The internationally renowned Spur shelving brand is celebrating 65 years of being manufactured in the UK.
The manufacture of Spur, a brand that is synonymous with quality and practicality, commenced in the UK in 1952, and is still manufactured here today.
The first Spur system, with its robust components and adjustable design, revolutionised wall mounted shelving and brought it into the modern world. Before Spur’s introduction, shelving was often a masterpiece of carpentry, or relied on metal brackets screwed to a wall in fixed positions. Since that time the company has added to the ranges which now encompass commercial and industrial shelving systems often used in retail stock rooms and document archives.
In 1957 Spur was acquired by Savage Industries Ltd., whose wartime role was to manufacture search lights and aircraft detection systems. With a strong engineering base in Watford and sales operations in several continents, they were able to propel Spur from a single product brand to a global leader in the field, with the brand becoming a household name during the 1960s and 70s.
In the mid-1990s, Spur was taken over by Mckechnie plc, a highly respected industrial conglomerate, who owned numerous home improvement manufacturers and were able to expand and consolidate the brand. McKechnie itself was subsequently acquired by Newell Rubbermaid.
A huge influx of poor quality copied products from the Far East caused the Spur manufacturing operations to close in late 2006. In 2007 Storage Solutions Ltd rescued the former Spur Shelving facility in Devon, gradually acquiring the Spur assets and re-launching various product lines.
Peter Sully, Founder and Managing Director of Storage Solutions Ltd says: “Our ethos has been to improve the manufacturing efficiency and quality of our products, which are all made here in the UK. After 10 years of recessionary challenges we are now able to compete head on with the once cheap Asian competition. New products have expanded Spur from the Commercial and DIY sector to also offer industrial systems, and we hope that over the coming months and years we will see our products enter many new markets in the post-Brexit era.”
Storage Solutions Ltd was established in 1993 as a warehouse and storage equipment consultancy by Peter Sully, an Engineer, who was then in his late 20s and who had been involved in the design of the Apex pallet racking and long span ranges. The company subsequently changed direction, fitting out industrial and warehouse premises and has worked with many blue chip companies over the years. In the early 1990s the company started a catalogue sales operation and made the natural step of becoming one of the first companies to offer products on-line writing its own software to do so. After Newell Rubbermaid closed the Spur operations, the company acquired the entire European stocks of the commercial grade Spur ranges in 2006. These were returned from Europe prior to the company acquiring the factory in Great Torrington, Devon.
The company’s new-found competitiveness since Brexit has enabled it to take back market share from the fake products brought in from the Far East and the company is now extending its wholesale network throughout the UK.
More information about Spur Shelving can be found at: https://www.spurshelving.co.uk/s.aspx
More information about Storage Solutions can be found at:
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