ITS All About The Flow - Peter's Journey!

For many who know Peter, it will be for his close connections to Alfa Laval, expertise when it comes to valves, and probably a determination to succeed beyond the norm. 

For those that do not know the Founder of Industrial Trading Solutions, we thought you might be interested in Peter’s journey, to where he finds himself today – Semi Retired alongside his loving wife, with a successful business, and a life full of ups and downs.

Born in Birmingham in 1947, Peter was raised in the Midlands and found a great passion for badminton. Winning 1st place in the Birmingham Schools Championships, resulting in securing a place in the Warwickshire County squad. He later started up a club for 11–16-year-olds in Solihull, to enable his two sons Andrew and Matt, to play as youths. Peter’s family also supported Wolves Football Club, as the original club was started by the brother of Peter’s Grandmother, John Brodie, together with John Baynton in 1877!

At 17 Peter landed a job in insurance based out of Temple Street in Birmingham. After taking his insurance exams and spending nearly two years dedicating himself to the art, he soon realised his talents were being wasted and left for pastures new to seek more fulfilment – and a job that also paid more!

So, in 1966, Peter started a new role at Peter Marshall Valves (later known as Pegler & Louden), selling, believe it or not – valves, to businesses in the Midlands area. Having found his vocation in life, Peter excelled and eventually became Sales Director. One important factor in his development was the suggestion from the then P & L Managing Director to consider ‘The Dale Carnegie’ course which had a massive influence on him and a great help in life and with his future international roles.

At the same time, he married the love of his life Valerie, and in 1969 at the age of 22, Peter and Valerie tied the knot at Erdington Abbey, where he had previously been a scout and cub leader.

With over 50 Sales Reps, 4 divisions and 12 branches to manage, Peter thrived in this sales environment with Pegler and Loudon becoming one of the biggest valve distributors in the UK. Peter even wrote the Sales Training Manual that would be cascaded throughout the business and become the standard set and expected by the business for years to come.

As his work travels would have it, Peter visited Ansell’s Brewery who were at the time changing their manufacturing processes to use stainless Steel rather than copper. This triggered an interest in the possibility for stainless valves which Peter thoroughly researched and eventually added these to the P&L product portfolio. This was followed shortly with an introduction of a new stainless-steel catalogue of valves which provided the business with an exciting range of Hygienic valves for the very first time.   

Stratford Canners in Stratford upon Avon (owned by DCL in Scotland) were to be the first contract P&L won for stainless flow equipment, together with industrial valves, Worcester ball valves and instrumentation, used in this upgraded canning plant they were building in Stratford upon Avon!

With P & L tie up initially with the TI Group for tube and fittings, when establishing the hygienic sector in about 8 of the 12 branches, Peter had aspirations to add to the product range further. Coming across LKM from Denmark (then part owned by Alfa Laval) initially, P&L added butterfly valves, tank equipment and agitators which were later supplemented with LKM seat valves and pumps from Alfa Laval and Ibex!

As UK Sales & Marketing Director, Peter realised the need to specialise in core competencies and split the sales teams into four divisions, Industrial Valves, Offshore, Incon and the new Hygienic Division, to focus on the different key industry sectors.

Peter had other things to occupy his time too with two sons being born to him and Valerie - Andrew was born in 1974 followed by Matt in 1977.

Then in 1980 Peter won “The Birmingham Driver of the Year” that awarded him with a new car (for which Val became the lucky recipient of as Peter already had a company car!)

 Life was busier and better than ever!

However, with the business going from strength to strength, The Pegler Hattersley Group (including Pegler and Louden) were purchased by Greg Hutchinson (owner of Walsall Buckle Company) as part of a new umbrella company called Tomkins. At this time many of the current Pegler Sales force were advised that redundancies were likely and so in the summer of 1986 Peter informed Alfa Laval in Sweden, and following meetings in Helsingborg, during the holidays, he was offered the opportunity to open a new Alfa Lava Flow company in the UK.

LKM (Alfa Laval) were also going through the process of development and Peter was asked to head up the new Alfa Laval Flow division of the business, based in Minworth and took with him seventeen of the Pegler hygienic team to support this function. This team went on to win a Marketing Award in 1987 from NatWest.

During his time with Flow, Peter would often attend training courses and seminars overseas and at one particular event in Sweden, he was approached to consider a temporary position for six months as the Sales and Marketing Director for LKM Head Office in Kolding, Denmark.

Peter went back and forth weekly from England to Denmark in addition to travelling internationally, and the six months contract turned into 5 years!

Marketing for LKM had never been so good and as a result many other new “Daughter Companies” were opened around the world to support the marketing activities that Peter was co-ordinating. The development of LKM range was underway and the new MixProof range was launched in 1992 alongside the largest ever campaign carried out by Alfa Flow, with three options: Basic, Standard and Executive choices. The BC (Basic Choice) range is still being sold today.

In the same year of 1994, the Food Flow Agreement was signed when Peter became the Vice President of Marketing, returning to the Global Flow division of the business, first in Brussels for one year and then for three years based in Lausanne (at the Tetra Pak HQ) travelling from there around the World for some years.

Peter introduced and was Editor for a new publication called News Flow in 1992 which would keep all stakeholders of the business up-to date with what was going on at Alfa Laval Flow. The name of the newsletter was changed in 1994 to World Flow.

After the acquisition of Tri Clover (in 1987) Alfa started the hygienic integration with LKM, in earnest, so asked Peter to spend two weeks per month in the US, based in Kenosha Wisconsin but travelling around all of the Distributors in the US and working also with Cardinal Systems and Saunders in Houston.

After this period, Peter moved to Cwmbran as the AL Valve Division President with manufacturing in Cwmbran and Düsseldorf, before opening a new valve manufacturing plant in Satara, India in (1996) to support the ever-growing global demand for AL diaphragm, ball, butterfly valves and actuators.

Shortly after this, Peter was head hunted for a new opportunity back with Pegler and Louden which has just been bought by a new company. So, in 1998, Peter moved back to Pegler as Managing Director, however after 2 years Peter decided to leave the business – but with no role to go to.

Having worked his whole life, Peter struggled to keep still and so started up his own company ‘Dextera’ in the year 2000, to provide Marketing and Management consultancy services and support to other businesses, together with another ex-AL Manager from Italy. It was during this time that Peter was asked to become Sales Director of Broady Valves and Managing Director of its distribution business Flowstar, also in Hull, which he carried out 3 days a week alongside other director level, part time marketing and development roles for many international clients from Israel, Denmark, Germany, Ireland, and Italy.

Battery Brain was then added to Dextera arm as a distributed product, as were children’s trikes!

Later in 2002, Alfa Laval had conversations with Peter about their decision to take themselves out of distribution with plans to sell the Minworth operation, and Peter was given first refusal to buy the business.

And so… Industrial Trading Solutions began with a group of the Minworth Alfa Laval branch staff, Dextera as the export arm to the business, part owner Valerie his wife, and Peter heading it all up.

Industrial Trading Solutions are today one of the most experienced (as you can imagine!), complete solution suppliers of hygienic products. With great brands being distributed by the business including Alfa Laval, Bornemann, Mouvex and Pipetite, ITS also offer repair, maintenance, and servicing to the industry.

Peter’s determination to succeed was fuelled by his want to provide a good life for his family and now a Grandad to four grandchildren, Peter is enjoying the fruits of his labour with incredibly supportive and patient wife Valerie, with whom he celebrated his Golden Wedding Anniversary in 2019.

But his journey with ITS is still going strong and Peter looks forward to more growth and success in the coming years with his son Andrew having taken the helm as Managing Director of the business.

Exciting times ahead…