bradfordbased family packaging business holmes mann celebrates 125 years in business this year.having grown from humble beginnings in the leeds road saw mills, to its current location at the top of bradford&rsquos little germany, where it has been since the late 1950s, the company is now in the hands of fifth generation family member barny holmes.the last two years has seen significant reinvestment and a full rebrand, with change of logo, and company colours plus a refocus on marketing and brand awareness. it also has a new website with ecommerce functionality which should go live this year, along with a much stronger social media presence.holmes mann is broken down into 5 main departmentstimberwood for cases, crates, pallets.corrugated for diecuts, light weight and heavy duty boxes.cores for both spiral and convolute tubes.packaging materials, such as bubble wrap, loose fill, air pouches and printed sticky tape, which we print in house.siat packaging machinery, it has a working relationship with siat that spans over 30 years, and it has just been awarded diamond plus distributorship, making the company only one of two distributors in the uk to have received the accolade.&ldquoso we truly are the one stop packaging shop,&rdquo said managing director barny holmes. i am trying to repackage the companies profile so that we are a strategic partner in other people&rsquos business, offering full design and manufacture and supply of all their packaging needs.&ldquowith a new focus helping people design packaging for product export from the uk. we are heavily in with different aerospace companies and have been supplying into the aerospace sector for many years.among its many significant jobs over the years holmes mann has supplied packaging to hrh prince of wales for the safe transit of treasured art pieces, ammunition style wooden cases to pinewood studios for the xmen 1st class movie as well as designing and manufacturing a jettison paper long range fuel tank below during world war 2.holmes added &ldquomy ambition and focus is to grow the business with strategic planning and investing in people in my team and new up to date plant and machinery, and aggressively market the company this year, so that we are the first packaging company people think of in yorkshire as it is not every year that you can celebrate your 125th birthday after all&rdquo 
