The 370sqm extension on Heritage’s current 9,300sqm Blackburn premises will be completed in December and will house the new waste extraction unit. This will free up space in the main factory for what Heritage managing director Mark Sears said would be an investment in three or four new envelope machines at the start of next year.
Heritage first discussed the extension around two years ago.
Sears said: “As an envelope manufacturer, we had a bespoke factory built 16 years ago with seven envelope machines inside. We have grown over the last 16 years and now have 15 envelope machines and we found the capacity for the waste extraction system couldn’t cope with the volume we now do.”
Heritage said it prints on average around 50 million envelopes a week on its 15 Winkler & Dünnebier envelope machines.
“What we did is first look at the amount of stuff in the atmosphere on the production floor and then commission a Danish company to install an extension on the factory,” added Sears.
“So we will move all waste extraction into that unit and it will enable better waste extraction and better air quality because you will have less dust in the air causing problems. It gives us more production capacity and will give us a better quality on the shop floor for production.”
Four engineers have just begun working on the site installing the new extension, which will take around four weeks to complete.
Heritage also has a second 5,600sqm site in Walsall, West Midlands and a sales office in central London. It is looking to add to its 135 staff at its Blackburn site over the next few months. It employs 30 in Walsall and five in London.
Sears also announced that Heritage is expected to start selling its January 2016-launched PackMail offering in the US at the start of next year.
PackMail is a format that packages envelopes using cardboard ends and film wrapping instead of boxes. Sears said the format took out approximately 40 tonnes of cardboard from the UK industry in the first nine months of this year and could take out upwards of 200 tonnes in the next two years.
Heritage turned over around £30m last year and is aiming to increase by about £7m by the end of this year.
