Dayfold has appointed Lee Carpenter as print and packaging sustainability manager, becoming one of the first UK printers with this role.
Carpenter starts with the Verwood print business today, joining the business from Lush where he was head buyer for the environmentally leading bathroom products brand. He has also worked for Kingfisher.
“Sustainability is now something that is a given,” says Dayfold managing director Del Simmons. “It’s something that we have to have in order to provide the information that customers want. Lee will help us understand and do what we should be doing in the best way that we can.”
Dayfold is looking across its activities to shape these in light of legislation on packaging in particular that is to be introduced in the next year or so. And demand for transparent and sustainable is not going away. The topic is increasingly on the agenda across major companies due to pressure from customers, shareholders as well as legislation.
“My feeling is that customers have put sustainability managers in place because we haven’t. There is so much greenwashing that customers need good information and we can help with that,” says Simmons.
Carpenter joins a few weeks after Dayfold has taken over the business of neighbouring company RPM Digital. Both are in Dorset near Bournemouth and Poole but are in adjacent industry sectors.
Dayfold is about creative and quality printing servicing a multitude of local and national clients; RPM is a digital first business that has developed expertise in running marketing campaigns that combine digital and tangible managed through an XMPie set up. This was put to notably good use on a campaign for Dorset Wildlife to promote understanding of and protection of bees and their habitat.
The companies have known each other through the years and when Andy Place, who founded RPM Technical Print as it then was in 1991, decided he wanted to face another challenge, a solution was found which moved RPM under Dayfold’s wing. Dayfold has taken the XMPie element of the business into it factory, leaving behind Xerox printing equipment.
Simmons explains the short run print work will now be handled on its HP Indigo and Ricoh presses. The migration of the business took place in January. “It gives us another avenue to look at with a full marketing solution,” he says.
The move will be followed in a few weeks by installation of box making equipment. There is no set date as the machinery is on its way from China without a clear date yet for its installation.
