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Unifabs expands with £1.4m property investment
Unifabs – a Nuneaton-based sheet metal design and manufacturing firm – is expanding its footprint after securing an additional four units of factory space – equating to 23,000 square feet. The £1.4m property deal means the firm now has more than 52,000 square feet of space at the site.
The purchase underlines the firm’s ongoing growth which in the past ten years has seen its number of employees increase from 10 to 110, and its annual turnover from £1m to £9m by the end of 2020.
Founded in 2007, Unifabs started life as a manufacturer of sheet metal components. The company has since branched out into designing parts for a complete service. It now designs and manufactures bespoke fabricated parts for end users such as Amazon and Ocado, and also works with automotive brands such as Jaguar Land Rover, Bentley and Rolls Royce to design and manufacture equipment used to transport vehicles from mainland Europe.
Ongoing growth has led Unifabs to invest in additional factory space / Picture: Unifabs
Jason Austin, founder and managing director, said: “This is a landmark moment for the business as the additional factory space will enable us to dedicate an area for research and development to ensure we can continue adapting to customer requirements, whilst inventing new approaches and capabilities to keep us ahead of the industry curve. Our production shop floor has previously been used for research and development, so this move also frees up our production capacity moving forward.
“We had been renting two of the units we have now purchased, which means we can now look at making changes to the building to aid our environmental effort by reducing the amount of forklifting that is carried out.
“This expansion comes off the back of a period where we had to quickly diversify during the lockdown period. We were manufacturing 5,000 hand sanitiser units a week during the summer; and because more people were at home shopping online, our work in the logistics sector remained strong.
“As a business we have near enough returned to what demand looked like before Covid-19 struck, and the additional space we now have to focus on research and development is going to act as a catalyst for further growth, as we aim for an annual turnover of £12 million in the next two years.”