CRAVEN-BASED Acorn Stairlifts, one of the leading suppliers of stairlifts in the world, is increasing its export sales team by almost 50 per cent in order to drive continued success and growth in its export markets.

Five new sales positions at Acorn’s Steeton head office will take its export team to a total of 16 to support the company’s continued expansion into the key European markets of Germany, France, Italy and Spain.

The additional resources will help the company to both look after and expand its existing dealer network.

Acorn has already won two export awards in the last two years and has recently been shortlisted in three categories in the Made in Yorkshire Awards to be decided later this month - exports; innovation; and large company.

During the last three years, Acorn’s export revenues from its UK factories have doubled from £35.5 million to £71 million. The company exports over half of its stairlifts to more than 100 countries worldwide.

Acorn’s group HR manager, Kate Gledhill, said: “Acorn employs over 500 staff in the UK, most of them here in West Yorkshire, and we are regularly looking for new staff for the business.

"The fact that we are looking to increase our multilingual export sales team so dramatically demonstrates both our recent successes and also our determination to export even more Acorn Stairlifts to Europe.”