Roach Bridge Tissues, a specialised printer and converter of wrapping tissue paper, serves the retail POS and e-commerce markets with a various clientele that features designer attire, footwear, reduce glass, pottery, wine bottle wrapping, interleaving for sheet metals, optical lenses, and residential removals packaging.
Roughly 70% of the corporate’s gross sales are bespoke printed tissue paper, with the rest comprising plain white or colored reams and rolls. Roach Bridge Tissues prides itself on being a design-led firm, remodeling clients’ design ideas into tangible merchandise that improve model presentation. Their experience lies in providing design help and technical help to shoppers who’ve a imaginative and prescient however lack the information to grasp it.
As an SME producer based mostly within the picturesque countryside of Lancashire, the ten-member crew at Roach Bridge Tissues boasts over 120 years of mixed expertise within the tissue paper trade. Their printed and completed tissue paper provides the right of completion, offering luxurious and model consciousness to clients’ unboxing experiences.
For the previous eight years, Roach Bridge Tissues has been a proud member of Made in Britain, utilizing the official registered trademark on all ream wrappers. This trademark symbolises low product miles, high quality, fast manufacturing, help for the UK economic system and workforce, and British manufacturing excellence.
Since its inception 25 years in the past, Roach Bridge Tissues has been dedicated to moral and environmental accountability. One of many firm’s ongoing targets is to minimise the environmental affect of its processes. Striving in the direction of internet zero includes integrating affect discount into decision-making, making certain each financial viability and environmental issues information their outcomes.
What’s the principal downside you remedy in your clients?
Versatility. Given that almost all of our work is bespoke, every order comes with a novel set of necessities. Our intensive information, amassed over time, permits us to help our clients from the preliminary design section. We keep a considerable inventory of paper in varied weights and sizes, enabling us to fulfill most design briefs. Being a British producer, we will reply swiftly, delivering from temporary to completed product in lower than two weeks for minimal order portions.
What impressed you to start out your online business – did you goal to disrupt the established order, or was it a market hole you sought to fill?
Tissue paper feels prefer it’s in my blood; my grandfather owned Roach Bridge Paper Mill and produced tissue paper till his passing within the late 70s. When my husband and I discovered that among the Mill’s equipment was on the market, we noticed a chance to fill a market hole for bespoke branded tissue paper.
Within the early 2000s, printed tissue paper wasn’t significantly common, however with the shift in legal guidelines concerning plastic baggage and the rise of e-commerce, branded tissue paper has turn out to be extremely wanted.
What are your model values?
Service and high quality are on the coronary heart of Roach Bridge’s values. Our whole crew is devoted to making sure that each ream of tissue paper we dispatch exceeds expectations.
Whereas the Roach Bridge Tissues model will not be extensively recognised, our enterprise focuses on enhancing our clients’ model visibility. Our values are integral to how we handle the enterprise and produce our merchandise.
Do your values affect your decision-making course of?
Completely. Our values information all the pieces we do, from sourcing the best uncooked supplies and sustaining our equipment to planning manufacturing schedules effectively and valuing our crew and atmosphere.
Is crew tradition essential to your online business?
Sure, crew tradition is significant. As a small crew, collaboration is crucial. We be sure that all crew members are educated on totally different machines and rotate by means of varied processes. This method not solely gives protection for holidays and diseases but in addition promotes higher wellbeing and problem-solving by means of a shared pool of experience. I perceive the significance of flexibility, particularly when surprising private points come up, and all of us work collectively to help one another.
How do you present your crew that you just recognize them?
Whereas we don’t have team-building days or reward schemes, we worth and respect one another’s opinions. I’m actively concerned in all facets of the method, sustaining an open-door coverage for questions, concepts, and points. When quoting for unconventional jobs, we make collective choices, leveraging the precise experience of crew members.
Seven years in the past, we transitioned to a four-day week for financial causes, and when enterprise picked up, the crew most popular this association. We now have a condensed workweek with an non-obligatory plus 4 hours on Fridays throughout peak seasons.
Do you talk immediately and clearly together with your clients?
Sure, clear communication with clients is paramount. I all the time present trustworthy suggestions on what is feasible inside our capabilities and discover options to ship what our clients want. Transparency avoids hidden prices and disappointments, making certain buyer satisfaction.
How are you dealing with inflation and rates of interest – are you passing prices onto clients or absorbing them?
The paper trade confronted important worth rises on the onset of the Ukraine struggle attributable to its excessive power consumption. We skilled a interval the place costs soared, however clients hardly ever questioned the will increase. Now, most costs have stabilised, and we will largely soak up the prices. Rates of interest haven’t impacted us as we function on a pay-as-you-go foundation. To help my crew throughout the cost-of-living disaster, I made a decision to present a considerable wage enhance, prioritising their wellbeing over profitability.
How do you assess your information and KPIs?
Our major information comes from glad clients, with key efficiency indicators being returning clients and reaching new ones. Whereas monitoring figures is necessary, I deal with the broader image: offering glorious service at aggressive charges, sustaining crew enthusiasm, and attaining year-on-year turnover progress. So long as these targets are met, I’m not overly involved with month-to-month targets.
Is know-how taking part in a bigger function in your organization’s operations?
Our printing machines are conventional, as tissue paper is just too delicate for digital printing. Our crew’s abilities, akin to color matching hand-mixed inks, set us aside. The workplace, nonetheless, embraces fashionable know-how, although we’re unlikely to go paperless.
What’s your perspective in the direction of your opponents?
So long as our opponents keep their requirements, I’m content material as we attempt to do higher.
What recommendation do you could have for aspiring entrepreneurs?
All the time do your greatest, worth your crew and clients, and deal with long-term outcomes slightly than instant positive aspects. Embody environmental affect in all choices; it could be dearer initially however is worth it in the long term.
How do you calm down and recharge?
I excel at leaving work behind on the finish of the day. Beekeeping and serving as a referee and choose for Inventive Swimming maintain me busy and targeted on weekends, offering an effective way to calm down. Household, although fantastic, doesn’t fall below the class of restful!
Do you comply with the 12-week work methodology or longer planning methods?
I don’t adhere to a particular planning methodology. Most buyer orders are on a just-in-time foundation, so whereas I keep an outline of about six weeks, the manufacturing schedule is deliberate weekly and may change. We prioritise pressing requests, making certain no affect on different clients. Inventory paper takes roughly 12 weeks to fabricate, whereas different consumables are ordered as wanted. Upkeep is deliberate, with our crew of engineers, together with my husband, prepared to help when crucial.
What’s your organization’s eco technique?
We try to cut back our environmental affect and supply the perfect working atmosphere. Many certification requirements are pricey for an SME, so we undertake their standards with out the audits. We’re FSC registered, and far of our paper inventory is 100% recycled.
Our manufacturing unit runs on electrical energy from an on-site hydroelectric turbine, and we plan to put in photo voltaic panels. We utilise pure gentle, LED lighting, and environment friendly heating methods. Our crew lives domestically, minimising journey affect. We’ve a de-inking plant for waste administration, and all manufacturing waste is recycled. Our rural location, with free-range chickens and bee hives, enhances the environment.
What are your targets for the subsequent 12 months?
Our major objective is to put in a brand new, better-insulated roof with photo voltaic panels, enhancing our sustainability efforts.
