Scandstick UK moves office

Scandstick UK Ltd, a fast-growing supplier of self-adhesive labelstock, has relocated to new fully modern plant at Sawtry, Cambridgeshire, UK. The relocation is also marked by the installation of a new one-meter wide coating line and two new slitters for self-adhesive labelstock. At the same time, the St Neots site and its old acrylic lines have been decommissioned.

With its purely hotmelt facilities on 120,000 ft premises 70 miles north of London, the Sawtry mill enables Scandstick UK to significantly ramp up its roll and sheet labelstock production.

The new 60 meter (190 ft) long adhesive coating and silicon sing line enables high-speed conversion of filmic and paper roll-laminates, down to 20 m gauge. Its automated, gravimetric adhesive extruder formulates precise hotmelt recipes ‘on-the-fly’, minimizing waste and adhesive preparation time.

The installation of this new line means Sawtry can now supply all roll-material requirements from Scandstick’s UK and Ireland customers, without the support of the parent company’s Helsingborg (Sweden) plant. The UK site will also be the sole production point for Scandstick’s TakTik branded sheet labelstock - sold worldwide via a network of Paper Merchants - and for FlatSam lick-and-stick gum-paper sheets, used widely in the retail, promotional and postal sectors. For most products, lead-times are 48 hours maximum, to customers across the UK.

Mr Paul Mason, managing director of Scandstick UK, says: ‘Our growing customer base will enjoy a highly flexible, fast service for both large volume and speciality products. Equally, the new investment gives the UK and Ireland a viable labelstock alternative in a market where choice is greatly needed.’

The relocation coincides with the closure of the existing plant at St Neots. This ends an era of coating production spanning nearly two centuries. The former site was that of Samuel Jones, one of the earliest laminators, whose gummed label business began in 1810. Scandstick bought the company’s UK interests after the latter’s demise in 2002.

The Sawtry plant’s opening is the second and final stage of the €40 million investment programmed, the biggest in the company’s 25-year history. Phase one, in September 2005, was the opening of a two-meter wide roll-labelstock coating line in Helsingborg.