/17 February 2016

A Brief History of Alsico UK

The name Alsico is an initialism of the founder’s names, Aelvoet Siau Confection and was founded in 1934.

The Alsico Group is owned by a Belgium family and has 21 factories in over 10 countries, spread over 4 continents. We have around 7,000 employees and have a consolidated turnover of £150,000,000.

Before we joined the group in 2008, we were known as CCM which was initially founded by Francis Watson in 1894. Business began from a market stall in Preston and quickly gained momentum, moving into our first premises within our first year. Francis took on a partner, Jack Wrigley, which resulted in our first name Watson & Wrigley.

The business was founded on the provision of ‘working men’s clothing, such as overalls, shirts, trousers etc. The manufacturing side had started in Preston by 1910 and by 1920, we had three retail outlets.

World War 2 nearly ceased the manufacturing section, but we remained and by 1947,CCM was founded. We had a workforce of 120 and a production rate of 156,000 garments per year. In 1960, an 11,000 square foot facility had been purchased in Preston and production had started here a year later. By 1971, a move from 100% cotton to a poly/cotton split 65/35 had been undertaken and production had risen to 832,000 garments annually by 1990.

Moving into 2016; Alsico UK is one of Europe’s largest provider of workwear, despatching over 3 million garments per year from our 70,000 square foot warehouse in Preston – where our story began!

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