A Norfolk manufacturer which includes Manchester United, the House of Commons as well as corporate giants such as Boots, Cow & Gate and GlaxoSmithKline among its clients has completed a £150,000 investment to give it a new look and develop its online business.

Specialist polythene envelope manufacturers STM Packaging Group, based at Concorde Road in Norwich, has carried out a rebranding exercise on its four core brands – Sefton Transmail, Shirlplass, the Polythene Envelope Company, and Packaging Products Online.

The business, which employs 45 staff at Norwich and a second site in Northamptonshire and has annual revenues of around £6m, is also seeing a rise in sales to e-commerce businesses which want to mail products to their customers.

Managing director Esther Evans said the changes come as the firm has invested in the manufacturing process to make and shape its polythene products, including the installation of a new conversion machine at its Norwich site, with a new extrusion machine due to be installed in Northamptonshire.

The business, which has a 40- year history in Norwich, is also eyeing overseas opportunities after collaborating with UKTI on working in Ireland and is also set to visit Denmark and Sweden with a view to securing new business.

'From the outside looking in we didn't look like a group, we looked like disparate parts and we needed to be able to say to our customer base 'we are here',' she said. 'In order to do that we had to have a cohesive image. All the companies have new websites and this brings everything together. We make the film here and all the inks are sourced here and everything is locally sourced. That's what gives UK manufacturing its edge as it's much better quality and the lead times are much shorter and we can do short runs.

'The customer range is enormous and we are expanding our sales team,' she added. 'The biggest opportunity is the online market. The UK is right at the forefront of online retailing and that's where the growth is in the economy at the moment and we are lucky to be in a business that can address that growth.'