It uses the latest chemical and manufacturing techniques to produce a very special solvent-free adhesive that is energy-efficient to make, but matches the performance of conventional solvent-based materials.
Managing director Chris Martin explains: “From the inception stage, we wanted a clean adhesive coating technology that would match up in performance to the more traditional solvent coating technologies, with no VOCs in production and without the use of fossil fuels. This approach allowed us to be the first manufacturer of graphics self-adhesives in the world to be carbon neutral, and gives us a base to move to net-zero manufacturing over the next few years.”
Short history, rapid success
Nu-Coat was first registered as a company in January 2018 and started production in September that year. “Although Nu-Coat is a separate entity, the business originally was set up with the major shareholder being Kevin Wallace, who also owns the highly renowned UK-based Signs and Graphics Distribution business Allprint Supplies,” says Martin. “Kevin’s existing business was already working with leading suppliers of self-adhesive material but was often unable to find products he was looking for, or wanted to develop to add to Allprint’s product offering, and from that Nu-Coat was born.” Allprint Supplies is Nu-Coat’s exclusive distributor in the UK.
Although he doesn’t want to give a turnover figure, Martin says: “I truly believe we have been, in percentage terms, the fastest growing self-adhesives business, certainly in Europe if not globally, these past five years.
Martin: Our mindset is to actively minimise our impact on the environment
Covid lockdowns only halted production for a few days due to furloughs. However, says Martin, “my own inability to travel freely across Europe during Covid and the various complications associated with Brexit and exports has hampered our level of growth into these areas, but I am delighted to say overall that our fast growth has continued at pace right up to today.
“With more and more focus and legislation surrounding the environment, we can directly link much of our success to our ability to offer a more environmentally friendly high-performance adhesive that performs just like solvent-based adhesive, but without the solvent.
“Selling plastic films with siliconised liners like all our competitors, we cannot claim to be ‘green’ ¬ that would be ‘greenwashing’ – but what we would say is we are greener than virtually all our competitors when we speak of our adhesive technology.
“Add to this our mindset, which is to actively ‘minimise our impact on the environment’, then in accordance with PAS2060-2014 we are now a carbon-neutral company.”
Factory moves
The business started at a site in Cwmcarn, in South Wales, about 10km north west of Newport. Initially it occupied a small unit in a much larger building, but grew to occupy three units of approximately 2,800sqm. After the five-year lease ran out, business growth justified a move to larger premises.
“We moved into new premises in April 2023 in Cwmbran, only about 20 minutes from our original site, mindful that we wanted to keep the business local for our existing staff,” says Martin. “This location is also better placed for the road network, for goods in and out. The new building was internally a 4,650sqm, 7m-high box that we could lay out exactly as we wanted.”
Nu-Coat carried out major refurbishments to the power, electrics, heating/cooling, flooring, roof lights and car parking, with electric car charging points. “We now have space enough to expand long into the future, adding additional equipment as and when needed.”
Who is in charge?
“Overall as managing director, I am answerable for the entire business and what we do,” says Martin. “However, as a former semi-professional footballer I am well aware that we are only as good as the team around me and that includes everyone, even our customers, who to me are like your home crowd – they will demand the best, cheer and support you when you get it right and make it known if they are not satisfied!
“Thankfully Nu-Coat was blessed at the outset to secure the services of Rob Musto as operations director, a well-known, widely respected and proud Welshman who has a wealth of knowledge and experience gained over 30 years in our industry. Despite my own 30 years in the industry in sales and marketing roles, I still learn something new every day from Rob and his team that he has built over these five past years.”
The company currently employs 11 people and runs an eight-hour shift, Martin says. “We have the capability to grow, utilising our current equipment by adding additional shifts, and/or in our new building we have the space to add further equipment and capabilities, which could increase our staffing levels as needed.”
Product lines
Nu-Coat has developed self-adhesive media ranges for signage, wide-format printing and lamination. Its most common widths are 1,600mm, 1,560mm, 1,370mm and 1,260mm, in 50m lengths or 25m for some commodities and higher-end specialities.
The sign media includes coloured, metallised and etched films. The print range includes solvent, latex and UV printable PVC and non-PVC products, with matching finishing laminates. There’s also a Specialities range, with niche products for specific applications, including anti- graffiti, dry wipe, heavy plant machinery and extreme motorsport. Other bespoke materials can also be produced.
There are two non-PVC offerings: matt or gloss white or clear digitally printable polypropylene; and clear polyester for anti-graffiti laminates, decorative metallised films or wipe boards.
“We are continuously looking for more environmentally friendly products,” says Martin. “We will soon announce that our very popular gold and silver metallised films will be produced with 100% recycled aluminium. For packaging we use 40% recycled plastic end caps and 80% recycled boxes. Our adhesive drums are sent for recycling and all our general waste is sent to waste-for-energy.”
Pioneering production
Having pioneered new processes to produce these eco-friendly products, Martin is a little cagey about some aspects of production, particularly the coater. “Suffice to say it can produce 1,600mm wide material and is equipped with a range of devices and adaptations to ensure the quality of material entering and leaving the coater is of the optimum quality,” he says. “A corona treater, specialist rollers and a coating weight scanner are key to this, as well as our experienced production team.”
Martin is happy to talk about the process itself. “The UV cured acrylic adhesive we buy as a solid block in a drum. We heat the drum and the now liquefied adhesive is transported to the coater. The metal coating head is 1,650mm wide and has a full-width slot where the adhesive is extruded on to the release liner. Within a metre, UV light is shone onto the adhesive which cures it, and in the same pass we laminate whatever film is required to the adhesive side.
The UV lamps are supplied by GEW EU in Crawley, the subject of a Best of British feature earlier this year. The two slitter-rewinders are supplied by TS Converting Equipment of Taunton, another Best of British subject from 2021, which makes the Elite Cameron range.
Solvent adhesives not only contain VOCs but they need banks of “gas-guzzling” heaters to evaporate the solvent after coating. Modern UV-LEDs need far less energy overall.
“Water-based adhesive does not have the same issues with VOCs and legislation, but still requires multiple gas-intensive ovens to cure the adhesive,” Martin says. “This is why we are considered a more environmentally friendly technology and the technology of the future.
“Performance-wise, solvent is better than water-based adhesive in terms of being able to bond to all manner of surfaces. Our UV-cured adhesive performance is generally equally matched to solvent-based adhesive without the harmful solvent.”
Another benefit of Nu-Coat’s process is that it allows relatively small quantities to be manufactured. “The machines for solvent or water-based technology are huge, so setups and changeovers can take a lot of time and involve far more waste than our system. We have no need for premixing adhesive and, thanks to additional hoses and melt-tanks, we can change over relatively quickly. We are more than capable of supplying just 500 linear metres, typically 10 rolls, which is a real advantage when it comes to niche applications and scale-up of R&D projects.”
R&D and testing is handled in-house. “Our lab is run by Tina and Rob, who between them have over 50 years’ experience in adhesives and coatings. The lab is equipped with a pilot coater, plus FTIR (Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy) to ensure raw material consistency, and the usual shear and peel testing equipment.”
What’s next?
There will soon be a revised offering in the wall and floor applications range, which Martin says is seeing “huge success across a range of different materials. “A removable grade of adhesive, cleanly removed from multiple surfaces including glass is also in final development and will be launched soon.”
STAR PRODUCTS
Martin says: “Our best sellers include our High Opacity White Monomeric and Polymeric films used for block-out work, our non-PVC films and, particularly at this time of year, our metallised polyester films. Recently launched High Tack CAD films in black and white matt and gloss are also becoming increasingly popular as are all our films which come with our air-Xit liner which makes the ease and speed of fitting so much better.”
