to our valued reprocessors in Europe.
I like to think of Newport Recycling as the result of 28 years of hard work, care, and family values. Our ethos has always been one of long-term relationships and prosperous partnerships, and with this approach proving so valuable, I look forward to the future with confidence.
Matthew Hoare.
