In a ceremony attended by more than 120 guests, including the firm’s retired founder Karl Zünd and the Swiss Ambassador Markus Leitner, as well as customers from the print, packaging, and leather- and composite-cutting trades, Zünd UK opened the doors to its show floor in Letchworth Garden City.
Zünd’s show did not just stop at the front door, however: in a ceremony complete with full multi-coloured roving stage-lights and blasting Daft Punk soundtrack, the firm dropped a curtain to reveal the first Q-line cutter to be installed in the UK, with cutting arms dancing across the belt.
Introducing the event, Oliver Zünd said: “This is much more than the inauguration of a physical structure. This [building] symbolises our dedication for the UK market, and the spirit of progress.”
The new site, a 3,700sqm renovated industrial building with solar array and polished concrete showroom, boasts six Zünd cutters, which are fed printed material from a SwissQprint Impala 4 installed to one side. Around 55 staff now work from the Letchworth facility.
Upstairs, Zünd’s UK research and development lab backs onto conference rooms named after noteworthy local figures: upstairs, they are [George] Orwell and [Ebenezer] Howard, after the socialist author and the founder of the garden city movement, respectively; Lewis Hamilton and Stephen Hawking lend their names downstairs.
The refurbishment, started in September 2023, was extensive.
“It has been a huge task,” Nicki Kay, Zünd UK managing director told Printweek
“From the heart, I am so proud of my team, who have done it all through their own hard work.”
The team, she added, had worked hard to move in by the last week of February, and had been up the night before the opening ceremony tying up the final details.
With the opening ceremony complete, however, it’s now back to business, Kay said.
“As of Monday morning, we’ve got a number of major projects we’re working on with customers, and we need to get them delivered. For us, it’s now about getting the sales team back to focus on getting out into the marketplace, and we’re going to continue to try and diversify our market. It’s back to having our nose to the grindstone.”
Having the Q-line – here a Q22-32D – in the UK is a “massive advantage” for the firm, which is already in talks with around four major packaging firms over the new flagship cutter, which can reach speeds of 2.8m/s, around double that of previous models.
“We’ve got a lot of work to do, but knowing that we have point-of-sale and packaging sorted [on the Q-line] is amazing, and we know that we can develop into other areas. The speed and accuracy – it’s just mindblowing,” Kay said.
Leitner, the Swiss Ambassador, expressed his satisfaction at seeing Zünd invest in its UK presence.
He said: “I must say I am very impressed. Not surprised, but very impressed.
“What makes [Switzerland] so innovative is the Swiss SMEs – who, like Zünd here – are innovative, creative, agile, and responsive to the needs [of their customers].
“In the embassy, we are negotiating a modernised free-trade agreement to increase trade and investment [between the UK and Switzerland]: we are big and important partners.
“And if Zünd is investing here, it tells me we are on the right track."
