A Dundee printing firm that made more than 30 workers redundant during the pandemic has announced expansion plans.

Tradeprint plans to double the size of its plant in Dundee this year as the business marks its 25th anniversary.

In 2020, the firm saw sales plummet to as low as 10% of regular business due to the pandemic, forcing the cutbacks.

About 28 staff – including half a dozen ex-employees – have been hired in the 18 months since.

Now the business is marking quarter of a century in Dundee and has plans to recruit again.

Tradeprint ‘hammered’ by Covid

After a turbulent two years, managing director Charlene Joss believes the firm is on the road to recovery.

She said: “Covid absolutely hammered us. When it hit we had to make some painful decisions in terms of the redundancies given the uncertainty of when normality would resume.

“As the economy has recovered, we have slowly picked up again. We’re probably about 90% of the way there now.

“Some of our bread-and-butter paper based products – business cards, menus and flyers – digitalisation is going to change buyers behaviour now.

“A lot less people are handing out business cards and people are having meetings on Zoom or on the phone.

“There’s a lot less in-person contact. People are using QR codes for menus or placing orders through an app.”

“That has forced us to rethink our product diversification strategy – but there is still a huge demand for print and always will be.”

Founded in 1997 as Fairprint, the company had enjoyed steady growth. It was named PrintWeek company of the year in 2015.

It was then bought for more than £20 million by Dutch firm Cimpress in 2015.

During the 2017 financial year, staff were reorganised in preparation of a merger of UK operations with another of Cimpress’ companies, Exaprint.

‘Leap of faith’ to expand premises

Now Ms Joss is pleased to be overseeing the factory extension as they prepare move into adjacent premises at Fulton.

“We’re at maximum capacity just now.

“We are taking a bit of a leap of faith in our growth plans,” the managing director added.

The new building requires extensive refurbishment, but she hopes the firm will be moved into the new building by the summer.

Ms Joss, who took over as managing director in 2018, is delighted to be leading the firm through its milestone anniversary year.

“I could not be prouder. If you were going to lead the company through any year, it’s this 25th year in front of us.

“We’ve got big investment plans on the horizon. We have an incredibly talented team of people at Tradeprint.

“I can’t wait to celebrate our success with the people who have helped us reach this milestone.”

There were plans for a celebration to mark the 25th anniversary today.

That has been put on ice due to Covid restrictions.

Staff instead marked the occasion initially with a virtual meeting, with numerous celebratory events being planned throughout the year.