From farm sheds to football stadiums: Antrim family business is a world leader in plastic sheeting

From small beginnings fitting out farm sheds, Antrim-based family business Brett Martin has unobtrusively become a world leader in plastic sheeting products, turning over sales of more than £220 million (€255 million) last year and having worked on roofing for sports stadiums from Croke Park to Wembley.

Paul Martin, group director of Brett Martin and the third generation involved in the business, said his grandfather Billy Martin first started out selling refined plastic sheeting to farmers in Mallusk in Antrim in 1957.

“We supplied transparent sheeting to the roofing market in Ireland and expanded throughout the world over the last 65 years or so. My father and his brother have run it for the past 45 years, and we’re now a £200 million-plus turnover business, and we export to over 70 countries across the world,” he said.

Today the group provides a number of products in different markets, including its specialised plastic sheeting and “daylight solutions” for multimillion-euro projects around the world, the latest of which is Everton’s new 53,000-seat, £555 million (€644 million) stadium in Liverpool.

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The group’s lightweight polycarbonate sheeting is about 200 times stronger than glass, much lighter and also allows daylight to pass through into buildings.

Brett Martin has supplied its polycarbonate sheeting to about 80 per cent of Premier League clubs in England, as well as working on Croke Park, Thomond Stadium and the Sports Ireland Institute in the Republic, and on international projects across Europe and the Middle East.

Mr Martin said they have garnered a good reputation for providing daylight solutions across a range of industries, first in the farming market, then for offices and warehouses, and eventually pivoting into the leisure space with stadiums and training grounds.

“It’s definitely about taking the sectors one at a time and applying the same expertise to provide a solution to them, to provide daylight, because it is critical in all of them,” said Mr Martin.

“Sports has been a good area for us. We’ve established ourselves as probably the leading supplier for solutions on that in the market. It’s great that we are part of these large projects,” he added.

The business currently employs more than 1,000 people, the bulk of whom work in its manufacturing facility in Mallusk, where the group is still headquartered.

“We’ve grown out of here as our base, Mallusk is our headquarters. We have a number of other sites in England but we’re very much predominantly based here in Northern Ireland,” said Mr Martin.

He says that their Northern Ireland location allows them to offer the whole package to clients in Britain and Ireland, from production to final delivery.

“I think we’ve gone above and beyond for a lot of our customers in terms of providing a level of service. We’re based in the UK, so in the UK and Ireland, we have a quick turnaround, we stay close to the project teams and deliver to the site on time when the cranes are there ready to lift it on to the roof. We provide a whole package,” he said.

Looking to the future, he said the group continues to invest its Mallusk site and its product range, with a focus on sustainability.

“A lot of the drive is towards sustainable products. Whilst we are providing plastic products and solutions that will bring in daylight and they will last, we’re trying to innovate products to last longer, that will still provide what certain buildings need and products that can diffuse light in certain ways,” he said.

“We’re just going to continue leading development and innovating our products in certain ways, that make them more differentiated in the market and add more value,” he added.