I visited one of Northampton North’s largest employers, Smurfit Kappa, in Moulton Way in the last fortnight. They employ around 200 people in Northampton and are the largest company of their type in Europe.
Smurfit Kappa make an enormous variety of cardboard products – everything from large industrial cardboard boxes, to individual packaging for items like food and drink. Most of their product is recycled as well. You may not have realised it, but probably dozens of items we all deal with on a weekly basis have been wrapped or packaged by Smurfit Kappa, or transported in a box they made! As a company that is both global and local, they are an important link from Northampton to the world.
Businesses with an international impact like Smurfit Kappa are a real source of pride for Northampton, and demonstrate the continued economic importance of our town: there has been cardboard manufacture on that site for nearly 40 years, and I think I remember the factory being built when I was a small child, as I had a relative who lived opposite. Today they remain a very important source of jobs and investment in the area.
Visiting businesses which employ my constituents is one of the many and varied roles of an MP – these visits help me to know the challenges and opportunities for an extremely wide variety businesses and employees in Northampton North.