King paid a visit to the Bardon, Leicestershire headquarters of the privately owned carton printers, which has a turnover of more than £110m on 14 September.

Alastair Cunningham, a representative of the Bank of England's East Midlands Agency, helped organise the visit.

He said: "It was a most impressive presentation of a manufacturing business. It’s very easy for economists to talk about 'economies of scale' without really knowing what they look like – seeing Benson printing 76,000 boxes per hour is not a bad image."

Mark Kerridge, managing director of Benson Group, said it was a "great honour" to welcome the governor for the visit, which included a tour of the factory.

"He was very interested in what we had to say and was keen to offer his thoughts on a whole variety of financial topics, including inflation, growth, interest rates, and economic stability," he added.

Benson Group has invested more than £25m on new facilities and equipment in the past few years. Earlier in the summer, it continued its finishing investment drive, ordering two Expertcut 106PER blank separating die-cutters from Bobst.