Jakar

Jakar International is a family business that has been supplying Artist materials and a range of stationery and craft products throughout the UK and Ireland for 70 years. The company was established in 1949 by my grandmother, Lydia Sacki whose family had earlier immigrated to England from Germany and from where the company first began importing drawing instruments and cuckoo clocks for sale in the UK market.

My father Kenneth joined the business during the 50’s and eventually took over as Managing Director in the mid 60’s, a position he held until his retirement in 2015. He was a charismatic figure and well known throughout the industry with regular attendances at major trade shows both internationally and at home.

He rapidly expanded the company by introducing a wide range of stationery and arts and craft products sourced from all over the world. Most notably was the close relationship forged with Caran d’Ache, the world-renowned Swiss manufacturer of high quality Artist Materials for whom we have had the privilege of being their exclusive UK and Ireland distributors for nearly 60 years.

I Kenneth joined the company in 1979 as a Sales Representative, in 1990 I was promoted to Sales Director and following the retirement of my father, assumed the role of MD in 2015. As a distributor, I believe our purpose in the supply chain is to support and not to compete with our loyal customers. It is precisely for this reason that we have resisted the temptation to enter the online channel and sell direct to the public.

It is my goal therefore to continue the long tradition started by my ancestors of bringing to the UK and Irish markets an ever-increasing range of innovative and high-quality Art and Craft products and to maintain and improve the already high level of service offered to our long standing and loyal customer base many of whom are house hold names within the retail, wholesale, educational and growing Internet and Mail order sectors.

A demonstration of this is our recent move to our new state of the art warehouse facility in Elstree. I therefore welcome the opportunity to meet with new potential customers from any sector with the view to establishing new and mutually beneficial business relationship and will be happy to arrange for one of our highly experienced team of Sales Representatives to call on you and show you our full range of products.