Durham Box continues rapid expansion

Packaging Solutions

A significant period of growth for leading corrugated packaging manufacturer, Durham Box, has seen the firm expanding its factory and investing in equipment and manpower to upscale the business to meet the ongoing increase in demand for its products.

Despite the uncertainties that were created as the pandemic developed early in 2020, the company has since exceeded forecasts with strong year on year growth across the business. This was largely driven by rising e-commerce demand, complemented by the company’s ability to deliver digitally through its Nozomi C18000 single pass, ultra high speed LED inkjet corrugated packaging press – an investment made in mid 2019. Following this, Durham Box committed to spend nearly £2.5 million to increase the footprint of its Bishop Auckland factory and invest in new machinery.

To help facilitate the factory expansion, the company was awarded a £200,000 grant by the County Durham Growth Fund, to help build a 20,000 square foot extension and redesign existing space to improve production facilities. As a proviso of the grant, the company committed to create an additional 20 jobs over the next three to four years – a task it has already fulfilled following a recruitment drive aimed at bolstering sales, design and production functions. Given the opportunities ahead, further recruitment is planned.

New machinery has included a Bobst die cutter, a Bobst gluer, a box taping machine and a large format flat bed die cutter from Century Machinery that is scheduled for installation in September. As a further operational enhancement, a mobile pallet racking system was installed in the new extension, providing 4000 pallet locations for product storage and stock call off.

Dan Morris, Durham Box’s managing director, said: ‘The acquisition of the land and investment in new machinery has put us in an ideal position to expand our client base and improve efficiencies.

‘However, to facilitate this increase in volume and to cope with the rise in demand of our products and services, the company needed to redesign the factory layout, and with the support of the County Durham Growth Fund we have been able to do just that. We will continue to invest in people and technology as well as the production facility to ensure that we stay ahead of demand.’