Burntwood-based
Lesters, a leading packaging specialist, has overcome a volatile economic climate to head towards £25 million of sales. The company has seen revenues rise by £7 million since 2023 with customers across automotive, engineering, medical and retail tapping into the company’s ‘ecosystem’ that takes them from the core box range and specialist design through to supply chain services and an enhanced innovation and research and design (R&D) offering.
Furthermore utilisation of two ‘state of the art’ TCY large-format casemakers has revolutionised production speeds and capacity at its 60,000ft
2 facility on Mount Road and this has been supplemented by the creation of eight new jobs across sales, design and manufacturing.
The latest high-profile hire is Edward Scobie, who has joined Lesters as operations manager. He will provide an important link between production and the general manager, with the remit to drive productivity improvements, maintain the highest quality standards and unlock even more capacity by leveraging real-time data.
Billy Hutchinson, managing director of Lesters, said: “There were lots of challenges in 2024, many of them outside of our control and driven by external pressures. However, despite the volatile landscape, we have continued to expand and are confident that we will hit £25 million by the end of the next financial year - a successful completion to our four-year growth plan.”
Complete ecosystemHe continued: “A big part of this has been our fantastic Lesters team, who go above and beyond to ensure our customers receive timely packaging solutions that meet their exact requirements. We have also looked at how we can create a complete ecosystem for our clients, which means they have access to design support and core packaging, through to supply chain solutions and stock management via Lesters Logistics.”
Another key development for the business has been Greg Burton’s transition from design manager to design innovation lead. This is a natural transition and will see him strengthen his role as the conduit between the sales team and customers by spending more time on the road visiting clients’ warehouses and facilities. It is anticipated that this new position will give him more opportunity to explore supply chains, get to know how they operate, what they need in terms of packaging, and how design innovation could ultimately reduce customer’s costs.
Mr Hutchinson added: “You can’t stand still in our industry and that is why we are always looking to innovate and attempting to do things differently — 2025 will be no different. One really exciting development will be working towards the BRCGS Global Food Safety Standard mark. This provides a framework to manage product safety, integrity, legality, quality and operational controls for food and food ingredient manufacturing.”
He concluded: “It is a lengthy process to achieve the mark, and our efforts, led by project manager Cerianne Dixon and business support manager Richard Shorthouse, are still ongoing. However, we are confident that by the summer we will have achieved the standard, opening up new markets for us in the process.”