UK-based The Wilkins Group of Nottingham has invested more than £1million in a Bobst Expertcut PER 106 die-cutter to increase capacity and lower production costs as it runs more consistently and cuts down on process waste.
The move by The Wilkins Group – which produces packaging for household brands including Cadbury’s, Ginsters and Pizza Express – was a bold one, choosing to invest despite an unstable economy. Justin Wilkins, a third-generation of the family business (Sales and Marketing Director) said, “Most people might have thought it probably wouldn’t be the right time to invest, in terms of the current economic climate. But our view is that we don’t hold back and we have done the right thing as a business. We can’t let events outside of our control effect the strategic development of the company.”
He added, “We need the machine to increase capacity, to take us forward to the next phase of our development as we grow the business. We are looking to expand our UK operation by more than 10 percent, with new business confirmed, which will set us on a great course for our factory extension.”
In a printing and packaging industry that has had its fair share of struggles, Wilkins has bucked the trend by continuing to expand – to the extent that it recently purchased more land to expand its base and has enjoyed a £36m turnover this year. The Group now counts supermarkets Asda, Tesco, Iceland, Waitrose, Sainsbury’s, Marks and Spencer, Co-op, Morrisons, Aldi, Lidl, Spar and Budgens, and a host of other major brands and food suppliers, among its clients.
The top-of-the-range Expertcut is a PER power register machine capable of processing 9,000sph, will be installed in March 2019 and is expected to run four shifts, 24 hours a day. The company already has five die-cutters, all of which are Bobst. This is the latest in a string of purchases for the firm, including a board tray forming machine in 2018, a rotary window patching and lining machine in June 2016, a digital foiling and varnishing machine and a new printing press prior to that.
