Grantham company Viking Signs could be the country's best small manufacturing business

Staff at a Grantham manufacturer will find out this week if theirs is the country's best small manufacturing business.

On Thursday (January 27) Viking Signs will find out if it is the best in this category in the UK.

Last year the company was named the MAKE UK Midlands and East SME of the year, and so won a place at the 2022 National Make UK Manufacturing awards.

Managing director Darren Joint will be at the awards dinner at East Wintergarden, London, to find out if Viking Signs has won the national award, along with his parents and company founders Simon and Michele Joint.

Darren said: "Winning the Midlands and East Manufacturing SME of the Year was a fantastic achievement for the whole Viking Signs team.

"To be considered as a national winner of this prestigious Make UK award is a huge endorsement of all the hard work my team has put in over the last few years and I'd like to take this opportunity to thank each and every one of them."

He added: "We believe that our manufacturing-on-demand model offers huge advantages in terms of speed, service, choice and contribution to achieving net zero.

"If being shortlisted and maybe even winning this award gives us a platform to share these advantages with our UK manufacturing peers then it's a double win for us."

Darren joined the business in 2006 before becoming managing director in 2007.

Since his parents bought the business in 1997, Viking Signs has grown to the point where it now offers the country's largest range of safety signs, with more than 50,000 signs and labels being manufactured each month.

During the first three weeks of lockdown in March 2020, the company also designed, created and launched more than 20,000 brand new safety sign products for the new social distancing requirements.

Viking Signs also supplies signs, labels and engraved components to many other Lincolnshire and national manufacturers.