Multinational food and drink company Nestlé recognised suppliers that delivered consistently excellent quality throughout the year at ceremony held in Leeds last month.
AJS has been working with Nestlé since 2007 providing labels and leaflets for brands including Quality Street and Dolce Gusto.
Last year it delivered 121 million labels with zero quality or delivery issues to six dedicated Nestlé sites across the UK.
Achieving this was “no accident” and was thanks to collaboration with Nestlé’s quality and purchasing teams, said AJS owner and director Andrew Scrimgeour.
“To be recognised as the best out of more than 500 other UK suppliers for the quality of work we deliver is testament to the hard work put in to create the best possible labelling.”
AJS Labels has 75 staff and turns over £8m. It runs a range of digital and flexo presses, including machines from HP Indigo, Gallus and MPS.
In 2014 the company embarked on a 12-month £750,000 investment programme in a bid to create one of the most advanced quality systems in the UK.
Scrimgeour, who bought AJS Labels with wife Jayne in 2009, said: “I wasn't expecting the award, Nestlé are very demanding and we were up against big multimillion-pound suppliers.
“Coming out of the corporate world in 2009 to become an entrepreneur and buy AJS Labels was a scary time. But we helped turn it around within a year.
“We are ahead of budgets on profits, sales and operational ratios; but what gives me most pride is our management team is all home-grown talent and each one is fantastic.
“I've worked in several industries but labels is the toughest market – on every job there are a 100 things that can go wrong; so to get it right in such a way as to win an award from someone as demanding as Nestle is brilliant.”
He said the highly sophisticated nature of print required advanced monitoring and automated controls to stay at the top of the game.
Judges praised the quality leadership of AJS and the commitment to quality throughout the business. They were impressed with the improvement from "an already very high quality standard to one of zero defects in 2015".
