60 seconds with Windles Group

WIndles: the ‘spiritual home’ of cold foil
WIndles: the ‘spiritual home’ of cold foil

Bruce Podmore, Windles founder and managing director, started out printing in a shed in Aylesbury. Originally printing on a two-unit machine, his business grew quickly and in 1984 he joined forces with his late father.

Windles was formed. In 2004 Bruce developed the first ever sheetfed litho offset ‘cold foil’ unit in the UK. “We are the ‘spiritual home’ of cold foil and technically expert as we have been doing it for 15 years.”

Where are you based? Our purpose-built 4,180sqm modern environmentally sustainable factory is based in rural Oxfordshire in Thame. Close to the M40 and only a short train ride from central London

How many staff do you have? 105

What does your firm do? Luxury packaging, limited edition products, greetings cards – we do lots of special projects where the printing is technically challenging with exceptional finishing required. A lot of jobs use cold foil, hot foil, embossing, die cutting, neon inks, special varnish techniques including holographic and those with texture, glitter and flitter. Having B1 UV litho presses, and one with integrated cold foil unit gives us huge flexibility

What’s your typical customer? We work with an array of different customers. These include high-profile brands, designers, design and marketing agencies, publishers, retailers, print management companies, and lots of other printers!

Which geographic areas do you serve? Our customers travel from all over the world to work with us. Our core area is the UK but we often deliver to Europe and the US

What’s your USP? Cold foil – we are the home and inventors of the process, and the best at doing it; all of our finishing is done in-house; and we carry out the management of entire jobs – from design support through to the finished article. We are a powerhouse of ideas

What’s your company’s mission statement? Our company values are: We Enjoy What We Do. We Work Together. We Exceed Customer Expectations. We Make Things Happen. We Take It Personally

What’s been your proudest achievement in the past few years? Winning Printweek Awards, including Environmental Company and Social Stationery Printer. Printing the Vogue magazine cover that was guest edited by the Duchess of Sussex; producing Clive Christian packaging – one of the world’s most prestigious fragrance brands; and being drivers of innovation in the UK greetings sector, which is the best in the world. Training for future Windles generations is close to our hearts so we are proud to have six apprentices who are all flourishing

What’s your team’s favourite biscuit? We seem to go through a lot of chocolate Hobnobs!