Tucked away in the far corner of a grey industrial estate in a small Welsh town is something quite magical.
An enormous sprawling warehouse is home to Europe’s largest tinsel factory - one of just a handful in the UK, meaning every piece of home-produced tinsel you buy this year is likely to have come from Cwmbran, just six miles north of Newport.
As you step inside - through the Christmas shop selling every kind of glittery bauble, festive garland and life-sized cuddly reindeer you can imagine - hundreds of reels of different coloured PVC are stacked on shelves all the way up to the ceiling, waiting their turn to be fed into the tinsel-making machines.
Production Manager Cheryl Roache is the tinsel queen, having worked for Festive Productions for 23 years. She started out on the production lines and worked her way up, now overseeing seven permanent staff members and 20-odd temps when the factory hits its busiest time of the year - which tends to be between February and September.
She walks me through the process of making a single piece of tinsel, which can retail for £8 at John Lewis, although the products are shipped all over the UK to Lidl, garden centres and other retailers.
Ribbons of non-flammable PVC - in every colour possible - are smoothed into the machine along with galvanised wire, and the two are spun together by centrifugal force to create 24 metres, or a ‘bin’, of shimmering tinsel. One machine can produce between 40 and 60 bins, which works out at 1,200m a day.
“It’s like a big candyfloss machine,” Cheryl laughs. “We’ve got 35 machines and last year we made a million and a half metres of tinsel in six months. We’ve got about 500 colours here and we can match any colour request.”
The strands are then wrapped onto ‘catherine wheels’ and snipped to the correct length - two metres or three - and then they’re ready to be packed up into boxes, labelled and sent off. The factory works a year in advance, so has just finished its 2023 season.
Some tinsels have extra decorations added via the stamping machines - stars, holly leaves and berries, or little shiny Christmas trees - but one of the factory’s most popular products is the tri-colour red, white and green tinsel bedecked with little red Welsh dragons, which is sent all over the globe to homesick expats. “You won’t get a better piece of tinsel,” Cheryl smiles.
The traditional red, gold and silver garlands are always popular, but the matt green swathe is the current bestseller. “That absolutely flies out of the shop. People use it to decorate their bannisters and doors, they might put their own decorations into it,” she says.
That said, forecasters have already predicted the colours we’ll be picking out for Christmas 2023, says Marketing Director Jon Hughes, who looks at the trends analysis data used by fashion houses to work out which colours and shapes to put into production each year.
“If you look in our showroom, you’ll see those trending colours represented, but 80% of any Christmas sales will always be red, gold and silver, regardless. The whole 30 years I’ve done this it’s never changed,” he explains.
As for what will be in shops this time next year, it’s all about the red and white candy stripes.
“Pastel colours are also coming back strong - we’re doing a pastel version of candy stripes, which will be something new. Ice blues are still massive, then you’ve got purples, Champagne gold and white.”
“It’s all about what the fashion houses put forward,” Cheryl cuts in. “What you’ll see on the catwalk feeds down into interior decorations, and then you’ll get the customers wanting to match their Christmas decorations to their living rooms.”
And do celebrities like the Kardashians influence shoppers over here to go bigger and better on their Christmas decorations? Absolutely, says Jon. “ Instagram is a huge source of inspiration. We get buyers who will come in and easily spend £2-3,000 on props and wouldn’t think anything of doing that every year.”
The big question if course is, with these workers surrounded by the trappings of Christmas all year round, does it ruin the enjoyment of the big day itself? Cheryl admits she’s not a fan. “I’ve not got my decorations up yet, no,” she confesses sheepishly.
Brothers Dailis and Andis Šneiders are originally from Lavtia, but moved to Cwmbran 18 years ago and have worked as permanent members of staff on the machines ever since. Dailis, 48, says his favourite tinsel to make is a multicoloured one decorated with holly leaves, while Andis, 45, prefers a double-sided gold one. Both of them will have a week off between Christmas and the New Year, then it’s straight back to getting ready for trade shows in January.
Nigel Steele, 63, is just a couple of years off retirement and has been coming back as a temp every year since 2002. “I’ll be finishing for the year on Friday and having a chilled Christmas,” he says. “Back to it again in late January, but it’ll be nice to have some time off.”
So what of the eco impact of all this plastic? Tinsel is usually seen as one of the worst offenders for the environment as recycling it is tricky, but the factory has a creative way to dispose of its waste. “We send it to a company that turns it into retail furniture and store design,” Jon explains. “The PVC creates a marble effect so it’s turned into panels and can be used for shelves, back panels and all sorts. But tinsel is not a throwaway product. People keep it for years, it’s high-quality and it can be kept for life. It’ll probably outlast your phone, your TV and your microwave.”
The factory has become something of a local institution with wide-eyed children heading in to the factory’s shop on the outskirts of Newport, to gaze around and pick out their special tinsel.
It just goes to show there’s always a bit of Christmas magic if you know where to look.
