The PaddlerUK magazine December 2015 issue 5 | Page 56

PADDLERUK 56

The Palm factory

INSIDE & OUT
Arriving at the factory gates, I’m struck by how quiet
it is. I’m not sure what I was expecting, but after an
hour’s drive from the manic city centre of Hanoi,
the quiet town of Bac Ninh seems rather sleepy.
Two floors of roomy offices look out over trees and
fields, and besides the odd prototype PFD, they are
filled with desks, files, computers and entirely
ordinary office stuff. Two long-haul flights to east
Asia, and I’ve arrived somewhere surprisingly similar
to Palm’s UK factory in Clevedon.
Twenty years ago Palm moved production of soft gear and garments
to Asia, when staying put in the UK was no longer competitive.Today
production is based almost entirely in one factory, in Hanoi. Since
becoming joint owners of this facility in 2008, Andy Knight (founder
and MD at Palm) has visited frequently, returning to the UK between
trips to talk excitedly of new machines, new technical staff and new
manufacturing techniques. With only the odd photograph to go by
however, few of us at Palm HQ had a good grasp of what the factory
was like. So at Andy’s request, with excitement, curiosity and some
trepidation, I boarded a plane to Hanoi,Vietnam. I was there to film and
document the gear being made, meet the people who make it and give
everybody the chance to see inside Palm’s factory…