The Sevenoaks, Kent-based business first opened its doors on 5 September 1988 and was originally formed to market international direct mail, offering a rival service to Royal Mail for overseas mail distribution from the UK.
The company initially operated from a small room within south London-based printer Impressions Lithographic’s premises.
It moved to its own site in Bexley in 1990 and in the same year it worked with ICLP and Hilton International to launch and then handle the hospitality company’s worldwide membership club. Around this time TMB also started to take on a greater volume of direct mail production.
In 1992 the firm worked with LWT on the launch and membership of game show Gladiators and two years later it moved again, expanding to a 650sqm unit in Kent in order to handle an increasing demand for direct mail production, particularly in the arts sector.
In 2002 it expanded once more, to its current location, taking on a larger 2,000sqm site on the same industrial estate.
Managing director Mark Falconer, who has been with the company for 28 years, said: “We saw a boom in the 90s and 00s, which seemed to come to the end in around 2008/9 with the financial crisis. Since then we haven’t really seen a return to those volumes.
“We’ve combated that by trying to offer what the customer wants at all times and by being quite a lean outfit – we’ve got quite an efficient setup here.”
£3.6m-turnover TMB has 25 full-time employees as well as a number of casual staff.
Serving a wide range of blue-chip clients and charities, it operates a Xerox Versant 180 and Ricoh digital kit as well as three Buhrs enclosing lines and Belca and Eclipse polywrapping lines.
Alongside printing and international mail, the firm offers storage and fulfilment and data services and holds ISO 27001 certification.
“We’ve got strong IT so we’re able to do things with data that other people might find difficult,” said Falconer.
“We are now investing in upgrading our security and changing firewalls, part of the ISO is that you need to have and show continual improvement.”
