AN AWARD winning self-adhesive label has brought a bronze award to a Northallerton firm.

SE Sparkprint of Yafforth Road, beat 650 competitors from throughout Europe to win bronze in the Golden Label awards.

The company printed the label for Brakspear's London-brewed Henley Bridge ale.

Operations manager for SE Sparkprint, Mr Andrew Steph-enson, said the firm was delighted. "One of our sales people sent the label off for the competition and we didn't expect to hear anything more because it is primarily for wet glue labels and ours is self adhesive, which is the new kid on the block as far as beverage labelling is concerned."

He revealed that, when the company was sent the original design brief, it did not quite fit with production methods. "As a printer, we were able to get in on the ground floor and the brewery went along with it," he said.

Mr Stephenson took with him to the awards ceremony in Germany Mr Noel Clough, the printer whose name came out of the hat for the trip, and the manufacturing manager Mr Simon Burge.

Mr Stephenson said the trophy had pride of place in a display cabinet in the company reception area. It was a testament to the whole team at Sparkprint that the company was able to achieve it.