A Telford-based industrial air filtration and extraction specialist is celebrating 50 years of helping keep people safe by reaching a significant sales milestone.

Filtermist International, which is part of the Absolent Group, has just sold its 300,000th oil mist collector, marking five decades of supporting firms in creating cleaner and more productive work environments.

Headquartered in a £3m manufacturing facility on Telford54, the company’s global expansion plan has seen turnover rise to more than £20m and been responsible for the creation of 17 new jobs in the last twelve months alone.

This has increased the workforce from 57 people in 2015, to today’s total of more than 90 highly skilled staff members, who each receive over 50 hours of training and personal development opportunities every year.

The firm now exports its ultra-compact S-Series, FX-Series and S-Fusion oil mist collectors to over 60 countries worldwide - an international presence which has recently been strengthened with the appointment of new distributors in China, Norway, India and Malaysia.

Global growth has been so successful that Filtermist has established subsidiary businesses in India, Shanghai and Singapore to support local distributors and other customers throughout Asia. The company is also directly responsible for one of its German distributors, Bristol T&G International GmbH.

“It has been a fantastic start to our 50th anniversary year, with strong growth across all of our key markets, including automotive, aerospace, general engineering, medical and food production,” explained James Stansfield, CEO of Filtermist International.

“This reflects the quality and performance of our products and our ability to offer services that help our customers make sure their work environments are compliant, clean and conducive to creating the best possible employee productivity.”

He continued: “We’ve got lots of exciting plans in place to mark the milestone. It starts with a Family Fun Day in June to recognise the hard work and achievements of our staff, a black-tie dinner for distributors and key customers in September and a special open house that will showcase what we do and how we do it.

“There will also be a ‘50 facts about Filtermist’ social media campaign, a book charting our history and a number of short films on some of the employees that have contributed so much to our first 50 years.”

 Established in 1969, the company was formed in a small unit in Bridgnorth by Jeremy Lywood and Martin Thompson.

The original focus was on helping manufacturers improve the air quality of their factories through the addition of oil mist collection units and, five decades on, this is still one of its primary aims.

Growth was predominantly organic and through referrals until the company was acquired by Swedish-based Absolent Group in 2010. This sparked a number of significant changes, including the appointment of James Stansfield as MD in 2012 and relocation to a state-of-the-art, purpose-built HQ in Telford in 2015.

Six acquisitions have subsequently been completed, including Multi-Fan Systems a year later and Dustcheck Ltd in 2017. This is part of the company’s strategy to diversify its service offering into other air filtration markets.

James went on to add: “Traditionally, we have been known for our oil mist extraction capabilities, but the acquisitions we have made so far mean that we are now able to offer dust and fume extraction, VOC abatement, odour control, solvent recovery and lots more.

“We have extremely ambitious targets over the next five years and increasing our presence in all of our market sectors is a key strategic objective. Combining the strengths of our companies to offer our customers a complete solution for air extraction and filtration will be vital in helping us achieve our targets.”

He continued: “50 years in business is a great achievement. This is just the start and we have a lot of exciting plans for further investment and the potential for future acquisitions over the next eighteen months.”

Absolent Group currently includes Filtermist International Ltd, Absolent AB, Avani Environmental International Inc., Bristol T&G International GmbH, Cades Ltd, DCS Ltd, Dustcheck Ltd, Ecogate Ltd, Gallito Ltd, Multi-Fan Systems Ltd and SMK Sverige AB in its portfolio.

Services offered include oil mist, smoke and fume extraction, dust control, VOC abatement, production waste extraction and industrial ventilation.

In the UK, project teams comprising individuals from all Absolent Group companies work together to offer a single source solution for customers looking to benefit from cleaner, safer and more productive working environments.

Follow @filtermistuk on twitter. An animation of Filtermist’s 50 years can be found here https://youtu.be/wDvd5oeY6z8.