3:40pm Tuesday 7th September 2010
By Ron Godfrey
A MASSIVE complicated bespoke machine just completed by Sessions Label Solutions of York represents old genius in a new body – and hope for the future.
The genius belongs to the former engineers at the Huntington Road factory, William Sessions, which went into administration last April after 199 years, and some of whose jobs were rescued the following month when the machine division was bought by York-born entrepreneur Adrian Barraclough.
The high-tech Clear Seal Labeller, which puts security labels on four sides of chocolate boxes, is soon to be installed at a UK confectionery firm which paid a six-figure sum for all that expertise.
It is a major triumph for Sessions Label Solutions, whose sales and marketing director, Gary Hall, is hoping to supply four more to the confectionery company, the name of which he is keeping deadly secret from his rivals in a competitive market.
It follows other successful orders, including seven TagMatics, which applies security acoustic magnetic tags to cosmetics for a huge chemist chain; and a machine bought by a pharmaceutical company used for applying about 80 labels a minute on sample vials.
One labelling machine has already been exported to Pakistan, with two more being installed there, and next week Sessions Label Solutions representatives will meet an Indian distributor to discuss the prospects for the northern area of the sub-continent.
Mr Barraclough, who bought the business for a six-figure sum, said he realised from the start that without the Sessions link business would at first be slow and extremely hard, “but I do believe that we are now creating a platform for success”.
Meanwhile, two other firms, Paragon Sessions, and Barringtons of York, which each bought divisions of Sessions, report a speed-up in business.
Paragon, which is part of Paragon Print and Packaging took on 40 of the 76 jobs made redundant in the William Sessions labelling division.
Site director Deborah Greenwood said: “We are doing exceptionally well. Paragon had budgeted for us to show a loss or at best break even, but we have defied those predictions.”
The firm manufactures self-adhesive labels for the non-food market such as the pharmaceutical, healthcare and personal care sectors. “We have had investment in all the right areas. We are running quickly and efficiently and we are very customer driven.”
Barringtons of York, part of Technoprint of Leeds, took on four of the original nine working on Sessions’ original commercial printing division. Mark Snee, Technoprint’s managing director, said: “We have retained all the main customers of William Sessions and we are looking to grow.
But all three will have to leave the Huntington factory, which the Sesssions holding group wants to redevelop.
Paragon, the main leaseholder, will be moving out next April to new premises in George Cayley Drive, Clifton Moor, next spring, buit the other two are looking for new homes.
Mr Barraclough said that Sessions Label Solutions would continue to remain in York, but Mr Snee wants to combine Barringtons with its other York interest, Joshua Barrington, which specialises in making fragranced paper in Birch Park, Huntington, and possibly move away from the city where rents were steep and transport difficult.
“But where we set up the combined venture has not yet been decided,” said Mr Snee.
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