Express & Star

A move to new premises and investment in state-of-the-art equipment means a West Midland firm can pack up to a million items a week for customers including some of the biggest names in retail.

Express Solutions can include names such as British Home Stores, Woolworths, Dunelm and Nivea skin care group Beiersdorf among its list of clients.

The Willenhall-based company is now aiming to enter the next phase of its development and is in talks with a potential major customer that could lead to substantial growth for the business.

It comes after an eventful 16 months that started with a takeover at the business in late 2006. In July last year it moved from its home in Dudley Port, Tipton, to a bigger 15,500 sq ft facility on Willenhall’s Watery Lane Industrial Estate. Express, a contract packing supplier specialising in point-of-sale and non-food retail products, is now geared up to pack, label, store and distribute a broad range of items including toiletries, DVDs, CDs, computer games, healthcare products and magazines.

The company has been in the industry for more than 25 years, developing assembly line techniques for the packing process. Spokesman Les Johannes said: “We have a core of 20 full-time staff with up to 30 more part-time and agency workers we can call in. It means that, on a 24/7 basis it is able to pack in excess of 100,000 units per day and up to one million units per week and offer a fast turnaround of time-critical contracts.”

Express Solutions has supplemented its hand-packing capability with the latest production technology including a Shanklin F5 high speed shrink-wrapping line, capable of processing nearly 4,000 CDs or DVDs an hour, and a BVM Compacta over-wrapper, also capable of processing up to 4,000 units per hour.

With the move to new premises the business has seen around £100,000 invested over the past year.

MD Christine Vaughan said: “The new investment has helped us to win lucrative CD and DVD shrink wrapping orders with an international blue chip media manufacturing company. It has also led to a massive increase in business with core customers in the toiletries, DVDs, CDs, computer games, healthcare and magazine industries.”