The family-run business was founded in 1963, when a first-class stamp cost just two pence, and a litre of petrol six.
Group managing director Natalie Stephens has run the business for the past 10 years, following the death of her father Ted, who took up the reigns from his father, Ken, Optichrome’s founder.
She told Printweek that she was extremely proud to be able to maintain the Stephens’ family legacy, with the company still going strong after three generations.
“In the past ten years, I’ve often wished there was a phone line up to heaven,” she said.
“I know it sounds crazy, but I’d love to just say: ‘You’re never going to guess what has happened.’”
The pandemic, war in Ukraine, and skyrocketing paper prices have all presented massive challenges to the industry within a few short years, she added.
“There have been so many bumps in the road in the last 10 years,” Stephens said.
“But we have managed to keep going and come out the other side.
“We have wonderful customers, some of whom have actually been with us for nearly 60 years themselves.”
One of Stephens’ earliest memories is of coming to the factory with her father on Saturdays as an eight-year-old, when the front office was still built into a Victorian house.
“I can remember it so vividly, sitting at the reception desk, which looked out onto Maybury Road, pretending to pick up the phone and waving at people as they walked past,” she said.
Still on Maybury Road, but now as the company’s group MD, Stephens has seen the firm get back to its feet after a tough run during Covid.
“We were doing really well before Covid, sadly, nearly reaching £7m when the pandemic hit. It has just been an uphill battle,” she said.
Split down the middle between litho and digital - with Heidelberg B1 and B2 presses and Ricoh Versafires respectively - Optichrome employs 47 staff, and expects to turn over £5.5m this year.
Part of this will come from the group’s paper straw company, The Paper Straw Group, founded in 2019, which has allowed Optichrome to add personalised straws to its more traditional - if varied - offering of commercial and custom print.
Stephens added: “It’s now getting busier again, I can see light at the end of the tunnel.
“We’re just putting one foot in front of the other, and carrying on: we plan to be here for a lot longer.”
