Part of a group of around 10 guests at Pincroft’s Adlington factory, including representatives from the Ministry of Defence’s procurement company, Leidos, the ribbon-cutting party discussed the importance of reshoring camouflage fabric production, national supply chains, and the benefit of investment to local employment.
“It was a busy morning, but it went very well. Sir Lindsay is a huge supporter of ours, being our constituency MP, and we were very pleased that the place looked good, the press looked good, and everything was running well,” managing director Mike Collins told Printweek.
The Zimmer Rotascreen TG, commissioned in November, has increased Pincroft’s camouflage print capacity to more than eight million metres a year.
“This is a major investment creating high-quality jobs, but most of all, producing the best camouflage in the world, printed here,” said Hoyle.
“We look forward to the United Kingdom wearing printed uniforms from Adlington.”
Collins added: “It’s a huge leap forward for us. We already have a Stork printing press, but it’s a fairly old machine: it has done a great job for us, and will continue to do so, but we have strength and depth [now] with two machines.
“I think they were all impressed at the scale of the operation – and it drove home to everybody that we have this UK capacity that is vastly underutilised by UK procurement. Leidos have been challenged to ask why we are purchasing 30% of our UK MOD [camouflage] from China when we’ve got this facility on our doorstep.
“Yes, we’ll never compete with Chinese pricing – but with this new technology, we’re not a million miles out. There’s an opportunity teed up for us all to take advantage of here.”
Eagle added: “The impact of having the capability in the UK to make uniforms to these standards is quite clear.
“It means that you can keep the intellectual property of how you're designing your uniforms local, instead of them being sent around the world. To have the capability to do that here is a very powerful sovereign strength.”
The Zimmer press has since been joined by an SPGPrints BestLEN direct rotary engraving machine, purchased in late November when Pincroft’s engraver Meshtex wound up its operations in an orderly, solvent closure, according to Collins.
“That was really to protect the supply chain,” he explained, “so we bought up the assets and set them up in-house, and took on one of their people to maintain that skillset.”
The new kit has even added around £100,000 to revenues, as Pincroft has continued to supply some of Meshtex’s old customers.
“If we hadn’t brought it in-house, we’d have been looking at mainland Europe to supply our screens. It would have been costly and a huge extension of time in our supply chain.”
