ACA awarded grade-A accreditation
An Inchinnan company has received a major boost by securing grade-A accreditation from the British Retail Consortium.
The accolade for Scottish multi process print-finishing operation ACA follows the completion of a 5,000 sq ft sterile environment within its existing 40,000 sq ft factory space at Inchinnan Business Park.
The company, which underwent a £ 6.5m ‘ buyin management buyout’ ( BIMBO) in 2016, invested £ 400,000 in building the sterile environment in a bid to enhance and broaden its range of print finishing and packaging work it can undertake on behalf of the UK’s major food manufacturers.
The new space has its own entrance, toilet facilities, canteen and changing rooms.
Work on the project began in early spring and was completed in late summer.
The BRC certificate states that the company’s Grade A accreditation covers “foil blocking of printed cartons, sleeves, trays and inserts for secondary food packaging and meets the requirements set out in the BRC global standard for packaging materials issued in July 2015”.
Joe Keenan, managing director, said: “This is a major achievement for ACA. BRC accreditation will not only secure work from our existing customer base but will open the door to further opportunities within the market place.
“We expect to spend a further £ 200,000 on a new foil blocking machine which will further enhance our productive capacity.
“In addition to BRC accreditation, we are also well on the way to achieving both ISO 9001 recognition of our quality management systems and ISO 14001, the international standard that specifies environmental management systems.”
ACA said it believes itself to be the one of largest multiprocess BRC- accredited foil blocking print finishing business in the UK.
Bosses say it has a longestablished history in providing high quality finishing touches to printing projects for its key partners in the print and design industry across the UK and Europe.
Under its new management team ACA has already invested more than £500,000 on repairing and restoring existing equipment as well as investing in new state-of-theart print finishing machinery.
In addition to this, a further £250,000 has been invested in upgrading Health & Safety, Quality Assurance, Logistics, Marketing and HR processes.
A BIMBO happens when existing management — along with outside managers — decides to buy out a company. The existing management represents the buyout portion while the outside managers represent the buy-in portion, according to the Investopedia website.
This is a major achievement for ACA . It will open the door to further opportunities