About Us
The Beginnings
ADVANCED began in 1987 in Manchester and was started by the present Managing Director, Brian Garsden. The company originally concentrated on making simple polystyrene pads in large volumes. As time went by the company acquired more skills (and more expensive equipment !) and began to specialise in sophisticated protective packaging, providing more cost-effective designs.
New Products
By working together with customers it became clear that many customers were having to duplicate their efforts to provide new packaging by separately sourcing carton and polystyrene. It was therefore decided to begin producing corrugated cartons, boxes 
and sleeves. The equipment installed was selected because it could produce small and medium quantities economically and enabled samples to be produced quickly.
And then there was foam
We also realised that whilst polystyrene was a cheap and versatile packaging medium, it was sometimes necessary to give added and repeatable protection. We then began to develop our range by using expanded polyethylene and polyurethane / polyesters.
To give us better coverage of the North we acquired Celpak, a Leeds based subsidiary of Shell Chemicals.
We now have an unrivalled range of equipment with which to produce foam packaging, giving us the ability to use whichever techniques produce the most cost-effective solution.
Manchester
Chris Thornley, who has been with us for over 10 years is Sales Manager of our Manchester branch. To show that its still a family company the Sales Office is managed by Gill Garsden and the Production Manager is Mark Garsden
Southend and London
In 1999 we acquired P.K.Sanders Ltd, based in Southend, when the founders of the company retired. The company traced its roots back to 1959 when it was formed in Walthamstow, East London. It started by using polystyrene for display and gradually got involved in packaging and insulation over the years. It is now a branch of ADVANCED and its General Manager is Kevin Pilgrim, who joined the company from school in 1973 and had been Production Manager for a number of years before the takeover. Sales Manager is Adrian Keen and the Sales Office is managed by Carole Nelson.
In March 2000 Tuscarora, a company that specialised in polystyrene moulding closed its hot-wire polystyrene business in London. We acquired its equipment and customer list and transferred everything to Southend and employed some of the Tuscarora staff. The business had previously been known as Arrowtip and was one of the first polystyrene businesses to operate in the country. In 2003 we acquired Southern Insulation and Packaging, who were based in Crawley. In Southend we have expanded the business, moved into larger premises and become skilled in all types of protective packaging.
