Lovepac is a market leader in the customised protective packaging industry. The company aligns quality custom corrugated box and foam solutions with the latest design innovations, manufacturing strategies, and customer care. Vice President Sophie Pepin explained more to Hannah Barnett.
Lovepac is shaping the way North American businesses package their goods and materials. Since it was founded in 2002, the company has excelled in the design and manufacture of bespoke industrial packaging made from corrugated boxes, wooden pallets, and protective foam.
The company operates in the aeronautical, pharmaceutical, medical, food, and high-tech sectors and is known for innovative, sustainable materials.
“Our conscientiousness towards sustainability sets us apart,” said Sophie Pepin, Vice President. “If a customer is looking for that, they are coming to the right company. Plus, we are a manufacturer. We transform foam, corrugated, and wood. We’re the only ones in the whole province of Quebec that work with all three products.”
A history of packaging
A testament to hard work and commitment, Lovepac began life in the garage of its now President and CEO, Robert Sibthorpe. “He was just a distributor at the time,” Ms. Pepin explained. “Over the years, he bought one machine, and then another, and started producing: first in foam and then in corrugated. Then later we added wood.”
The company has around 70 employees across several sites in Montréal, Beauce, and a manufacturing plant in Guadalajara, Mexico, which opened in 2018. In July 2023, Lovepac was acquired by Antalis, a group specialised in the distribution of papers, packaging and visual communication products and services with activities in Europe and Latin America. Antalis is in turn a wholly-owned subsidiary of KPP Group Holdings Co., Ltd., a publicly-listed company
on the Tokyo Stock Exchange. According to Ms. Pepin, so far this relatively new integration is running smoothly.
“Antalis have the same culture and phil osophy as us, so we are very well aligned,” she explained. “It is obvious the Antalis management cares about its employees, and at Lovepac we have an acronym that our culture is one that CARES, which fits in well. It’s so important in a company buyout that the culture blends. I think Antalis did its homework and saw what kind of company we are.”
Antalis is similarly conscientious about the environment and published an ESG report in December 2023, with an updated one to be published every year. The information will also be available to Lovepac’s customers and suppliers.
Pioneers in foam circularity
Lovepac concentrates on small to medium runs, manufacturing specialty packaging for, sometimes very heavy or fragile, products to ship around the world.
The company offers turnkey manufacturing of custom corrugate, crating, and low- and high-density foam packaging to ensure a customer’s solution is professionally designed and manufactured to the highest standards.
“Our sales staff are out on the road, they scour the territory and bring back projects from our customers,” Ms. Pepin explained. “We have four designers, three in Montréal and one in Mexico, who design the specific packaging for each product.
“The material we use largely depends on the size, weight, and destination of the
product. We make a sample and there’s usually a lot of back and forth with the customer, but once they approve the packaging, they’ll place a P.O., and we start production.”
As part of its full turnkey service, Lovepac also offers assembly of foam into the boxes.
“Often, all a customer has to do is open the box, take the top foam off, put their product inside, place the top foam back in, and close the box,” Ms. Pepin said.
Around 14 years ago, the company began incorporating recycled foam into its process, in response to a market that was, at the time, dominated by white virgin polyethylene foam.
“Everyone was just putting white foam in the garbage,” Ms. Pepin explained.
“Robert (Sibthorpe, President and CEO) started pushing our suppliers to recycle their foam and we began to reuse all our
Lovepac CARES
The company’s value system is based on the following tenets of packaging success: Continuous improvement Attitude Respect Excellence Sustainability
scrap foam from production, working with our customers to approve and test it. The process took two years, but we finally came up with something that pleased everybody and met with the requirements of the poundage.
“At first, they were mixing different colours together, so the foam was multicoloured, but customers didn’t like that. So, we had to work to make it look prettier. Now it’s all
black – and that’s how the black recycled foam came into the market.”
As a result, the company has also decreased its specific foam offering from 20 types to around seven. To promote circularity, Lovepac also melts foam in a densifier and sends it to another company that makes the substance into pellets, before it is sold on to plastic
companies manufacturing products with reused content.
“Customers sometimes will call me and say they have a lot of foam from a shipment they received, and they don’t know what to do with it,” Ms. Pepin said. “If it’s a P-foam that we can melt, then I’ll take it from them just to make sure that it doesn’t go in the garbage.”
Packaging partnerships
Customers are clearly a highly valued element in the Lovepac formula.
“We take care of our customers from A to Z,” agreed Ms. Pepin. “We follow through after sales, making sure they received deliveries and they like the product and that sort of thing. This takes place through the whole process, from the moment that we get the
project in, all the way till the customers are happy and ready to ship their product.”
Additionally, the company also values strong trustworthy relationships with its supply chain. Lovepac uses many of the same regular, local suppliers. Foam suppliers, for example, are located just 15 minutes away.
“Recently, we calculated our corporate carbon footprint (scopes 1 and 2), and I sent letters to our suppliers asking them what sustainable actions they are putting in place,” Ms. Pepin said. “I’m still waiting for answers from some. Keeping track of everything is difficult, which I understand. But from a supplier’s perspective, we are very easy to work with because everything in corrugated is made from recycled anyway.”
It is this combination of environmental forward thinking and versatility which makes Lovepac stand out. The company now shares a goal with Antalis to grow in North America, perhaps by the acquisition of a packaging distribution business.
For Ms. Pepin, who joined the company back in 2011 and achieved an Executive MBA in 2015, life at Lovepac is a gift that keeps on giving. “I love what I do, otherwise I wouldn’t be doing it,” she concluded. “I used to be in sales and what really drove me wasn’t getting paid my commission at the end of the month, it was getting the customers to come on board with us.
“Now, my satisfaction is derived from my team. I challenge them every day, I coach them and help them improve themselves and grow as people and as employees. That’s what really motivates me; if my team is happy, then I am happy.” n
