News

Cambrian Printers is justifiably proud of its environmental credentials and customer service.

It is a fact worth noting that 95% of potential clients who visit Cambrian Printers are converted into customers. Its Aberystwyth offices are within hooting distance of seagulls from the Atlantic, but that clearly doesn’t affect its customer service.

Indeed, Carrick Wilkie, sales development director, points out 75% of the company’s clients are outside of Wales with its two largest customers based in London, and of its top five, only one is from Wales. “It is our attention to detail that keeps our customers – our customer service is good all the time,” says Wilkie.

To prove this, Wilkie holds up the example of Informa, a company that took an in-house audit of printers wanting to get its roster total down from 12 to six. “The company took price out of the equation and asked the staff why they wanted to use a particular printer. Cambrian came second overall and first for customer service,” says Wilkie.

Keeping clients
After two and a half years in his role, Wilkie continues to see the business grow organically and hopes to be pulling in turnover of £10m within five years. “There are three significant areas of growth: environmental and digital and weeklies,” says Wilkie. “We currently print two weeklies, one of which is in Cambridge, and we want to do more of this kind of work. Basically, we’d like to work more in markets that will not go overseas, such as weekly work. We lost a client to Singapore in early 2006 but, rather than sit there defeated, we looked at jobs that were unlikely go abroad and have not lost another
client overseas since.”

In November 2006, Cambrian Printers won a three-year contract worth £300,000 per year to print academic journals for the British Medical Journal division – one of only two UK suppliers to win the work.
The firm, which inhabits a 3,400m2 site, is in the middle of a three-year investment plan due to be completed by the end of 2007. During this burst of investment, the company has ploughed £5m into new equipment, aided by a £1m Regional Selective Assistance grant from the Welsh Assembly. Currently, 10% of Cambrian’s turn­over comes from digital printing and Carrick expects this to grow in proportion to turnover increase.

The Welsh public sector takes the impact of printing on the environment extremely seriously and places CSR, transport policy and environmental issues high on its agenda. Wilkie says that Christine Cooke, buyer for the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (RSPB), makes a point of buying print sourced from a Welsh printer using sustainably sourced material to cut down on print miles and support the Welsh printing industry.

“Some print buyers understand environmental issues, some don’t,” says Wilkie. “Now we get Norman Faulkner, our systems and technical manager, to meet our new clients and explain our environmental agenda. However, many clients such as Permaculture Publications, the Royal Horticulture Society, the RSPB and the Centre of Alternative Energy use us specifically because of our environmental accreditations.”

Eco awards
And the list of accreditations is impressive. The company has held ISO 14001 for three years, ISO 9001 for five years and is the only Welsh company to have both FSC and PEFC Chain of Custody awards. It also holds the Green Dragon Level five award, which is the highest business accreditation in Wales – again the only Welsh company to hold the certificate.

It also has a contract with Dorset-based J&G Environmental to ensure that it recycles used materials and protects the environment as much as it can. Its used print blankets go to work as protection on horse riding jumps, while its aluminium engine blocks and pallets become, rather intriguingly, dolls houses.
Cambrian Printers has a history in print that goes back more than 100 years. It is currently in the hands of the fourth generation of the Read family, managing director Robert Read. While the company’s early and middle years concentrated on newspaper printing, it successfully grew into commercial printing, a sector it continues to excel in from the rugged Welsh countryside.

---

CAMBRIAN FACTFILE
Established 1860
Based Aberystwyth, Wales
Staff 94
Turnover £6m in 2006
Specialist sectors scientific, technical and medical journals, regular specialist commercial, academic and environmental
Accreditations ISO14001, PEFC/FSC Chain of Custody Certification, ISO9001, Green Dragon Level 5
Clients Macmillan Publishing, T&F Informa UK, British Gas, Kogan Page, Metropress, Royal Festival Hall, RSPB, RHS
Website www.cambrian-printers.co.uk