Collaboration gives a Christmas twist to paper bag manufacture

A SOUTH Wales Christmas wrapping manufacturer has made a £1m investment in new machinery.

The machine, which can now manufacture high-end paper twist bags onsite, has created 10 new jobs at The Design Group’s Ystrad Mynach base.

The purchase and installation of the machine, which was brought over from Japan, is a result of a unique partnership with Cardiff-based firm CCS McLays, which supplies a wide-range of retailers with bespoke retail packaging supplies and goods not for resale.

The concept is to harness The Design Group’s innovative printing methods, usually used on high-end wrapping paper with laminated holographic and metallic elements, and create unique paper twist handle bags for retailers.

Lance Burn, managing director of The Design Group, said: “From our point of view, the benefit of the relationship is that we have very strong direct-to-customer relationships, but traditionally with the high-volume retailers because our core offering is gift packaging celebration product.

“CCS McLays does a similar turnkey service offering for all goods not for resale but into high-street fashion brands as well as other areas, such as single-source solutions. They are complementary skills, but slightly different markets. We are fundamentally about fashion on paper and we’ve built up the competencies to be best-in-class in printing and all of the various finishes.

“The logic was, how can we take those capabilities into a channel where we don’t have that expertise? We get access to a channel that we have no knowledge of and no representation in and we can sell volume.”