Hudson Color starts resin distribution operation

LEOMINSTER, MASS. (Dec. 1, 4:35 p.m. ET) -- Hudson Color Concentrates is entering the resin distribution market with a new business unit: Quality Resin Solutions.

The new unit will share offices with Leominster, Mass.-based Hudson and will use a 45,000-square-foot warehouse in Hudson, N.H., and additional warehousing space in Niles, Ill., as well. Hudson’s Midwest Color unit is located in Niles.

Quality Resin Solutions will provide commodity and engineering resins in both prime and wide-spec grades, as well as a variety of additives, Hudson sales and marketing vice president David Boudreau said Dec. 1 via phone. Boudreau also will serve as vice president of the new unit and will handle its day-to-day operations.

“It might seem like a surprise, but 2009 has been one of Hudson’s best years in sales and profit for a while,” he said. “So resin distribution is a way for us to branch out. Several customers had been asking us to do this for a while.”

QRS will be able to provide resin in rail-car amounts of in small lots of 10,000 to 20,000 pounds. Material can be supplied in boxes or in bags.

“We want to be a service-type business,” Boudreau said.

QRS has supply agreements in place with “several major resin producers,” but Boudreau declined to provide details.

In 2009, Hudson has been able to avoid the challenges facing many of its competitors. The firm’s sales are expected to increase to between $20 million and $25 million. Hudson has added 10-12 new employees in the last 60 days and plans to add another 4-5 by the end of the year. The firm currently employs 60-65 and operates a total of 16 extrusion lines at its two sites.

A new twin-screw line is expected to be up and running in Leominster by the end of the year, with a new single-screw extruder on tap for Niles in early 2010, Boudreau said. Organic growth and the addition of QRS should place annual sales for 2010 in the $30-35 million range, he added.

“We’re hitting on a lot of big contracts that we’ve been working on for the last couple of years,” Boudreau said. “We were prepared for the downturn.”

Hudson — which makes a broad line of color concentrates based on commodity and engineering resins — also has been able to survive and thrive by diversifying. The firm’s major end markets include packaging, wire and cable, cosmetics and medical, but Boudreau said that none of those markets accounts for more than 12-15 percent of the firm’s total sales.

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