中文A packaging giant is about to redraw the map of one of Europe’s most important recovered-fibre paper mills. DS Smith has proposed closing Paper Machine 4 (PM4) at its Kemsley site in Sittingbourne, Kent, while at the same time putting roughly £20m into modernising and expanding Paper Machine 6 (PM6) on the same campus. The two moves are being presented as a single, deliberate rebalancing of capacity rather than a simple cut, and they land at a sensitive moment for a business now owned by US giant International Paper.
Kemsley is no minor asset. Built by Frank Lloyd in 1924 to make newsprint, the mill today runs an annual capacity of around 830,000 tonnes and is described by DS Smith as the second-largest recovered-fibre-based paper operation in Europe. Its three main machines tell the story of a mill that has continually reinvented what it makes. PM4 currently produces about 250,000 tonnes a year across a grammage range of 125 to 210gsm. PM6, before any new money is spent, already turns out around 290,000 tonnes annually between 85 and 130gsm. PM3 adds a further 290,000 tonnes at 115 to 280gsm. Closing one line and upgrading another is therefore a meaningful shift in both mix and volume, not a marginal tweak.
The company framed the proposal in language that has become familiar across the sector: “the evolving market conditions of the paper and packaging industry.” That phrase hides a great deal. Containerboard and packaging grades have swung between oversupply and tight demand, energy costs have stayed volatile, and the integration of International Paper, which acquired DS Smith last year, has forced a hard look at which sites earn their keep. Two years ago DS Smith committed £48m to a new fibre preparation line at Kemsley; the new PM6 proposal is the next chapter in that programme of renewal, aimed at producing new paper grades at higher volume and holding the line on cost.
Rogier Gerritsen, managing director of Paper at DS Smith, stressed the dual nature of the announcement. “We are announcing a significant investment proposal for the Kemsley Paper Mill to ensure we are delivering the right products to our customers and remain cost competitive,” he said, while acknowledging that “part of these proposals will be difficult for some of our colleagues.” His focus, he added, is on supporting affected staff through a formal consultation process, and on preserving Kemsley’s position as “a cost-effective, future-ready mill” that still creates long-term value for people, customers and the local community.
What the proposal is not is a done deal. Both the PM6 investment and the PM4 closure, together with the timeline and the support measures for affected employees, remain subject to consultation with employee and union representatives. DS Smith had not, at the time of writing, published how many jobs would be affected, only that “workforce changes” would be needed to align the site’s structure with future operational requirements. That uncertainty is itself a feature of how large industrial restructurings now unfold, with consultations stretching for months before the final shape is known.
The Kemsley news also arrives against a wider backdrop of DS Smith site rationalisation under its new parent. International Paper quickly proposed closing five UK packaging sites after the acquisition, including a roughly 140-staff box plant at Clay Cross in Derbyshire that staff, unions and a local MP fought to save, along with sheet plants in Plymouth, Newcastle, Sheerness and Wellingborough. Earlier this year the group proposed closing its Launceston site in Cornwall, and a spokesperson confirmed on 4 September that consultation there had concluded with the closure confirmed and 165 jobs lost, production ending in November 2026.
For the paper supply chain, the logic is clear even if the human cost is not. PM4’s medium-grammage output is being weighed against PM6’s ability to make lighter, newer grades at higher volume, and against the strategic need to keep Kemsley competitive as a recovered-fibre hub. Recovered-fibre mills sit at the heart of the circular packaging economy, turning old boxes back into new board and paper, and a modernised PM6 that can swing into fresh grades may ultimately secure more volume than a flat PM4 ever could.
For competitors and customers alike, the Kemsley move is a signal of where recovered-fibre papermaking is heading in Western Europe. As e-commerce and fast-moving consumer goods brands push for higher recycled content in their packaging, mills that can flexibly produce lighter, stronger grades from recovered fibre gain an edge. The risk is that concentrated capacity makes the supply chain more exposed to single-site disruption, a tension every procurement manager now weighs. DS Smith’s bet is that a modernised PM6, rather than a preserved PM4, best serves that future demand.
The episode is a tidy illustration of how the print and packaging value chain is being reshaped from the raw-material end upward. Mills are not just producing paper; they are re-engineering which paper, for which customers, at what cost. As International Paper beds down its DS Smith acquisition, Kemsley’s PM4-to-PM6 pivot may prove a template for how legacy assets are repriced in a leaner, more consolidated industry that prizes flexibility and lower cost per tonne over sheer installed tonnage.
Source: Printweek (reporting by Richard Stuart-Turner), published 4 September 2026.
