The Big Interview ‘I love this industry’ Pete Randall
P&P editor Melanie Attlesey speaks with Pete Randall, a name familiar to many, about his three decades in the printwear industry and his latest ventures.
D
textile inks. “I just loved the people in textiles – they’re more fun! They were just a good laugh, you could go and have a pint with them on a Friday afternoon,” says Pete.
uring the last three decades many of you may have encountered Pete Randall, for he has worked in the industry in many guises over the years. Like many of us, Pete stumbled into the industry quite by accident. On leaving school, he had wanted to follow a career in engineering, but one day on a bit of a whim he took a job as an office junior at ink manufacturer Coates Brothers. “This was quite an eye-opening job for me. As far I was concerned ink went into pens and not anything else,” says Pete. During his five years with Coates, Pete worked his way up from office junior in the screen printing ink division to working in the lab working for the screen making product division, testing and demonstrating products such as capillary films, meshes and emulsions. During this role Pete got to get out on the road, meeting customers across South East London on the print shop floor, selling textile and point of sale inks, which is where he first fell in love with the industry.
He recalls: “Back in the 80s screen printing was definitely considered a craft, with many screen printers hand cutting stencils and pulling the squeegees themselves. I mean to get registration on the carousel you used to have to tap it with a hammer. Now the industry is a lot more automated, especially with the advent of digital printing.”
The world of inks
A brief move to machinery refurbishment followed next, which saw Pete selling refurbished screen printing equipment. However, this was not where his interest lay and as soon as he could he moved back into the world of inks. He took up a position with Wilflex focusing solely on
| 38 | April 2021
www.printwearandpromotion.co.uk
Pete was appointed sales manager for Wilflex’s Midlands sales office, before getting involved with some European accounts. This involved some overseas travel for Pete, in particular to France and Greece.
“If you go to a screen printer in Greece, they couldn’t use water-based inks, because of the heat. Really quite naively I hadn’t even considered that it would be problem. They tended to use plastisol inks and dry the garments through a tunnel dryer creating even more heat,” says Pete. After five years with Wilflex, Pete went to work in another sales manager role for one of his customers called Silver Screen before another move to Best Display, but this time to run the screen division, which allowed him to get more hands on and to move away from sales.
Pete moved away from Best Display when the company relocated and in 1994 he joined Antalis, where he spent an enjoyable 13 years. Pete worked for the company’s business development team and spent the first few years commuting to Paris three days a week. This role saw Pete work with group facilities across Europe, so he travelled extensively across the continent. Although primarily known as a paper merchant, Antalis diversified
into the promotional products sector in the late 90s with the purchase of three different businesses on the continent. “The promotion market is not just the pen and the mug, but also T shirts. So, this saw me return to the textile sector,” says Pete.
Suicidal move
In the end the travelling got the better of Pete, so, in 2007, he handed in his notice and in his own words made the suicidal move to become an industry consultant. While in this role, Pete was approached by Belgium-based B&C Collection, which was looking to make it big in the UK. Pete was initially contracted to undertake a market study of the UK. At the time B&C was being distributed by Elms & Elms, which liquidated in 2016.
Impressed by the results and Pete’s knowledge of the UK market, he was asked to join B&C as country manager on a consultancy basis, to grow B&C’s presence in the UK. “B&C were huge on the continent, an absolute force. But pretty much no-one in the UK had heard of them at the time,” says Pete. Pete’s approach was to get B&C into one of the larger wholesalers, with the hope that others would follow. Initially B&C was taken on by UK Leisurewear, in a deal which gave them exclusivity in the UK for three years. “What I didn’t foresee happening was PenCarrie buying UKL in 2011,” explains Pete. “At this
Coates Brothers is where Pete Randall began his career
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56 |
Page 57 |
Page 58 |
Page 59 |
Page 60 |
Page 61 |
Page 62 |
Page 63 |
Page 64 |
Page 65 |
Page 66 |
Page 67 |
Page 68 |
Page 69 |
Page 70 |
Page 71 |
Page 72 |
Page 73 |
Page 74 |
Page 75 |
Page 76 |
Page 77 |
Page 78
