{"id":22299,"date":"2016-04-08T14:35:48","date_gmt":"2016-04-08T13:35:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.unsponsored.co.uk\/press\/?p=22299"},"modified":"2017-07-25T19:17:06","modified_gmt":"2017-07-25T18:17:06","slug":"palm-equipment-factory-tour","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.unsponsored.co.uk\/press\/palm-equipment-factory-tour\/","title":{"rendered":"Palm Equipment – Factory Tour"},"content":{"rendered":"

Earlier this year I had the opportunity to visit the guys at Palm Equipment<\/a>.<\/p>\n

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Palm<\/a> have been around since 1979 and not only do they manufacture a wide range of watersports softwear they are also the brains and organisation behind Dagger Europe along with a number of other Confluence brands in Europe.<\/p>\n

Andy Knight started the company, Palm Glass Fibre Mouldings Ltd as it was known then, in 1979 and as the name suggests the company focussed on composite kayaks. The first range of paddle clothing was launched fives years later at the Crystal Palace canoe show (London).<\/p>\n

I received an invite from Paul Robertson (Cheesy) to travel down to Palm HQ for a tour and an opportunity to talk about forthcoming developments. How could I possibly turn that down? So a suitable date and time was arranged and I travelled the hundreds of miles south with my camera gear in tow.<\/p>\n

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I met with Paul<\/a> and Nick who kindly spent some time showing me around the Palm setup and talking through some of the new plans that are on the horizon. <\/p>\n

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Part of the factory includes a large showroom area that is used for gear display and currently has at least one example of each of the product lines Palm produces. When you see it like this it is quite impressive. Palm have gear that caters for all paddlesports and paddlers at all levels.<\/p>\n

The big tour started in the Palm warehouse. We met this fellow in the warehouse, Cheesy described him as someone quite important. <\/p>\n

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In fact it is Bob Slee who joined Andy Knight to help run the quickly expanding business back in 1987. So a very key player in shaping what Palm has become.<\/p>\n

Palm no longer manufacture their softwear in the UK but the factory is still used for distribution, and canoe\/kayak production. See the video below to see Palm’s facility out in Red River, Vietnam.<\/p>\n