The Who, What, When, Where and Why of A Local Printer and the people behind it

A Local Printer started life as a small business printer in Sussex, mid way between Horsham and Worthing. From here we continue to print and deliver a certified environmentally friendly printing service to the whole of the UK and beyond.

Our Route to Fame and Fortune!

The business was founded in 1978 and became a limited company in 1981. In those days we were called Weald Printers - a reference to our location in the heart of the beautiful Weald and Downland area of Sussex. From humble beginnings we operated out of a ramshackle shed with little more than a platen letterpress and lots of enthusiasm.

In 2003 the company was sold to the current management team and from that day forward we have continually re-invested in the business with a view to establishing ourselves as an online environmental printing specialist.

Disaster Looms

The big turning point came for us in 2005 when we lost a major customer who had decided to move to in-house laser printing. We knew that we had to take action to avert disaster – and quickly! As fate has a way of intervening it was at this time that we became very interested in the eco movement gathering speed in terms of organic produce, recycling and being more environmentally aware. The proverbial light bulb went on, trumpets played and a massive billboard with ‘eco-printing’ stood in front of us pointing to the way ahead.

Speedy Gonzales has nothing on us

Within 6 months (honest, I have the grey hair to prove it) we had engaged a web designer, written and launched a website, relocated to bigger premises, tested all the recycled and eco papers available (which was only a handful in those days) sourced and trialled vegetable oil based inks, changed our name, created new products and invested in two new presses. Then we sat back and waited.

Slowly slowly catchy monkey

Oh how innocent we were in those days! The website was live so where were all the lovely new internet customers? Of course, Google was playing as hard to get in those days at it does now, but after a six month stint in the sin bin Google realised we were there to stay and all of a sudden the customers and their business came – hungry for an eco printer with an online purchasing portal.

And that’s really how it all started. From humble beginnings and a desire to make eco printing accessible to everyone A Local Printer has gone from strength to strength.

Harnessing a Passion

I am incredibly proud to say that A Local Printer was the first online printer in the UK to offer a fully eco friendly online print service, and all of our products are as eco today as they were in 2006 when our website went live. Creating a 100% eco friendly printing website allowed us to harness the passion we felt for ‘doing our bit to save the planet’ and I truly believe that we might have helped just a little bit.