Bank of England comes to Benson Box, Bardon

September 2011

Benson Group, one of the UK's leading privately owned carton printers, enjoyed a visit from the Governor of the Bank of England, Sir Mervyn King, on Wednesday September 14th to its Benson Box factory and group headquarters in Bardon, Leicestershire.

The visit to the printed carton manufacturer was part of a tour of East Midlands businesses that had already included visits and round table discussions with other businesses in the area.

Commenting on the meeting enjoyed by directors of the business with Sir Mervyn King, Mark Kerridge, Managing Director of Benson Group, said: "It was a great honour for us as a company to welcome Sir Mervyn, to explain our business, and to provide a tour of our factory. He was very interested in what we had to say and was keen to offer his thoughts on a whole variety of financial topics, including inflation, growth, interest rates, and economic stability."

The team at Benson Group were delighted to detail the company's last ten years of significant success in the packaging market in both food and healthcare, including the history of the now 90-year-old family run business.

Alastair Cunningham of the Bank of England, East Midlands Agency, who was instrumental in setting up the visit, along with Benson Group's Group Finance Director Colin Kunz, said: "It was a most impressive presentation of a manufacturing business. It's very easy for economists to talk about "economies of scale" without really knowing what they look like - seeing Benson printing 76,000 boxes per hour is not a bad image."

About Benson Group
Benson Group is one of the UK's leading privately owned printed carton suppliers, producing packaging product for both the food and pharmaceutical industries for a wide range of UK and European customers.

The business manufactures packaging product in four production sites covering in excess of 400,000 sq ft. Benson Group achieves annual sales in excess of £110 million. Food manufacturers are the main customers at Bardon and for the company's two North East facilities in Newcastle and Gateshead. The fourth site in Crewe serves pharmaceutical and healthcare companies. In recent years, investment in new plant and equipment across the four sites totals in excess of £25 million.

Benson Group creates packaging for many well-known companies, brands and retailers. Key account clients across the Group include Northern Foods, Reckitt Benkiser, Greencore, and Samworth Brothers. The company is an approved supplier for all of the UK's leading retail chains. Food and pharmaceutical packaging is exported to customers in countries throughout Europe.

For further information on the Benson Group visit the www.bensongroup.co.uk web site.

Press Information

For further information on Benson Group, its operations, or on packaging products or packaging issues please contact:

Russell J Hicks

Genesis Marketing Services (Milton Keynes)
101 Hesketh Road,
Yardley Gobion,
Northamptonshire NN12 7TX
Tel/Fax: 01908 54 33 58
Mobile: 07885 852 428
e-mail: Russ.Hicks@Genesis-Marketing.com
Web: http://genesisnews.wordpress.com/