11 Best Injection Moulding Companies in the UK
Choosing between UK injection moulding companies is about more than technical capability. Manufacturers need consistency, scale and a supplier they can rely on long term.
Deciding on a plastic injection moulding manufacturer is not something purchasing and engineering teams take lightly. When comparing injection moulding companies in the UK, the risks, costs and long-term implications of that decision are significant.
Whether you’re transferring an existing tool or investing in a new one, when you’re looking to get more than 100,000 business-critical components manufactured per project, the stakes are high. If you’d like to understand the typical costs involved, our guide to tooling design and cost considerations explains the key factors that influence price.
Comparison guides are often used as a starting point when reviewing injection moulding companies in the UK, but they don’t always show whether a supplier is set up for ongoing production at scale.
For manufacturers moving beyond prototype or short-run work, factors such as process stability, available capacity and the ability to support long-term production become increasingly important. A supplier that performs well on paper may not always be structured to support repeat, high-volume output over the life of a programme.
UK-based injection moulding companies can offer practical advantages once a product enters steady-state manufacture, including closer collaboration with engineering teams, greater visibility over production and shorter lead times when changes or issues arise.
When assessing suppliers, it’s worth looking beyond initial tooling and early production, and considering how each company supports long-term manufacturing.
Goodfish is a leading UK plastic injection moulding company, trusted by manufacturers across automotive, electrical and defence sectors to deliver high-volume, business-critical components.
From working with thousands of client stakeholders over the last 15 years, we’ve gathered a deep understanding of
- what purchasing teams and engineering teams need from an injection moulding manufacturer
- the ways suppliers can fall short, and
- what a successful customer-supplier relationship is built on.
To help you make the right choice, this post dives into the key criteria to weigh up different injection moulding service providers in the UK. We’ll also walk through how we’ve addressed each of these criteria at Goodfish.
After that, we’ll include a list some of the other top plastic injection moulders in the UK we know of.
Before looking at how Goodfish meets these requirements, it’s worth outlining the key criteria manufacturers should use when comparing UK injection moulding companies.
Contents
- 4 criteria to consider when comparing injection moulding suppliers
- Who are Goodfish Group?
- How Goodfish meets the 4 key selection criteria
- 10 other UK-based plastic injection moulding companies
4 criteria to consider when comparing injection moulding suppliers
Factor 1: Does the supplier consistently deliver high-quality injection moulded parts at competitive prices?
Factor 2: Are they responsive and reliable in meeting customer requests?
Factor 3: Do they have the expertise and equipment to meet your production requirements?
Factor 4: Is the supplier large enough to handle your business needs?
Who are Goodfish Group?
Founded in 2010, Goodfish Group is the UK’s leading privately-owned contract manufacturer of plastic components and composite components.
We produce custom plastic injection moulded components from engineering-grade materials, and support projects from tool design through to full production. As a plastic components manufacturer, we’ve delivered more than 46 million parts for companies across the UK.
With expertise in plastic injection moulding, plastic extrusion as well as assembly and finishing services, Goodfish can handle your manufacturing project from concept to distribution.
In the last 15 years, we’ve delivered 10,000+ projects from our 4 UK sites in Cannock, Worcester, St Asaph and Flint. We’ve served 1000+ clients across 10+ industries including automotive, electronics, construction and HVAC, growing annual turnover from £800,000 in 2010 to £25 million today, backed by 155 expert team members.
The key Goodfish injection moulding numbers
- 3 UK injection moulding factories
- 47 injection moulding machines
- 27 manufacturing robots
- Produced 46 million injection moulded parts
- Operate 24 hours 5 days per week
- Completed 10,000+ projects
- Trusted by 1000+ clients
Goodfish injection moulding factories
In the injection moulding side of the business, we operate 3 UK sites: Goodfish Cannock, Goodfish Powell & Harber and Goodfish North West. (Our fourth site, Goodfish Flint, specialises in plastic extrusion.)
All sites are certified to ISO 9001:2015 (Quality Management), ISO 14001 (Environmental Management) and ISO 45001 (Health and Safety). Goodfish Powell & Harber is also certified to IATF 16949.
Goodfish Cannock
Goodfish Cannock is the Group HQ, a 20,000 sq. ft facility in Staffordshire, West Midlands. The site is home to 12 injection moulding machines with clamp force from 50T to 1000T. The factory also provides warehousing, secondary operations and assembly capabilities.
Goodfish Powell & Harber
Goodfish Powell & Harber is based in a 20,000 sq. ft facility in Worcester. The site houses 16 plastic injection moulding machines with clamp force ranging from 35T to 270T and also provides secondary operations, including printing and assembly.
Goodfish North West
Goodfish North West in St Asaph, Wales, operates from a 138,651 sq. ft facility, providing plastic injection moulding services, fabrication and assembly services as well as plastic extrusion, printing and warehousing.
How Goodfish meets the 4 key selection criteria
Now, let’s review how Goodfish has addressed each of the 4 factors
Factor 1: Do Goodfish consistently deliver high-quality components at competitive prices?
Factor 2: Are Goodfish responsive and reliable in meeting customer requests?
Factor 3: Do Goodfish have the expertise and equipment to meet your precise production requirements?
Factor 4: Are Goodfish large enough to handle your business needs? Are they financially stable?
1. We’ve adopted sophisticated systems and processes to maintain exceptional quality and competitive pricing
How we deliver competitively priced components
Goodfish is one of the most competitive injection moulding suppliers in the UK market. Let’s explore some of the detail on how we’re able to offer you optimal pricing.
Passing economies of scale onto our customers
With Goodfish Group activities reaching a run-rate of £25 million annual revenue from 4 UK sites, we’re able to pass on the benefits of scale to our customers.
For instance, with huge purchasing volumes, we’ve been able to increase our purchasing power and drive down material supply costs. That has meant one thing: we pass those savings into more competitive prices for customers.
Efficient use of our workforce
At Goodfish, we’ve designed our operational plans to reduce labour requirements. For example:
- We use collaborative robots to perform tasks to minimise manual labour time
- We design our production cycles so that fewer operatives are needed to safely manage multiple machines concurrently.
A highly streamlined, skilled workforce means we can offer low unit prices to our customers and still maintain component quality and industry-leading lead times.
Optimising energy usage 24/7
We work with energy buying consultants to implement energy hedging strategies and pooled purchases. That means we’ve been able to shield Goodfish from price spikes and make energy costs more predictable, passing energy savings onto our customers for the past 12+ years.
In 2022, we also invested in energy monitoring technology to track the energy usage of all our injection moulding machines. At Goodfish, project unit prices only reflect the energy used by machines in your injection moulding project. Most of our competitors don’t offer this. In fact, we’ve seen some competitors increase their unit prices by up to 30%, in part because they don’t have energy monitoring systems in place.
How we maintain exceptional quality
Let’s now look at how Goodfish is committed to delivering quality injection moulding projects.
Starting with the end in mind
The New Product Introduction (NPI) team begin every project by aligning with clients on exactly how the component is going to be used.
That way we can determine the ideal material for the injection moulding tool and the injection moulded parts, as well as decide the tool’s designed-in functions. This improves quality outcomes – but also cuts manufacturing cycle times and lead times.
The Goodfish team then conducts a detailed product design analysis (Design For Manufacturability) to make sure every plastic component meets project requirements.
We take great pride in this. By focusing on the end goal throughout, we direct each stage of the project to achieve the best possible outcome.
Quality toolmaking & maintenance
With extensive expertise in tool manufacture, we understand that achieving quality requires high-quality tooling designed for high- or low-volume production. That’s why we never cut corners on tool design and manufacture – it only leads to poor quality and higher costs.
To ensure our customers’ tools are in top condition for daily use, we provide a managed Total Productive Maintenance (TPM) process to ensure long life and optimal service.
We call this process Tool Maintenance Repair & Overhaul (Tool MRO) and it’s a crucial aspect of our commitment to the highest level of customer service. These services mean tools perform at their best for the long term, giving clients peace of mind and high-quality components.
Quality control processes
Goodfish stands out among UK injection moulding companies for its quality-control processes. Each of our sites has a dedicated quality lab run by skilled technicians and led by a site leader – together they work closely with our NPI and automation engineers to maintain quality standards across new tooling projects and manufacturing.
The Goodfish team follows Advanced Product Quality Planning (APQP) processes to make sure every part we manufacture meets the most stringent standards. That includes providing customers with
- a process flow diagram
- qualified laboratory documentation, and
- a PPAP submission.
In addition, they use a range of metrology technology to accurately measure and quality-check parts. Our 3D CMM, a Hexagon Metrology Global S Blue, provides quality standards far superior to traditional measurement methods:
- Unparalleled resolution at any point on your component – which means we can detect component details smaller than a speck of dust.
- Fast throughput up to 600,000 measurement points per second – which means rapid turnaround
The quality management team also quality-check tools and components using non-contact measurement, surface measurement, microscopic inspection and manual gauges.
Industry-standard quality control certifications
ISO and IATF accreditations demonstrate how consistently we deliver products to exceptional standards (as well as apply environmentally responsible practices and implement safe working conditions).
These independent industry certifications include:
- IATF 16949:2016 for automotive quality management
- ISO 9001:2015 for quality management
- ISO 14001 for environmental management
- ISO 45001 for health and safety
2. We provide prompt, responsive, reliable service
Delivering your components in days, not weeks
Many customers come to us after experiencing long lead times with their previous injection moulding suppliers. In contrast, we pride ourselves on offering customers faster delivery – thanks to deep industry expertise, high production capacity and efficient processes.
For example, we can typically start producing your new components in under 5 days once your new tool is ready or you’ve transferred your existing tool to us.
We recently began supplying components to a leading specialist in thermal management products. After they delivered their tools to our site in Cannock, we were producing their components within 4 days.
In another client example, one of the UK’s leading brands in pet safety products faced 12-week production lead times with their former moulder. After transferring their injection moulding production to us, they now get new 3-week turnaround times. They also save 100s of labour hours in outsourcing their assembly and packing to us too.
Giving you 24/7 project cycle visibility
We launched the new Goodfish customer portal in 2024 to give our customers real-time visibility into their injection moulding projects within a seamless, responsive digital platform.
With just a few clicks you can track:
- your order quantities
- your production start time
- your delivery dates
- any potential delays, with full transparency
The portal also gives customers access to stock levels, so if you want to confirm inventory or place a larger order than usual, you only have to log in – no unnecessary delays from calling or emails.
This is just another example of how we’re committed to being an agile and dependable supplier.
Responding to project inquiries within 2 hours & RFQs within 7 days
At Goodfish, we’re committed to prompt response times. Clients regularly tell us how quickly we move to help them make faster commercial decisions: we get back to customer inquiries within 2 hours and respond to RFQs in under 7 days.
By equipping our teams with the right resources – including cloud-based systems for accessing customer and project info wherever they are – we provide a highly responsive, dependable service, project after project.
3. We have deep industry expertise backed by a comprehensive portfolio of injection moulding machines
Decades of injection moulding experience
From account management to engineering, production to quality control, Goodfish customers get access to a team with decades of injection moulding experience.
With the depth of knowledge to provide advice from concept to final production on product design, production processes, material appropriateness and tests, the Goodfish team is aligned on delivering the results you need.
Multi-sector & multi-capability expertise
Goodfish brings extensive experience across several plastic manufacturing activities to a wide range of sectors.
Unlike many injection moulding suppliers, our teams tackle different challenges every day, including managing requests for injection moulding, extrusion, tool design, tool transfer, 3D printing, assembly, and more.
When companies come to us pushing the boundaries of what’s possible in their industry – which happens regularly – the Goodfish team can respond in kind.
For instance, Bosch needed to produce a technically complex, high-spec engineered part that no one had ever made before in plastic. The Goodfish team drew on their wealth of cross-sector and cross-capability expertise to successfully innovate a creative solution.
A resilient workforce
A shrinking talent pool, rising wages, and increased employment costs in the UK are making it harder for companies to maintain skilled manufacturing teams. Some of our customers have started outsourcing all their in-house manufacturing to us because they can’t hire the right personnel.
To make sure our customers can count on us for years to come, we’ve built a resilient and skilled workforce.
- Recruiting exceptional hires
- We attract first-rate personnel from graduate level through to senior management – the Goodfish brand is recognised in the recruitment market as one of the leading plastic manufacturing companies to work for.
- Investing in collaborative robots
- We’ve trained the Goodfish production teams to streamline production processes with automation, giving them back the time to focus on highly skilled tasks.
Comprehensive portfolio of machinery
Finally, across our 4 UK locations, we’re equipped with a portfolio of sophisticated, energy-efficient injection moulding machines from 35 tonnes to 1000 tonnes. Many are backed by specialist robots and ancillary equipment to support the latest plastic moulding procedures.
For our customers, the Goodfish machine portfolio means:
- quicker tool changes
- more consistent quality and performance
- more efficient production
- lower unit prices
You’ll find our machine portfolio here. These machines can deliver:
- high-volume production
- highly technical, precision-engineered components as small as 5g and as large as 4kg
- components in engineering-grade materials
Moulding Machines at Goodfish Cannock
Moulding Machines at Goodfish Powell & Harber, Worcester
Moulding Machines at Goodfish St Asaph
As UK-based injection moulders, we help customers reduce freight costs, shorten lead times and simplify communication. Many of our customers now rely on Goodfish as their long-term plastic parts supplier.
4. We’re a fast-growing, financially resilient business supporting a variety of clients across a range of industries
Our growth history & trajectory mean financial stability
Many injection moulding companies are stagnating or shrinking. But at Goodfish, we’ve grown fast and we don’t intend to stop.
Back in 2010, Goodfish started out from a single 20,000 sq. ft. site in Cannock, Staffordshire. Today, we operate from a total of 290,000 sq. ft. across 4 sites in:
- Cannock – opened in 2010
- Worcester – acquired in 2015
- St. Asaph (North Wales) – acquired in 2020
- Flint (North Wales) – acquired in 2024
Over the same period, Goodfish has increased:
- sales from £800k to over £15M
- employee numbers from 33 to 155
Our performance over the last 15 years serves as a rock-solid foundation for our future growth plans – and for reliable, continued service to new and existing customers.
Looking to the future, we only plan to continue expanding:
- We’re on track to reach £25m of sales in 2025.
- By 2030 we aim to hit £50m of sales by further expanding our UK presence and extending our Eurozone reach.
As more and more UK injection moulders have unfortunately headed towards administration, Goodfish’s past performance and growth trajectory means peace of mind for customers: we’ll always be able to meet project requests and help you get plastic parts made reliably, even if wider market demand weakens.
Our financial resilience is also down to:
- Serving multiple sectors
We’ve seen some narrow-focused suppliers lose up to 75% of their sales when an industry dips. At Goodfish we’re not exposed like that. - Offering a range of capabilities and services besides injection moulding
At Goodfish, we can count on multiple revenue streams to stay stable and profitable, including 32 extrusion lines serving completely different product markets.
Multiple manufacturing sites means operational stability
With 4 strategically located sites across the UK, we’re operationally resilient. Partnering with a single-site operation carries inherent risks. If there’s an emergency – a strike, flood, or fire – your production can stop immediately.
With Goodfish’s multi-site setup, you get genuine reassurance. Your production can continue seamlessly even if one of our locations faces an issue, because we can redistribute work across facilities. That way we safeguard your supply chain and help you avoid costly downtime.
Together our financial and operational stability set Goodfish apart from much of the competition.
We’re an exceptionally reliable partner, ready to deliver your next injection moulding project.
If you’re interested in working with us to deliver your next plastic injection moulding project, speak to an expert today.
Goodfish has grown into one of the most trusted plastic moulding companies in the UK. As a full-service injection moulding specialist, we combine technical expertise, automation and rigorous quality control to deliver components on time and to specification.
10 other UK-based plastic injection moulding companies
Now we’re going to share 10 other suppliers we’ve heard come up over the years, so you can weigh up other options.
- Tex Plastics
Year founded: 1976
Employees: 227
UK sites: 2 – Derby, Barnstaple
Tex Plastics is a UK-based plastic injection moulding company offering services from design to high-volume production.
- Omega Plastics
Year founded: 1998
Employees: 163
UK sites: 3 – Gateshead, Washington & Blyth
Omega Plastics Group is a specialist in plastic injection moulding in the UK, providing rapid prototyping, precision tooling, and manufacturing solutions.
- Cameron-Price
Year founded: 1960
Employees: 49
UK sites: 1 – Birmingham
Cameron-Price is a Birmingham-based plastic injection moulding company with nearly six decades of experience.
- Patterson & Rothwell
Year founded: 1982
Employees: 160
UK sites: 1 – Oldham
Patterson & Rothwell is a plastic injection moulding company based in Oldham. They offer injection moulding and toolmaking. Their services include product design, tool design, toolmaking, and production.
- Rutland Plastics
Year founded: 1956
Employees: 139
UK sites: 1 – Oakham
Rutland Plastics is an Oakham-based plastic injection moulding company with over 65 years of experience. They offer a full range of services from design and prototyping to mould making and injection moulding.
- Labone Castleside
Year founded: 1965
Employees: 105
UK sites: 1 – Castleside
Labone Castleside in County Durham specialises in precision plastic injection moulding and assembly. They offer services from design and development to production and assembly.
- Coba Automotive
Year founded: 1966
Employees: 137
UK sites: 1 – Leicester
Coba Automotive is a Leicester-based company specialising in the design and manufacture of automotive components. They offer a range of services including injection moulding, extrusion, and assembly, serving major automotive manufacturers.
- Stechford Mouldings
Year founded: 1934
Employees: 90
UK sites: 1 – Birmingham
Stechford Mouldings is a Birmingham-based plastic injection moulding company with decades of experience. They specialise in producing high-quality plastic components for various industries, offering services from design and development to production and assembly.
- ENL Group
Year founded: 1958
Employees: 174
UK sites: 1 – Portsmouth
ENL Group is a Portsmouth-based company specialising in plastic injection moulding and assembly services. They offer solutions from design and prototyping to production and assembly.
- Fern Plastic Products
Year founded: 1959
Employees: 78
UK sites: 1 – Wolverhampton
Fern Plastic Products is a Wolverhampton-based company specialising in plastic injection moulding and toolmaking, offering a range of services including design, prototyping, and production.
If you’re interested in working with us to deliver your next plastic injection moulding project, speak to one of expert team today.
