▲The Company produces paper for publishing, packaging, and the arts Ultimately, keeping this tradition alive in Britain means safeguarding a unique capability that supports creative industries, sustains local employment, and champions sustainable production. It’s not just important to us, it’s essential to the future of our industry in Britain and beyond. Putting the ‘U’ Back Into ‘Colour’ For decades, we’ve honed that expertise and supported it with state-of-the-art technology that enables us to match colours across any number of different fibre-based materials. The lab lets us test different options in collaboration with customers, demonstrating our proprietary dyed-in-thefibre process, before quickly scaling up the exact colour formulation into full production. Over the years, the technology and science behind this process has evolved, but the goal remains the same – to bring the customer’s vision to life. This continual journey of discovery and refinement is what led us to Coloursource, a curated portfolio of 50 signature shades that celebrates our legacy as the originators of coloured paper. This isn’t just a product launch; it’s an invitation. Coloursource brings together decades of colour expertise into one unified brand, offering unmatched vibrancy, durability, and creative potential. What makes this moment even more exciting is that for the first time, James Cropper are directly associated with the product. For over 50 years, people have known and loved a very well-known coloured paper, without realising it was made by us. Now, we’re stepping forward and owning that story. It gives us the opportunity to help our present and future customers explore new creative directions and push the boundaries of what’s possible in coloured paper. We’re also opening our doors, literally. We’re inviting customers to visit our Burneside mill, the home of coloured paper since 1856, to experience the development process first-hand. It’s about collaboration, storytelling, and giving our customers the tools to make these colours their own. Coloursource is more than a product, it’s a statement of intent. We’re not just preserving tradition: we’re evolving it. Our distinguished past is something we celebrate at James Cropper. However, we’re not in the habit of looking back – we use our unprecedented experience to make a material difference in the present, so we can deliver a brighter future. Founded in 1845, James Cropper has grown from its Cumbrian roots in Burneside to a global group, with sites in Cornwall, Crewe, and Schenectady, USA. Across generations, its people have earned an international reputation for understanding colour, craftsmanship, technical excellence, and sustainable innovation – a culture that continues to define the business today. That spirit of restless curiosity has shaped defining moments in the company’s history: producing paper for the British government during WWI, supplying the iconic red paper for Remembrance Day poppies, and welcoming Her Majesty The Queen in 2013 to open the revolutionary CupCycling plant, the world’s first facility dedicated to recycling coffee cups at scale. 31 www.printmonthly.co.uk Issue 357 - November | December 2025 Our founder and my three times great-grandfather always maintained that “nothing opens itself out to such constant development as paper,” and this belief is still a guiding light for us to this day James Cropper was founded in 1845 in Burneside 1845 180 Years CELEBRATING 180 YEARS OF JAMES CROPPER
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