Queens Award Win with Exceptional Export Business Performance

Palintest (UK) is celebrating being named as the winner of a Queen’s Award for Enterprise, one of the UK’s highest accolades for business success.

Gateshead-based Palintest received the award for International Trade in recognition of the company’s impressive record of export growth throughout the last 6 years. Over this period Palintest’s exports have more than doubled to now value over £7.5M, with two thirds of the company’s total revenue now coming from its growing markets abroad, such as in China, Australia, Sub-Saharan Africa and the USA.

Managing Director Dave Sidlow said: "The Queens Award is a great honour for Palintest but no more than the dedicated and talented individuals who make up our team deserve. Every day Palintest is manufacturing products of the highest quality that compete successfully in demanding international markets and also contribute to the protection of lives and the environment. We are delighted and look forward to continuing our successful demonstration of all that is great about British enterprise."

Palintest manufactures a range of advanced water and environmental testing equipment, and from its Tyneside base exports to over 100 countries across the globe. These products are used in a wide range of applications to protect the environment and safeguard public health, including disaster response, pollution monitoring and drinking water purification. In the past few years alone for example, equipment donated by Palintest has been used to help infrastructure development in Somalia, the aftermath of the Szechuan earthquake and monitor for harmful levels of fluoride for a dental outreach project in India.

Palintest currently employs 100 people worldwide, with 86 being based at their main facility in Gateshead where all product development and manufacturing is carried out. Part of the successful Halma plc. since 1983, Palintest can trace its Tyneside roots back to the 1870s when Wilkinson & Simpson Ltd. set up to manufacture pharmaceutical products on Newgate Street in Newcastle. During the 1950s the eminent water chemist Dr Thomas Palin started working with Wilkinson & Simpson to manufacture a range of water testing chemicals. This became the sole focus of the business and it was re-named Palintest in 1989.

While the company has introduced many new and innovative technologies to the market over recent years, a lot of the core chemistry knowledge is still based around the work of Dr Palin over 50 years ago, which is still regarded as the world standard test for water disinfection. Palintest today is a successful and growing company with an on-going programme of investment in new products, advanced manufacturing facilities and, most importantly, development of their people. This programme has seen turnover grow from £7M to over £11M over the last 6 years with future growth prospects looking promising. As the demand for improved access to good quality water increases in developing markets such as China, Africa and the Middle East, Palintest is proving that British technology & quality is much sought after and more than capable of competing on a global stage.