Beanz mean business for Wirral label firm

Jul 19 2008 by Barry Turnbull, Liverpool Daily Post

A WIRRAL packaging business has acquired the company that makes 60m labels a month for Heinz baked beans.

Tipografic Print Group has taken over Cheshire-based Buckley's Print for an undisclosed sum from the administrator. The deal creates a combined business employing 200 with sales of more than £20m.

Buckley's was placed in administration following a management buyout last year.

Tipografic managing director Jeff Cornell said: “It was an ideal opportunity to take out our main competitor and create the biggest wet-glue label operator in the market.

“We have created a company called Tipografic Print Solutions to run the business and have negotiated a contract with Heinz.”

Heinz has just announced it is changing its label from Heinz Baked Beanz to Heinz Beanz.

Buckley’s employs 110 and last year won an award for the quality of its label printing.

It was formerly known as Buckley and Bland, which went into administration last October, when director Peter Lightfoot acquired the assets and set up the new company, which in turn went into administration last month.

The sale was completed by Canary Wharf-based corporate recovery firm SFP, which said the new owners would invest in the business and safeguard a “significant” number of jobs.

Tipografic, based at Twelve Quays in Birkenhead, also manufactures labels for other high-profile brands such as Britvic and Pepsi-Cola. It also owns Lancastrian Labels in Liverpool and has another site in Blackpool employing 35 people.

Tipografic offers a complete label solution from wet glue labels, self adhesive labels through to reel-fed plastic and shrink sleeves.

A spokesman for Heinz said: “For years, Heinz Baked Beanz have been a hearty and healthy mouthful for the nation, but inadvertently it seems they’ve also been a bit of a mouthful to pronounce.

“For millions of us, Beanz Meanz Heinz and, in recognition of this, Heinz has unveiled a contemporary new look and for the first time in its history, the label will simply say Heinz Beanz – rendering the ‘baked’ a thing of the past in the UK.”

barry.turnbull