LDC Top 50 2025
Mark Fitzgerald
CEO
CTR Group
A recycling industry veteran, Mark Fitzgerald takes the UK’s unwanted goods and finds new homes for them overseas, recycling the rest. “Zero to landfill, that’s our promise,” he says.
In 2014, Mark began wholesaling second-hand clothes. He now handles unwanted stock for retailers like Lidl too. “We create opportunities and wealth around the world,” he says. “In Zambia, we supply a cooperative of female traders who sell our products in their street market.” Uttoxeter-based CTR employs 440 people and will turn over £45 million this year. Mark says: “70 per cent of the world’s population wears second-hand clothes so the opportunity is immense.”
We create opportunities and wealth around the world.”
Q&A
What is your ultimate ambition?
I want to get more involved in government legislation and public awareness. We cannot keep using landfill. We are never going to stop producing waste in the UK and we need a proper waste strategy so that we don’t stick it in the ground or burn it. We provide UK and European corporates with a fully auditable and compliant reuse solution rather than landfill, We need to take these goods to the people who need it.
Where will growth come from?
We will double in size in the next two years. We have started to offer a proper circular economy service: we can take a bread crate, recycle it through granulation, then remake the crate. We have a lot of UK retailers asking us to help them in Europe, so within the next six months we’ll have a dedicated warehouse in Europe.
Tell me about a challenging time
I had two heart attacks in two months during the Covid-19 pandemic. When the world stopped, we had 100 vehicles on the road, a 150,000 sq. ft warehouse in the Midlands, and 280 staff. The government introduced furlough but there was no help on business rates, and we still had to pay the finance on the fleet. That was the most challenging time of my life.
