WHILE the traditional beer mat may not have changed much over its long history, the Kettering company that prides itself on being the leading printer of beer mats in the UK is always ready to embrace something new.
Mosaic Board Printers is celebrating 21 years in business this year and has grown from a struggling company, bought by the current owners with redundancy money, into one of the leaders in the sector.
Through hard work and building a company with an experienced and settled workforce, Mosaic Board has seen off many of its competitors. Success has led to investment in new technology, including the installation of a new KBA Rapida 105 printer last November. That, along with the new CTP Studio print preparation software, means that the whole process is quicker, easier and cleaner than ever before.
The printer sits alongside the five-colour Planteta printer, which comes into action during busy periods, and they both feed into a busy production and packaging line, and creasing and glueing equipment for the increasing amount of carton and packaging produced by the firm.
Gary Pearce, who runs Mosaic Board with business partner Steve Paull, said: “When I look back to 21 years ago, when it was a noisy, inky print process and we were outsourcing platemaking, it’s amazing how far we’ve come.
“We took a bit of a gamble when we bought the company and didn’t really know how it was going to go, but we knew we had the expertise to make it successful and now we print somewhere in the region of 100 million beer mats in a year and this new printer will give us the capacity to increase that even further.”
Mosaic Board prints beer mats for the likes of Guinness, Greene King and Carlsberg, as well as small breweries and drinks firms. Increasingly popular are short run orders – prices start at £50 for 500 mats – for one-off events and promotions, such as weddings, company events, to publicise a new product or to carry an advertising promotion.
“The possibilities are endless,” said Gary. “And research shows that beer mats get noticed. You might walk into a bar and not notice the poster on the wall but you look down every time you pick your drink up and see the mat it’s sitting on.
“They’re good for corporate events, or as a promotional item that you send out and someone keeps on their desk for their coffee cup.”
The team at Mosaic Board works with customers’ own artwork, or can design a mat or packaging where required. It boasts clients across the UK and Europe, mainly picking up new work through word of mouth and the reputation it has built up, particularly within the drinks sector.
“Because we’re a privately run, relatively small company, we don’t have shareholders to keep happy or massive profit targets,” said Gary. “We have a workforce that is happy and enthusiastic and we try to make sure it’s a good place to come to work. I firmly believe that we’ve been successful, because there are very few competitors who can touch us on quality, price and lead time.
“Our slogan is Class Under A Glass – and we deliver that every time.”