Some may say ’50 is the new 40’, but Sheffield-based greeting card printer Loxleys can do much better than that, going all out to make sure the company’s 166th birthday this month will be a celebration shared with the entire industry – through an all-encompassing Golden Ticket raffle with a stream of prizes galore that will run for the entire month of October.
“While ‘Happy 166th Birthday’ is not a caption that features on the millions of greeting cards we produce for our greeting card publisher customers, it is a big deal for us and something worth marking,” states Loxleys ceo Richard Bacon.
Next Wednesday (October 14) 2020 marks Loxleys’ actual 166th birthday with the ensuing years seeing it grow from humble beginnings to the northern printing powerhouse it is today.
No stranger to hard times, in the space of its 166 years, the specialist printer has endured two World Wars, two factory fires and many, many industry changes.
The company can trace it origins back to Saturday 14 October 1854 when two brothers, William and Edward Loxley, said to be descendants of Robert de Lockesley (better known as Robin Hood) opened a stationers and printers, located at No.19 Fargate, in the busy bustle of Sheffield City Centre.
Known then as, The Loxleys Brothers, the company set itself apart from the competition at the time by targeting the commercial community, unlike their competitors who focused efforts on traditional forms of print including newspapers.
Loxleys’ connection to the greeting card world happened in the 1980s and has remained its core business ever since – now producing 150 million greeting cards a year. While a lot has changed at Loxleys over the last century and a half (and continues to change), the company is still proud to operate in Sheffield, with its state of the art factory being in the former Empire Roller-Skate rink.
“We had big plans to celebrate our wonderful heritage this year with a big party for customers, employees and industry friends, but unfortunately the virus and the rules associated with it scuppered these, so we came up with the idea of a Willie Wonka Birthday Giveaway that is open to everyone in the industry,” explained Alice Buck, the company’s marketing co-ordinator.
For the whole of October the company is encouraging all publishers (whether Loxleys customers or not), retailers and trade suppliers to enter a Willie Wonka style raffle giveaway (with contact name, business name, address and telephone and email address), via the company’s posts on Instagram and LinkedIn or by contacting Ms Willie Wonka aka Alice by email (alice.buck@loxleys.co.uk) who will then register them against a raffle ticket number.
“We’d love everyone to get involved. This isn’t just open to our customers but everyone with prizes varying from fancy champagne to a voucher, money off a print order with us as well as lots of other secret treats,” added Alice.
While keen to celebrate the company’s heritage as Tony Lorriman, Loxleys’ md stresses, the focus has to be on remaining relevant for the challenges of the future.
“Loxleys remains 100% committed to the greeting card market and it is exciting to think what the future greeting card manufacturing factory will look like,” says Tony. “Digital print and finishing technology will continue to develop with larger format digital machines enabling on demand production at much greater volumes than now, orders will be placed online and be sent straight to production machines, robots will work on the factory, delivery vehicles may be driver-less and warehouse stock holdings will be much lower as digital production enables publishers to order exactly what they want when they want it. To survive 166 years in print Loxleys has always adapted with the times and moving forward this will be no different – as technology changes so Loxleys will change.”
Top: Printing techniques have changed massively over Loxleys’ 166 year history as this picture shows!
