Face Masks A ‘Vital Piece In The Stadium Safety Puzzle’

Discovery Park in Kent, home to ArchMed.

New UK manufacturing plant scaling up to provide capacity for all UK sports.

A new manufacturing facility has opened in the UK promising the sports industry high volumes of low-cost medical-grade face masks for distribution to fans at the turnstiles.

Compulsory use of masks could ‘dramatically bring forward’ the return of fans to grounds, it is believed.

A new plant capable of producing 300,000 masks a day has been opened in Kent, with plans to upgrade production to as many as a million masks a day.

“If we take the football season as an example, an average of 1.8 million fans attend each matchday in England, Wales and Scotland. We can already produce 2.1m masks a week and at those production levels our Ventil face mask will cost pennies, enabling fans to return to stadia and sports clubs to recover lost gate revenue,” explained Nathan Schreiber, CEO of ArchMed, the company behind the investment.

“What holds for football also holds for cricket and both rugby codes,” Schreiber added.

He has installed the first of three production and packing lines in the pristine former drug manufacturing and packing hall at Discovery Park in Sandwich, formerly the European research and manufacturing HQ of pharmaceutical giant Pfizer.

“it’s an extremely hygienic environment and we can brand each mask and its packaging with a club’s badge. Whilst we appreciate that there are other safety issues at play, the fact that the UK now has its own dedicated face mask manufacturing facility will be a major piece in the stadium safety puzzle for governing bodies and individual clubs.”

Schreiber says the company’s Ventil face mask is medical grade and uses a 3-ply formula, with non-woven outer layers sandwiching a unique melt-blown middle layer which repels moisture, whether in-bound or out-bound through the wearer’s breath.

“It’s a single-use product capable of performing for up to a full day, so works perfectly for longer events such as county and test cricket,” says Schreiber.

“If clubs have automatic turnstiles then we can provide club stewards with large wearable distribution pouches branded in the club’s livery to distribute masks to supporters as they come through the turnstiles. If, during a game, they spot someone without a mask then they can pop down the row and supply one.”

ArchMed’s investment will created 30 new jobs in a number of skilled technical and sales roles when fully up and running.

For full contact details click here.