A manufacturer of materials for pressure sensitive self-adhesive labels, tickets and tags has brought to market a new range of papers it is touting as “uniquely Scottish”.
Renfrewshire-based Smith & McLaurin, which has been in business since 1849, has developed a new Heritage range of Scottish labelstock in cooperation with paper producer Arjowiggins’ Stonewood Fine Paper Mill in Aberdeenshire, established in 1770.
“We’ve been working with brand owners in Scotland because the technology for labelling bottles and all their products has been changing over the last couple of years. It used to be wet glue technology; now it’s going to pressure sensitive and that’s where we can come in,” explained John Radford, sales director at Smith & McLaurin.
“We decided we wanted to offer a very Scottish product so we worked with Arjowiggins to develop a Scottish range of papers that are manufactured in the mill in Aberdeen and then we take that face material and we put a B7 line on it.”
He continued, “We then sell it on reels to a Scottish label company for them then to turn into wine labels or spirit labels or whatever, and then it goes into a Scottish brand owner, so we’re keeping it as Scottish as we possibly can.”
The company claims this process can give brand owners a “unique way to emphasise the Scots provenance” of products. John said the big aim at the moment is to supply the labelstock into the Scottish spirits sector but it was also well suited to food like meats and cheeses.
“That’s (something) unique we have,” John added. “None of our competitors are based in Scotland; they don’t have the Scottish history that we do.
“We took this idea to market because, of course, nobody else could do it. Everybody’s looking for that USP; everybody’s looking for that way in and this is a new way to go into the Diageos and the Edringtons, the Chivas Regals and the Pernod Ricards of this world.”
