The Suffolk-based business matched the funding from the New Anglia LEP’s Business Resilience and Recovery Scheme and has been able to make upgrades across the business since the start of the year.

The spend covered a refurbished Wohlenberg 115 guillotine, from Consensus Guillotine Engineering, to replace its previous guillotine of the same make. Additionally, the business invested in an IT upgrade, roller material handling and pallet lifting kit as well as installing insulation at its 840sqm Halesworth facility.

According to owner Jamie Leverett the investments will help the business recover from the impact of Covid and create a more robust model going forward.

He said: “The pace of change has quickened and we need to keep up with that. The upgrades have really brought us up to date, streamlined things and made everything more reliable.

“There are hardly any independent print finishers left now as many have been internalised in the big firms. We are pretty niche and we have tried to specialise in the quirky print finishing work. We’re pretty comfortable, we’ve not borrowed huge sums and we have no big debts so really we are very happy to still be here and surviving in the current market.”

Halesworth Print Finishers was founded in 1989 and bought from its original partners by Leverett, who joined 17 years ago.

The team of 14 staff carry out a wide range of specialist finishing work including applying coloured edges to books and journals, gilt edging, thumb indexing, round cornering, stencil edging brass eyeleting, as well as standard finishing techniques such as die-cutting, shrinkwrapping, collating, wire stitching and general handwork.