Accrington Observer

A Hyndburn firm was celebrating this week after scooping a top business award.

Altham-based BMP Europe Ltd is one of just 12 North West companies to be awarded a prestigious Queen’s Award for Enterprise in recognition of its outstanding business achievement.
And bosses from the firm travelled to a special reception in London yesterday to receive the award.

A delighted Steve Moon, sales and marketing director, said: “This really is a testimony to the hard work and good character of the employees. They really are an excellent workforce, conscientious and very dedicated.”
He said it had been hard keeping the good news from the staff – a condition of the award being given by the Queen’s awards office at Buckingham Palace.
“We were told about it around three weeks ago,” he said, “We were sworn to secrecy and, until this week, only the management knew about it,”

There are three categories of awards: sustainable development, innovation and international trade, for which BMP collected a gong.

The company began trading in 1984 and moved to its current base on the Altham Business Park, off Burnley Road, in 1996.

BMP Europe manufactures components for digital printing equipment and, despite hard times towards the end of the decade, the company managed to survive the crisis in British manufacturing.
Mr Moon said the company saved cash by manufacturing most of its equipment in China and then importing it to Altham and another site in France.

In the past three years, the company’s exports have increased by 55 per cent, going mainly to America, Australia, Europe and the former Eastern bloc countries.

Mr Moon, who has worked at the firm for 16 years, said during the coming months there would be significant investment in the Altham plant, with new work being done on desktop laser printers.

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