Trimfold Envelopes Limited - Business of the fortnight

 
Trimfold Envelopes Limited
Question 1. Can you describe your business?
Trimfold Envelopes Limited is Ireland’s largest manufacturer and supplier of envelopes, print and mail-media solutions, producing over 600,000,000 envelopes per year. Our plant is based in the Heritage town of Trim in Co. Meath and specialises in high volume production of stock products and bespoke items. In addition to our manufacturing facility we also have a dedicated envelope printing department on site servicing the whole of the island of Ireland with extremely fast turnaround times. Since establishing the business in 1971 we have built an outstanding reputation for providing our customers with creative solutions, superior products, on-time deliveries and a continuing commitment to provide first class customer service. Our modern 100,000 sq. ft plant comprises 78,000 sq. ft of manufacturing facilities and 22,000 sq. Ft of warehousing. We employ over 60 experienced production staff, using state of the art equipment ensuring we have the capability to meet any customer requirement ranging from a few hundred envelopes to several million at a time. To ensure we maintain our enviable levels of service and exceed our customer expectations, our experienced team of dedicated Account Managers, supported by the latest IT systems and with their vast product knowledge, ensures Trimfold Envelopes remains in a position to provide our customers with all of their envelope and mail media printing needs. In 2006 Trimfold Envelopes became part of the Mayer Kuvert network, Europe’s largest independently owned envelope manufacturing group. With over 50 plants throughout Europe, the Mayer Kuvert network produces over 45,000,000 envelopes per day and continues to be at the cutting edge of envelope manufacture in Europe.
Question 2. What are the advantages of being located in Meath?
We have been located in Trim, Co Meath since 1971, and it offers an ideal location to service our customers throughout the 32 counties on the island of Ireland, as well as offering proximity to Dublin port for our regular deliveries of paper from our PEFC and sustainable suppliers throughout Europe and further afield and also for the volumes of produce we also export to the UK. PreCovid-19, being based here in Co.Meath also meant we were in an ideal location to welcome visits from our clients throughout Irish corporate and pubic sectors who wished to come and visit our factory and see firsthand how their envelopes are produced, printed, packed and warehoused.
Question 3. How long have you been located/operating in Meath?
Trimfold Envelopes has been in existence in Trim since 1971, when the company was started in Trim by two local people. The Company was sold in 1995 to a Scottish paper mill, which was subsequently sold it in 2006 to the largest envelope manufacturer in Europe. TrimfoldEnvelopes is now the only envelope manufacturer left on the Island of Ireland. There were four manufacturers and three brokers of product in the past, however this has changed over the years due to the rise in popularity of electronic communications and ever-increasing postal charges. Trimfold Envelopes has in the last 36 months taken over the business of the other last remaining envelope manufacturer and broker in the Irish market because they got into financial difficulty, which now leaves us the last of our kind in Ireland.
Question 4. Why do your customers choose to do business with you?
Our long history, over(almost) half a century, of making envelopes gives us expertise on quick turnaround and a vast knowledge of suitable styles and how we can offer a client something they may not have thought of. Our huge range of envelopes and mail media includes everything from standard machine fill window envelopes to bespoke full colour printed envelopes as well as padded bags, board backed envelopes, coex mailing bags, boxes and all manner of mail products. We also offer a friendly and efficient service and will always do our best to fulfil a customer request.
Question 5. Why did you join County Meath Chamber?
We have joined Co Meath Chamber to join a lobbying group to promote our business and that of all the other businesses we rely on to stay in business ourselves. Being a member of a national organization offers us the opportunity to promote our goods and services to fellow members and also gives us a channel to voice to our concerns and requirements from government as required.
Question 6. Have you any future developments in the pipeline?
We are actively now expanding into mainstream paper-based packaging as we see this as an expanding market due to the unpopularity of plastic. Trimfold Envelopes has always exported a certain amount of its product into the UK market and as such we have always watched what was happening in that market with interest. We have recently developed a new product, Sanilope which is a sanitized cutlery envelope, designed to address the challenges of Covid-19 for hospitality operators and all involved in the catering industry. It keeps clean cutlery safe and protected from Covid-19 and other casual contamination. The paper used in the manufacture of Sanilope is treated with a sanitizing solution during the manufacturing process and the produced Sanilope are then packed into sanitized boxes by an operator wearing full PPE. We have created a video used as a TV commercial to promote Sanilope and have promoted it since its launch to catering industry wholesalers as well as our traditional printer customer base. Sanilope is suitable for use anywhere food is served by hospitality and catering suppliers whether they are in hotels, cafes, restaurants, bars, hospitals, nursing homes, schools, creches, colleges, prisons. Using Sanilope shows their customers they are serious about their safety.
Question 7. Do you have anything you would like us to promote on your behalf?
Yes – our Sanilope product to hospitality and catering suppliers whether they are in hotels, cafes, restaurants, bars, hospitals, nursing homes, schools, creches, colleges, prisons – wherever food is served; and we would also like to promote our business generally as Ireland’s largest manufacturer of envelopes – everyone uses envelopes and we are the national expert!
Question 8. How do you add value to your customers wants and needs?
We pride ourselves both on our technical expertise as envelope manufacturers and on the level of service we offer our customers. We can manufacture any envelope product a customer may require for their business or direct mail or other promotion, and if they require something that we don’t manufacture we can source it for them. We also offer print services for all the envelopes and boxes and packaging we can offer customers. On the service side, we regularly receive glowing customer service comments from our trade customers and from the many public sector departments we supply. We have the OGP contract for the supply of envelopes for the Irish government and all government departments. We add value by always going the extra mile to at least meet a customer expectation and generally we aim to exceed them.
Question 9. Any advice for new businesses starting up?
Know your market, have a business plan, ensure that you have enough working capital in place. So many start ups fail due to cash flow. Whatever your business, service, quality and value are the metrics that you will be judged on by your customers. Gross profit is what the banks and shareholders will judge the value of a company on! You will have to work hard for very little return at the start, but if successful it will be very rewarding.
Question 10. How has Covid-19 affected your business and what steps have you made to go forward?
COVID-19 has created unprecedented challenges not encountered by business since the 2nd World War. The crash in 2008 was a challenge for any business, what is different this time is the scale of the damage, both human and economic, caused by this pandemic. Businesses have closed that will never reopen. Unemployment will continue at record levels, in the past when things were bad at home, people emigrated, this is not an option now. Our business is deemed an essential service as we supply Government, HSE and Financial sectors, however like every business,this company has suffered losses due to lockdown and the four months from April to August seen our turnover down 30%. We have seen recovery in September and so far in October, however this will depend on Government’s view to further restrictive measures. What have we done to try and mitigate the effects of these lockdowns? We furloughed staff during the first lockdown and have since moved on to have a portion of our staff work short time, this is to help with cashflow. Regarding the funding available for businesses like ours, to be honest it is a joke. The amounts are small, the interest rate on the EI loans are high, the grant element, looks great on the surface, but to access this you must give preferential shares as security. This is not the case in the UK, there grants are just that, a grant! We are lucky in one sense that we are part of a Pan-European group and as such we have access to resources which would not be available if we were privately owned. We have also turned more towards manufacturing for the UK market to try and replace some of the volume we are losing on the Irish market. The unknown element in all of this is of courseBrexit and the effects that will have on businesses. Trimfold Envelopes have opened Trimfold Envelopes NI, based in Newry, this will give us smoother access to markets in NI and the UK. At the end of the day we are in a fluid situation that changes daily, we can only do what we are in control of ourselves. The pandemic will take its course as will Brexit and business will have to adopt or die.
Any additional information you wish to add.
As a longstanding employer in a small town, we are very mindful of our role within the community of Trim and it’s wider environs, and we are very involved in lots of community groups over the years either in the role of sponsor of funds, or of products or of using our profile to raise the profile of charities or community sports teams or arts groups in our area. Recently of note we sponsored the “Dear Dot” exhibition of memorabilia of Dot Tubridy, close friend of President John F Kennedy and his family, which was held in May 2019 in Trim Tourism Centre and organised by Tourism Network. The official opening was attended by two members of the Kennedy family, Courtney Kennedy, daughter of Robert Kennedy, and her first cousin, Sydney Kennedy Lawford, daughter of Patricia Kennedy and niece of JFK and RFK and the official opening was also attended by RTE presenter Ryan Tubridy and featured on the RTE News. We also sponsored the elaborate costumes for the Trim town submission for the Bank of Ireland Enterprise Towns Awards in September 2018, where Trim Drama Group put on a pageant of the history of Trim in the grounds of Trim Castle for the attending judges. Special permission for the event was granted by the OPW. The same pageant was also recreated with permission from the OPW as part of the visit to Trim by the two members of the Kennedy family the following May 2019 as detailed above. We also worked closely as a sponsor with local group Trim Tourism Network and other community groups on many local festivals and events including the Salmon of Knowledge Festival, established in September 2016 and held every year since on the last pre-school Sunday in September. Like all Festivals in 2020 it was cancelled. We also were a main sponsor for the St John’s Summer Prom event in 2017 and the Braveheart 20 screening held in Trim in 2015, and also of the Classical Christmas Concert held in the St Patrick’s Cathederal Trim each December since2016. We look forward to 2021 and hope our involvement in local events will resume once they are able to take place once again.

Trimfold Envelopes Limited

Trimfold Envelopes Limited

About Trimfold Envelopes

Trimfold Envelopes Limited is Ireland’s largest manufacturer and supplier of envelopes, print and mail-media solutions, producing over 600,000,000 envelopes per year.

Our plant is based in the Heritage town of Trim in County Meath and specialises in high volume production of stock products and bespoke items. In addition to our manufacturing facility we also have a dedicated envelope printing department on site servicing the whole of the island of Ireland with extremely fast turnaround times.

Since establishing the business in 1971 we have built an outstanding reputation for providing our customers with creative solutions, superior products, on-time deliveries and a continuing commitment to provide first class customer service.

Our devotion to customer satisfaction is second to none. To ensure we maintain our enviable levels of service and exceed our customer expectations, our experienced team of dedicated Account Managers, supported by the latest IT systems and with their vast product knowledge, ensures Trimfold Envelopes remains in a position to provide our customers with all of their envelope and mail media printing needs.

Our modern 100,000 sq. ft plant comprises 78,000 sq. ft of manufacturing facilities and 22,000 sq.ft of warehousing. We employ over 60 experienced production staff, using state of the art equipment ensuring we have the capability to meet any customer requirement ranging from a few hundred envelopes to several million at a time.

In 2006 Trimfold Envelopes became part of the Mayer Kuvert network, Europe’s largest independently owned envelope manufacturing group. With over 50 plants throughout Europe, the Mayer Kuvert network produces over 45,000,000 envelopes per day and continues to be at the cutting edge of envelope manufacture in Europe.




Business categories: Envelopes, Print and Mail-Media Solutions
Contact name: Barbera Mellerick
Address: Eamon Duggan Industrial Estate, Athboy Road, Trim, County Meath, C15 TY23, Ireland