Retail Services at the cutting edge with £500,000 investment

The business, which specialises in retail displays and is based at Holmfield, Halifax, has also invested further in refurbishing an existing building to create a production facility to house its new Retail Print operation.

The company, which has been operating for around 20 years, said that up to six people are being recruited in the next few months to run the new operation. The current headcount of the group is 95, but will be more than 100 by next week.

James Dixon, managing director and owner of Retail Services, which has a group turnover of £6.7m, said: “Our group has already heavily invested in establishing very successful design and production companies, however until now we have outsourced print,

“It’s very exciting to be establishing a print and cutting company with such advanced and competitive equipment.”

He added: “The combined technology investment ensures whatever challenge our clients present, as a group we will be able to respond efficiently and cost-effectively in manufacturing and printing on any conceivable materials whether these be powder coated metals, timber, pvc or cardboard boxes.”

Print and production specialist David Howarth has joined Retail Print as operations manager. He joins from Screen Print Productions and has been involved in project managing the construction and fitting out of the production building.

This includes a reception area, offices, a large cutting and finishing area to house the automated high speed cutting and routing machine and a purpose built environmentally controlled print room to accommodate a specialist extra wide format UV digital printer.

Mr Howarth said: “Project managing the build has been very challenging as such technologically advanced equipment has very special requirements, it is vital that the environment is kept dust free and the temperature is maintained at 23 degrees centigrade to protect the ink quality.”

The launch of Retail Print was supported by corporate finance specialist Close Asset Finance.

The operation was officially opened by MP for Halifax, Linda Riordan. Retail Services has among its client base high street brands including Homebase, Morrisons, Bosch, Sony, Arcadia and Heineken. The business said Retail Print will complement existing group companies, MetalCo, ColourCo and All4Design.