Four time world champion boxer Carl Froch was on hand to open the third phase of the multi-million-pound factory for an award winning, family-run Nottingham packaging company. The Wilkins Group, which helped Marks and Spencer's snow globe gin become its fastest-selling drink last year, unveiled its new 50,000 sq ft extension to its manufacturing facility at its headquarters on Colwick Industrial Estate.
Staff, customers and suppliers took their seats at the estate on Wednesday, December 7, where former super middleweight Carl Froch cut the ribbon. The event was an extra special one for Froch, who grew up on a cul-de-sac where his garden fence stood next to the factory.
Froch recalls a time - around 43 years ago - when he and his siblings would jump into the factory's paper skips and "try and bury themselves under the paper." With so many connections to the company, Froch was the "obvious" choice to open the new extension, with Carl's own uncle, "uncle Mick", having worked at the firm for 46 years.
Carl said: "As far back as I can remember, around two or three years old, my uncle Mick's worked for Ken Wilkins since then. And we had a house on the cul-de-sac in Colwick and our fence, literally the back garden of our fence, just over that and you're straight away in the factory of Ken Wilkins.
"Me and my brothers, we used to jump in the paper skip and mess around and try and bury ourselves in the paper and get paper cuts all over our hands - my mum used to go mad at it. I've gone from being bloody chased off the site to being invited back on.
"It's a bit of a turnaround. That's about 43 years ago."
The Wilkins Group director Justin Wilkins said: "It's brilliant, we've got customers here from far and wide, as well as a lot of local people as well. It's a great day to bring everybody together, just take a bit of time out and just celebrate a big achievement to increase the capacity of the business.
"We've got some targets that we want to achieve. We're the largest independent carton company in the UK. So we're wanting to keep our foot down on the accelerator pedal.
"We've got some targets ourselves within the company wanting to take the business to the next stage. So that's taking us from where we are today around the 50 million mark up to maybe 70.
"And we also want to break the barrier of a billion units of packaging supplied in a year - that's our aim."
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