Andrew Middleton, Justin Hallam and Helen Gaunt founded Print Co on 3 January in Nottingham with equipment bought from Ginger Root, a digital design agency co-founded by Middleton in 2014.

The three bought out Middleton’s old firm’s print assets for £50,000, including a Xerox Versant 180 toner press and HP Latex 700W water-based wide-format press, and a range of finishing equipment.

Ginger Root’s role as a digital design agency had grown since its foundation as a print and design house, according to Middleton, and its current directors decided to separate from the print business after the death of Anthony Scoon, Ginger Root’s other co-founder.

“We’ve come full circle,” said Middleton, who got in touch with old colleagues Hallam and Gaunt to set up Print Co.

The new firm, set up as an equal venture between the three, has had an unusual start, he told Printweek.

Middleton said: “What has been unique here is that we’re able to cover all the bases straight away. 

“I act as our front-of-house and networker, Helen is our pre-press [expert], and she’s also a graphic designer and can print, then we have Justin who is predominantly a fitter but now runs all the machines as well. He’s a fully trained vehicle wrapper, and there’s not much he doesn’t know about signage, either.”

Print Co is looking to grow from a standing start to £1m turnover by its third year. To meet the plan, Middleton said, the three hope to hire two more staff in 2023 and grow the team to seven or eight by 2026.

With capacity for both digital and wide-format work, the company will wait to see where the demand is before placing any significant bets, according to Middleton, though he suspected that wide-format would be the firm’s main breadwinner.

“You never know with these things – I never knew I was going to go back into print, even – but I suppose from the money point of view, large-format is probably where the majority of our income will come from,” he said.

Middleton added that the company had been seeing very encouraging results with its Latex and Versant presses, which had both been bought since his departure from Ginger Root in 2020.

“They’re fantastic, absolutely amazing,” he said.

“We are banging out print left, right and centre. There’s only three of us at the moment, to keep finances tight, but the machines are running probably six or seven hours a day out of the gate.”