E-cig brand Totally Wicked ramps up production with new Portakabin-built Blackburn facility

Modular building firm Portakabin Group has helped vaping brand Totally Wicked expand its facilities in Blackburn.

The electronic cigarette company has boosted its annual capacity to more than 10m bottles of e-liquid with the launch of the UK’s first purpose-designed fluid production and technical facility.

Portakabin manufactured the facility off site at its factory in York to deliver the scheme in four months, reducing disruption to the Blackburn community and Totally Wicked’s operations in the town.

The centre, finished in grey with red stripes to reflect the Totally Wicked brand, includes a new ground-floor production facility complete with a test room, fluid mixing area, bottling plant and insulated cold room. The site’s upper level houses offices.

Totally Wicked’s operations director, Stuart Mercer, said: “We needed this building to help us meet the growing demand for our products both in the UK and for export markets.

“It is a cutting edge facility for e-liquid production.”

He continued: “We chose an off-site solution because the brownfield site we wanted to develop is very constrained and it was critical to have as little interruption to our operations and to neighbouring properties as possible.

“The benefits of off-site construction far exceeded those of site-based construction – we could have much less plant and equipment on site, the programme was much shorter, and disruption was minimised.”

The company is now “ideally placed” to progress “to the next level” according to Stuart, who added: “The finished building fits in really well with our corporate image and we would definitely recommend the approach and Portakabin to other businesses looking to expand their facilities.”