Mailing business that outgrew the kitchen table

03 04 2005 United Kingdom

A Northumberland company has grown from a home-based enterprise into a £2.5 million mailing business. Its founder, Jackie Peddie, was one of the region’s prominent business women at an event celebrating female entrepreneurs in the North East.

At a reception for female entrepreneurs in the North East, DTI minister Jacqui Smith heard first-hand from many of them about their experiences setting up in business, including Jackie Peddie of The Mailing House in Cramlington, Northumberland.

Mrs Peddie was bringing up three young children when she started her business in 1985, hand-filling envelopes at her kitchen table for companies' direct mailing campaigns.

She told The Journal, "The business grew because the customers grew. And as they wanted bigger and bigger orders the kitchen table soon wasn't big enough!”

She has built the business up into The Mailing House, a company with a £2.5 million turnover, employing 75 people and handling over 150 million items of finished mail a year.

It is still very much a family firm. Malcolm, her husband, son Steffen, 31, and daughter Jill, 25, are also directors of the company.

In 2004 Mrs Peddie won the North East Woman Entrepreneur of the Year Award and explained her strategy of developing the business. “It has never grown quickly,” she said. “It has been steady, consistent growth and expansion rather than explosion.”

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