Behind the scenes at 170-year-old greetings card company with fascinating history

We visited Loxleys in Sheffield to learn more about its remarkable history and meet the people working there.

Transcript

00:00One of Sheffield's oldest companies, the printing firm Loxleys, has just celebrated its 170th

00:06anniversary. We visited the former roller skating rink, where it's based, to find out

00:12more about its fascinating history.

00:14So, Loxleys are a specialist greeting card manufacturer. We manufacture greetings cards

00:32here in Sheffield for various UK publishers, designers and retailers. We were established

00:38in 1854, and it was our 170th birthday last week.

00:46And what's your background with the company?

00:48So, my role nowadays is managing director. I started in the company in 1997 as a trainee

00:56sales rep, and I've sort of worked my way up through the company in sales, account management,

01:03marketing, and then sort of commercial positions, but I've always been very sort of forward-facing,

01:09customer-facing, and out and about visiting clients and things.

01:14And can you tell us a little bit about how many cards the company would make and where

01:18they would be stocked?

01:19Yeah, sure. So, we make around 100 million greetings cards a year. That's a combination

01:24of everyday cards, birthday cards, Christmas cards, Valentine's Day, Mother's Day, Father's

01:30Day, that sort of thing. We don't design our own cards, so we purely manufacture for

01:36designers and publishers and retailers. So, you'll never really see Loxleys' name on the

01:40back of the card, but you'll find cards that we've produced in supermarkets, you'll find

01:46these in card factories, and various retail cards, specialist card retailers.

01:54I started here in 91, so this is my 33rd year. I'm not the only one. There are quite

02:00a few of us here that have been here 30 years plus. The best word I would use to describe

02:06Loxleys is family. A lot of us that still work here, work here because of the people

02:11that we work with, and family is the biggest word that always springs to mind.