What happens within

Kaymet currently employs a dozen people who produce around 35,000 anodised aluminium trays per year, lots of trolleys and a few electric table hotplates.

At Ossory Road we cut on a chop saw, wall saw and guillotine. We crop with our big Bentley power press and with fly presses, and notch with a smaller power press. We press-form trays on the Bentley. We grain on a graining machine, do some lathe work, bend tubes and extrusions, drill and counter-bore, punch holes and logos. In the polishing shop we linish, polish and shine, then we degrease. Anodising and powder coating are done elsewhere (nearby in the Hatcham industrial area, and in Crawley). We assemble with some adhesives and lots of rivets, rivnuts, screws, nuts and bolts, then we clean, label, pack and dispatch.

Our products sell in more than 200 shops, in about 40 countries. We also supply plenty of hotels, restaurants and cafes, plus a few yachts and aircraft.

Kaymet are proud to have a history of supply to the Royal Family tracing back over 70 years, and we are delighted to hold a Royal Warrant of Appointment. The Royal Arms are on our products. Soon they will go up on the factory also, and we hope that the lion and the unicorn will scare off planners and developers who seem to want rid of us and other industry in Southwark.

Our business started in the basement of the Schreiber family radio shop at Elephant & Castle, evolving into Kaymet in 1947, by which time a move to Kennington Lane had been made. At the end of the 1950s the company built its own factory near the Old Kent Road, where we stayed until the 1990s. 4 moves after losing that one we arrived at our current fine spot behind Asda, the 6th Kaymet Works.

Our building also hosts a small collection of businesses involved with design, the rag trade, craft production and wine making.