John Smedley to manufacture in UK

John Smedley, the luxury knitwear company, is demonstrating its support for British manufacturing by pulling all of its foreign production back to the UK.

The privately-owned business, which has been in the same family for eight generations, still manufactures at the Derbyshire factory where it began making its pullovers 225 years ago.

Six years ago it opened facilities in China but Andrew Caughey, John Smedley’s managing director, has insisted that all of the company’s production be brought back to the UK.

Mr Caughey wants to strengthen the Britishness of the brand and says that he has been unhappy with the quality of production at the foreign site. “We were getting panels stitched the wrong way round and delivery delays,” he says, although with only 1 per cent of production coming from south-east Asia, the move back to the UK is largely symbolic.