Images Magazine June 2018

www.images-magazine.com 40 images JUNE 2018 BRAND PROFILE T here aren’t many businesses in the garment decoration industry that can match the heritage of A Adkins & Sons. he company started a century ago manufacturing fusing presses for the footwear and hosiery industries. “In the early days, it was all industrial machinery,” explains general manager Marie McMahon. This changed about 50 years ago, she continues, when the company spotted a gap in the market for small format machines. Since then its name has become synonymous with heat presses. “When people talk about Adkins, they’re very much talking about it as the Electrolux, the Hoover, as a name that people recognise [and associate with] build quality, reliability and value for money,” adds sales director Robin Carter-Browne. An evolving marketplace This reputation has stood it in good stead as the marketplace has evolved and the demand for desktop machines has increased. “The market [for our products] is much more diverse now thanks to the internet,” Robin says. “The applications have changed as well. The phone case market, for instance, had its boom in the late 90s, A Adkins & Sons celebrates its one hundredth anniversary this year. Images talks to Marie McMahon and Robin Carter-Browne about why the company’s heat presses remain so popular, and its new consumables range Pressing forward early 2000s. Nowadays, the promotion side of things, whether it be sportswear or workwear, is very much following the American way of life where they have the name of the company and their own personal names on their garments. Not only do sportspeople wear their names on the back of their shirts, but the supporters do too, as do smaller clubs, right down to junior level teams in schools. Even pupils of nurseries, high schools and primary schools have their names embroidered or heat-pressed on, and they all have bags that they walk to school with that have some sort of advertising or personalisation on it. “That all gives opportunities to people to come into this business. A lot of people have got a heat press in their spare bedroom or garage and are supplementing their income by doing this sort of work.” As the personalisation of products has grown, so has the number of products developed by Adkins, Robin notes. “We’ve had to bring machines to the market that can do specific functions, such as press an image on a breast pocket or on a cap.” The biggest shake-up, however, has been the development of the machines’ controls, reports Marie. “In the old days there wouldn’t have been any digital processors or microprocessors,” she says. “It would have been manual settings and also timers, whereas now everything is digital – that is the big change.” The early heat presses from Adkins were made of cast aluminium, a material that is still used today for some of the company’s products. Fabricated metal, which is lighter [Above] Adkins now offers calendars such as the Alpha Roll-Master 1.2 [Below] Adkins soft launched Sublisure earlier this year In the 1930s, the current Adkins factory was home to a manufacturer of knitwear and hosiery – the main market for Adkins fusing presses at that time