Granby's History

Born in Manchester

The innovative spirit of the North West of England is legendary. Embracing the lucrative technological advances of the time, entrepreneurs in 19th and 20th century Lancashire (which originally incorporated Manchester) exported fabrics worldwide from cotton warehouses and showrooms that still stand today.

It was into this fast-paced commercial environment that Granby was born. The business was launched in 1950 in the midst of this ‘cotton quarter’ as a simple warehouse business that stored high quality, handmade suits from the local luxury tailors of Manchester’s Granby Row.

With a knack for spotting gaps in the market and the drive to meet our clients’ needs, Granby quickly evolved. Our services encompassed specialised marketing services and promotional marketing fulfilment. On the back of our success, in the 1990s, we became part of the global marketing giant Omnicon Group .

During this time, we moved out of Manchester city centre to expand our facilities, leaving behind the characterful but antiquated Victorian warehouses for modern facilities in Blackburn.

Fulfilling potential in Lancashire

In 2000, we were clearly keen to grow the business into new areas that didn’t quite fit within the Omnicon Group. Stephen Bentley, Chief Executive, purchased Granby Marketing from Omnicon, freeing us to grow into our full potential as a respected promotional marketing business .

We were offering a wider range of fulfilment solutions, but predominantly focused on the marketing services promotions sector. To support the delivery of these services, in 2002 we began to develop our own bespoke fulfilment technology, SCOPe, which would manage, track and report in a way that had never been done before – and still isn’t equalled, to this day.

Stephen took his place on the board as Chairman after a management buyout in 2013 by Managing Director Joanne Kimber . With Andrew Gregson in place as Operations Director, Granby’s team dropped the ‘Marketing’ part of the name: we realised we had become much more.

Building on our success in promotional fulfilment, we began to grow our other ‘value added’ 3PL services within the distribution and fulfilment sector. We also continued to invest in SCOPe – it has matured into a fulfilment platform incorporating the OrderSure client portal, a warehousing management system, and an automation module.

All this paid off. In 2019, we bought out our VC investor and became a fully independent business once again – stronger, more experienced, and with a solid vision for our future. In 2020 we won the prestigious ‘Contract Pack and Fulfilment company of the year’ award for the second time in a row.

Granby’s future

With our experience, tenacity and focus on doing our absolute best for our clients, Granby has become a complete brand fulfilment partner, delivering first class promotional marketing, contract packing and 3PL (third party logistics) services.

As well as delivering outsourced contracted work to the private sector, we’ve grown our portfolio of public sector clients, including government departments, local authorities and charities.

We have a reputation for going above and beyond, which helps our clients achieve their goals. This attitude holds us in good stead – it ensures we’re continually evolving to meet the challenges of a fast-paced marketplace.