Below is a transcript from an article published in the Shropshire Star business pages and online on 22nd September, 2015

TCL has full package as it plans for growth

A packaging company which moved to major new premises just over a year ago says it now plans to capitalise on its additional space to grow turnover to £20 million by the end of the decade.

Mike Golding, managing director of TCL Packaging, on the company’s shop floor at its headquarters on the Stafford Park Industrial Estate
Mike Golding, managing director of TCL Packaging, on the company’s shop floor at its headquarters on the Stafford Park Industrial Estate

TCL Packaging left behind its patchwork of premises in Hortonwood for a single site in Stafford Park last July.

Now boss Mike Golding says it has continued to grow, and is on target to persist with a long run of double-digit turnover increases this year.

“I see continued, steady organic growth for the business. I would like to see in another five years’ time we have turnover of £20 million, and we have business plans that do that, and I see no reason why we shouldn’t achieve it,” he said.

“The UK market for printed flexible packaging is worth about £1.25 to £1.5 billion, and we have got, if we’re lucky, one per cent of that.

“We have a little niche, we know what we are and what we do. We are as technically competent as many of the biggest players, we have got good people here and we make some high-quality products, but we make them in relatively small quantities.”

TCL prints and converts flexible packaging for use with various consumer products, including many businesses in the food and drink industry.

The move was part of an overall £2 million investment in the business, and saw it move from a collection of premises accumulated over a longer period, to the former Opal Building on Stafford Park 6.

It gives the company 70,000 sq ft of production space – two-and-a-half times its previous capacity – and saw it add a third printing machine to help ease the transition.

Now the company is working 24-hour shifts for more than five days a week, and has the capacity to continue its expansion.

Mr Golding said: “Of all the packaging products out there flexible is the one with the most growth in it, and that’s because it’s the lowest cost method of providing hygienic packaging.

“It’s probably the biggest growth market that there is, and that’s reflected in the way TCL has been growing it’s film business.”

While Mr Golding says the company was disrupted slightly more than he had hoped because of the move, it also benefited from the additional space.

“I now have here what I always wanted, which is a well-organised, tidy, professional factory with scope for expansion,” he added.

Full piece here.