In 2013 Strata was beginning to dominate the market and acquired struggling gardening brand Sankey. In 2016, Strata was awarded a prestigious Queen's Award for Enterprise as a result of its impressive export growth.

Strata also now exports to more than 40 countries with products ending up places including the USA, Canada, France, Germany, Russia and Japan.

As well as having weathered the pandemic, Jay says that Strata has benefitted from the Instagram trend for de-cluttering thanks to the likes of stars such as Mrs Hinch who has turned tidying into an online art from and Stacey Solomon who shows before and after shots of her home using 'tap to tidy' Instagram posts.

Forty huge machines run 24 hours, all making a range of products in different ways, overseen by vital staff in roles such as machine setters and operators, pallet pullers, maintenance engineers and a tool room team.

While Strata is now focussed on growing in its export markets around the world, Jay says it does take consideration for the planet seriously and that the majority of the plastic it uses is recycled.

The rotary moulding technique involves powdered plastic being put into any shaped mould. The mould is rotated and put into a very hot oven where the plastic layers up inside the hollow mould, before being placed in a cooling area involving fans and a fine mist of water.

Strata Products is a family run business on a huge scale, making household storage solutions, as well as decorative planters, gardening products, baby gear and Mrs Hinch inspired baskets and boxes for organising shelves.

Jay and his father met Her Majesty The Queen, with Jay describing it as a very proud moment in the Nottinghamshire company's history.

Following his visit to Strata Products and nearby Delden Cranes, he said: "It’s companies like the ones I’ve visited over the last couple of days that we need to continue attracting to the Bolsover constituency if we’re to achieve our goal of levelling up the area. Building back from the pandemic and offering good quality local jobs is central to much of the work I’m trying to do.

“Winning the East Midlands Freeport bid back in March was a huge win for the region and will help to continue attracting investment and jobs into the wider area. What we’re showing is that you won’t have to relocate elsewhere to get a good job, and that the Bolsover constituency and wider East Midlands is a brilliant place to do business.”

"During the pandemic, we've been able to maintain jobs and production as the demand for home and garden items has been very high. In fact, we're proud to have been one of the main companies to have been able to keep up with demand over the last year."

Showing a range of homeware baskets in on trend pastels as well as neutral shades Jay said: "These are really popular off the back of the Mrs Hinch trend and we're always looking for ways we can offer our clients something a little different so they have lids. Lids might not seem like a big thing but they help the product stand out and make it more functional."

Since its start, Strata has gone from strength to strength, now employing hundreds of workers from nearby Sutton-in-Ashfield, and the local residents of Pinxton as well as wider Mansfield and Nottinghamshire and now has sales of around £21 million.

The rotary moulding method is labour intensive according to Jay and in general the daily running of Strata Products is hot and noisy work. But Jay says bosses know their teams work incredibly hard and says they strive to show staff they're valued.

They are created using a blow mould technique which is fascinating to watch. A large, thick tube shaped piece of soft plastic is lowered onto an air pipe inside the machine. This is them clamped between two moulds and air is blown into the middle of the soft plastic, blowing it out into the shape of the hollow butt inside the mould. The whole process takes just one minute.

And as Brits fell back in love with their gardens, demand for Strata's water butts increased - thankfully the factory produces 4000 a day.

The Informa Markets Engineering network of B2B media sites includes Design News, Battery Technology, Medical Device & Diagnostic Industry (MD+DI), Packaging Digest, PlasticsToday, and Powder & Bulk Solids.

While the company has always done well, Jay says that major change was needed in 2007 and its growth has had a much steeper climb since then.

Jay oversees the incredible production of products at the Pinxton site and proudly gave Nottinghamshire Live a tour of the factory which uses three methods of producing thousands of items an hour at its bustling warehouse.

"Rotary moulding gives us the ability to create much more elaborate and attractive designs," explains Jay, who joined the family business in 2007 as sales director and recently took over as MD.

The pandemic definitely reminded us all that home is where the heart is but while lots of us were improving the places we live, who knew that so many of our homes and gardens were adorned with plastic products made just down the road.

Blaige & Co. served as the exclusive financial advisor to NN Inc. on the transaction. Greenberg Traurig LLP served as counsel for Blackford Capital, with legal entity support from Varnum LLP. Parliament Capital Management provided lending for the acquisition, with legal support from DLA Piper. Plante Moran advised on financial and tax diligence, and Signature Associates CRE brokered the Sale Leaseback transaction with STORE Capital.

Today, the company is owned by US firm Berry Global but the day-to-day running remains with the family and managing mirector Jay Ilsen, 38, who is the grandson of Strata's founder. He took over this role from his own father Michael Ilsen and is just as dedicated to the business as the two generations before him.

"We've struggled to attract as many staff recently because of the problems with workers from elsewhere being able to enter the country. We've also been hit by the new Amazon site opening as they are able to offer much more flexible working hours than we can because of the size of their operation.

"These black storage trunks might be recognisable to a lot of people," says Jay "The Heavy Duty Range is one of our top lines and we make this trunk in a range of sizes. We wanted to create something really durable and useful which was better than the basic plastic storage boxes on sale."

Founded in 2010, Blackford Capital focuses on the acquisition and management of founder- and family-owned lower middle-market companies in the manufacturing, industrial, and distribution sectors. The company is based in Grand Rapids, MI.

Headquartered in Chesterfield, MI, Davalor provides injection molding services primarily for the automotive industry. It was acquired by Blackford Capital in 2016, and the addition of IMC to the portfolio “marks an initial stride toward establishing a global, full-service plastics injection molding business with a range of capabilities and a diversified, global customer base,” said Blackford Capital.

While injection moulding offers a more traditional way of creating plastic items when the liquid plastic is poured in and the shape pressed out, rotary moulding gives the chance to add design and texture to items and Jay explains that the use of and investment into this technique is part of what helps Strata stand out.

“We are excited to welcome the IMC team to Davalor. We are committed to providing our customers with the most advanced, most reliable injection molded plastic products available," said Davalor CEO John Boeschenstein. "As we seek to expand our capabilities beyond our core plastic injection molding offering, we are thrilled to have found a strategic partner with a great management team, a professional and highly capable staff, and a strong, design-for-manufacturing approach to injection molded plastics. I look forward to working together to expand our capabilities on a national scale."

It was founded by the current managing director's grandfather some years after he fled here as a 19-year-old from Nazi Germany and was given a home by the famous Cadbury Family who were known for offering refuge to those fleeing the country.

Many of us have probably never given much thought to what goes into making a plant pot but the factory is a fascinating insight into how every day items come to life.

"70% of our plastic is recycled," says Jay "The recycled plastic is processed and supplied to us by one of our sister companies. This is an important aspect to our business as we want to supply niche products that are sustainable and high quality."

Not only that, they're being pumped out in their thousands from the small former mining village of Pinxton in the north of the county

Strata's 40 machines are capable of creating hundreds of the home, garden and baby items we see at stores across the region and are at the forefront of helping to give consumers more choice, as Jay explains.

Founded in 1947 and based in Lubbock, TX, IMC molds precision components for global customers in a variety of end markets. The long-tenured management team will continue in their current roles, said the news release.

Earlier this month MP for Bolsover Mark Fletcher visited the Pinxton factory and says the firm is a good example of the type of business the area needs to attract in order for the East Midlands to achieve its 'levelling up' ambitions.

It's easy to assume that lots of the plastic items we buy and use on a daily basis were made in far flung places but it turns out lots of them are created right here in Nottinghamshire.

"Although the process is more expensive and labour intensive, the end result is worthwhile as we can create a whole range of plastic designs that look much better than some of the more basic products on offer."

At the Pinxton site, more than 200 staff work across a vast 40,000 sq-ft warehouse which straddles the village's Plymouth Avenue.

"We needed to push ourselves out of our comfort zone and bring on more clients," says Jay "We were doing well and had a good base of loyal happy clients, but it was a time to grow and take Strata to the next level."

"It was a very proud achievement which we were given the award for our growth in export and that's still where we see the future of the company."

Strata Products started life in Pinxton in 1987 after the government gave out subsidies for companies to bring their businesses to former mining communities which needed industry and jobs.

"We're also able to create designs that that look like timber and these are really popular too as they're less expensive and last longer."

"However, we're constantly looking for ways to show our staff that we value them and last week we arranged for an ice cream van to be onsite and give everyone a treat in the heat. We're also offering incentives such as shopping vouchers to those who take up the Covid-19 vaccine."

Echoing those comments, Blackford Capital founder and managing director Martin Stein noted that IMC’s seasoned leadership team and deep expertise in the plastics injection molding industry will be a “capability multiplier for our customers.” The acquisition, he added, builds a “solid foundation for accelerated and sustained growth within the Davalor platform, paving the way for continued expansion and innovation.”

With the garden range making up 50 per cent of Strata's product range and 45 per cent being homewares, Strata has been lucky enough to have maintained sales throughout the pandemic as people stayed at home and made improvements.

Many of the company's products are made from 95% recycled plastic, including the company's leading black 145l heavy duty trunks which are made at a rate of 1,900 per day in the gigantic quarter of a million pound injection mould machines.

The Pinxton site is home to 40 machines working 24 hours to create products which are then sold to major chains including B&M, B&Q, The Range, Argos, Wilko and most major supermarkets as well as local sites like Nottingham's Nottcutts garden centre.

Private equity firm Blackford Capital has acquired Industrial Molding Corp. (IMC), the first add-on acquisition for its portfolio company, Davalor Mold Co. IMC is an independently run subsidiary of NN Inc., a precision metal manufacturer based in Charlotte, NC, with a global footprint. NN Inc. said total net cash proceeds would reach approximately $16 million. IMC is NN’s sole plastics processing plant and, as such, was targeted for divestment because it was not core to its strategic direction.