Trellidor has celebrated it’s 40th birthday with its franchises
Forty is a big number in anyone’s birthday book, but for a company to have not just survived but experienced incredible growth for that long is a cause for celebration.
To have a product that still looks similar to the original and that’s been on the best seller list for four decades is even more astonishing.
Trellidor has managed to do both. We’re celebrating our 40th birthday this year as well as the longevity of our Trellidor Retractable security gate.
Where we’ve come from
The company was started in 1976 by Leon Pallas, but it wasn’t called Trellidor then. Leon had a partner named Lewis, so they called their company L and L Metal Finishings.
Their main business was powder coating metal products and this included swing gates as their first security barrier.
The company name changed to Trellidor in the early 1980s when they started to manufacture a new trellis-style security gate. The design had come from a Durban tool maker that had used old-style lift cages as inspiration. Does anyone remember those? There was a gate on each floor of the lift shaft that had to be securely closed before the lift moved.
My, how we’ve grown!
In 1994 Laird Anderson was appointed Managing Director. Today Laird owns his own Trellidor franchise in North Durban, an amazing 23 years later!
Trellidor is rich with stories of people that have been associated with the company for decades.
Here are some more figures that show how we’ve grown over the years:
- In 1996 there were four Trellidor branches and 15 distributors.
- In 2017 we have over 70 RSA franchises (no branches) and 15 worldwide.
Trellidor Retractable is still a best-seller
And as for our best-selling Trellidor Retractable security gate, the changes have been more technical than cosmetic. Strengthening features have been added as new technology and materials have become available and as crime levels have risen along with increasingly sophisticated criminal break-in methods.
We now have five different models in the Trellidor Retractable range, each with an increasing level of strength.
Customer demand has also played a role in our product development. Commercial clients like Sainsbury’s in the UK have very strict security requirements that lead to the development of our internationally rated Trellidor Trojan II T1000 and Trellidor Plus T900 models. These are installed in very high risk environments the world over.
And still expert powder-coaters
Although powder coating hasn’t been the company’s core business since the early 1980s, we’re still proud of powder coating process. In 2008 we installed a state-of- the-art powder coating plant that gives our products the edge in terms of anti-corrosion properties.
May the next 40 years be just as interesting as the first 40!
