Harland designs, manufactures, installs and maintains machinery that applies labels to consumer products such as cosmetics and pharmaceuticals.
The prodigious exporter – foreign sales make up around 80 per cent of Harland’s £11.5m turnover – has won blue-chip customers in Mexico including L’Oreal, Procter & Gamble and Avon.
Sales to Mexico were about £350,000 in 2008, rising to £400,000 in 2009, over four per cent of Harland’s total exports.
Harland has an agent in Mexico, without whom sales manager David Latham says the business would have struggled to make inroads.
He said: “We do have relationships with global customers who have sites out there, but it is invaluable to have someone on the ground.
“We are talking to a potential agent in Sao Paolo, Brazil, which is a market we expect to start emerging in the coming years.”
And for the first time Harland is looking to win a bigger slice of the South American market by tailoring its products to customers there.
Mr Latham said: “Traditionally our customers abroad have always used the same equipment as our domestic customers, but we are now developing new machinery for the Mexican market and other emerging nations that will allow us to compete better with local suppliers.
“Mechanically, the equipment is almost identical, but the control systems have been simplified so we can compete better on price.
“Customers want to buy European equipment because of its high quality, but sometimes they can’t afford it.
“We want to take away any obstacles so we can break into new markets.”
Mr Latham said Harland, which has 130 staff, will continue looking to South America for new business as the continent’s economy grows.
He said: “The blue chips which make consumer goods want to introduce new consumers to their product range and they are looking to these emerging markets where people are starting to have more disposable income.
“If they are going there, we need to follow too.”
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