FEATURED
Andrew Holden (Procurement Director) and Tamsyn Lewis (Graphics Team) of The Eden Project, explain why they choose Nationwide Print in St Austell for their printing needs…
Can you give us an idea of what your Nationwide Print order book looks like?
Nationwide Print cover all our printing needs – everything from simple business cards to 100 page bound books. They print our menus, invites, leaflets, flyers, packaging, brochures and posters. Recently we have also commissioned some food wraps on specialist foil papers. Typical jobs could include a small digital print of 100 A5 flyers for an event, or up to 100,000 Welcome Leaflets. There isn’t often a week when Nationwide are not printing something for us.
What do you most value in a printer?
Flexibility, as well as the usual preoccupations around lead-time and cost. Quality is paramount, and Nationwide have always impressed in this respect.
We also value their proximity, and the fact that it is easy to meet and discuss our requirements face to face if we need to. We often end up printing things with a very short deadline; Nationwide always go above and beyond to deliver in time.
We enjoy working with Julian and the team because innovation is really nurtured, and they are always receptive to new technologies and efficiency improvements. The fact that Nationwide Print is a leader in green printing and has invested in renewable energy is really important to us. Nationwide use solar to meet almost all of their energy needs, as well as getting approval from the Forest Stewardship Council. Their proactive attitude helps us meet our own procurement standards.
Are there specific benefits of using a local SME rather than a larger printing company based outside Cornwall?
It’s great to be able to meet with the Nationwide team when we are looking to do something a bit different – they are able to offer advice and keep things within our budget. We can check proofs easily and pop into their offices if we want to choose paper stock. As mentioned above, a quick turnaround is important to us and we have been known to collect things hot off the press!
Having a reliable and professional printer nearby enables us to be true to our aims of supporting Cornish businesses. Some items are more price sensitive than others and tendering is required by our Charitable Trust, but local suppliers will always be given a chance to compete.
How have your printing needs changed in the last 5-10 years?
Advances in digital printing have allowed us to have much smaller print runs that are not too expensive, for example we often have things professionally printed now that we would have done in-house on photocopiers previously. It’s great that Julian and his team are keeping up with advances in technology, and passing on the benefits to their customers.
As a company our printing needs haven’t changed a lot over the years, but ensuring things are printed as sustainably as possible continues to be a top priority.
Would you recommend NWPs services?
Yes, we already do. They would always come highly recommended from the team here at Eden.
