As announced in a Breaking News flash from PG Buzz yesterday morning (April 23), Wrendale Designs, the Lincolnshire-based greeting card and gift brand has been honoured with a Queen’s Award for excellence in International Trade. https://www.pgbuzz.net/wrendale-designs-honoured-with-a-queens-award-for-export/
Since the news broke, congratulatory messages have flooded in to the card and gift company from all corners of the world. From its retail customers, trade suppliers, industry peers, friends and overseas distributors.
For Hannah and Jack Dale, co-founders of the company there is also the massive relief of not having to keep this exceptionally good news a secret any longer.
“We’ve been overwhelmed by messages and emails from customers, suppliers and all of our lovely friends in the industry who have heard the news. It was a great relief to finally be able to tell people – we found out in March but were asked not to even tell our colleagues at work so it was nice to be able to share the news at work and thank everyone for their contributions,” said an overjoyed Hannah. “We want everyone at Wrendale to feel that this is their award, from packing orders, designing catalogues and chasing invoices, everyone’s contribution has helped us to win the award.”
Hannah and Jack can now look forward to their trip to Buckingham Palace in June to a special reception for this year’s Queen’s Awards recipients. Following this the company will officially be presented with the award at the company’s premises in Brigg from a representative of the Palace.
Wrendale Design being awarded this top accolade continues to shine a light on the industry’s creative global pre-eminence, with the company following in the wake of Santoro being feted with a Queen’s Award last year, The Art File was presented with one in 2017 and Blue Eyed Sun received one in 2016.
Wrendale Designs has certainly come a long way in the last seven years since it made its debut as a greeting card publisher at PG Live in 2012 with The Country Set, a greeting card collection based on Hannah’s zoologically correct, but cute nonetheless creations. Since then, the Wrendale Designs’ portfolio has expanded to include a wide range of gift and homewares, including tinware, stationery, textiles and tableware, produced both under the company’s own steam as well as through licensing agreements with other brands.
“We are so thrilled to receive this award – launching our brand and seeing it so well received across the world has been incredibly exciting for us, but we’d like to say an enormous thank you to all of our loyal customers in the UK who have supported us, since we launched Wrendale – without their belief in our brand this would never have been possible,” commented Hannah Dale, who prior to pursuing her artistic talents in the greeting card scene had been a stockbroker.
Hitting the ground running since its debut at PG Live only seven years ago, the Wrendale brand has been on a steep success curve ever since, amassing a huge number of collectors, not just in the UK, but worldwide, as testified by this top export accolade.
Wrendale’s export sales have grown more than 400% over the last three years following the brand’s successful launch in the US, Europe and Japan, as well as growing relationships with distributors elsewhere in the world.
Among the notable brand expansion has been a continuation of the successful collaboration with tableware group Portmeirion, onto many ceramic and kitchen items, including a recently launched dinner service.
Wrendale Designs is able to make full use of the award’s endorsement for the next five years.
Top: Former stockbroker, Hannah Dale has drawn on her zoological degree and natural artistic talent to build the Wrendale Designs business.
