Martial arts business move to Space Business Centre Gloucester to keep up with global demand

Published by

Peter Davison

A Gloucestershire couple who supply martial arts belts across the world have moved their business out of the home and into Space Business Centre Gloucester to keep up with global demand.

Anja Hill, a martial art tutor originally from Germany and now living in Gloucestershire, has run Black Belt Embroidery, a specialist martial arts embroidery business since 2010, with her husband Tim Hill, who she met through the martial arts community, joining the team in 2019.

And now, the couple are celebrating sewing up new orders as they move into a bigger business premises at Space Business Centre Gloucester to meet demand.

Anja spotted a lack of options in the UK market to customise the belts used to represent a student’s ability level and decided to start her own business in the two-room top floor of the couple’s home.

Over a decade in business, the company continues to go from strength to strength and now supplies belt to students, instructors and martial art clubs across the world, expanding its services to include options to customise existing belts, buy pre-designed belts or create their own.

Following an increase in domestic and international orders from countries including Sweden, Australia and the United States, and the couple wanted to expand their premises and purchase new machinery to meet demand.

The couple knew they wanted a unit near to their Gloucestershire home, and were attracted to Space Business Centre in Gloucester due to the flexible contract lengths and variety of unit sizes on offer.

Anja said: “We both work as instructors in the martial arts and started the business over a decade ago, because we are really passionate about working in the sport we love and proud to have expanded our client base and improved product range.

“Following a house downsize, we struggled with storage for the business and decided to look at renting alternate premises and really liked the look of Space Gloucester, with its easily commutable location and flexible contracts.

“The Space team were great as we worked through our application and we couldn’t be happier with the move, with the mezzanine level of our unit being the perfect layout for creating separation between the office space upstairs and the embroidery machines downstairs.”

Space Business Centres Gloucester and Cheltenham are owned by property development company AC Lloyd and offer flexible, multi-use units ranging from 275 to 775 sq ft.

Lucy Iles, site manager at AC Lloyd Space Business in Gloucester, said: “It is great see how easily Anja and Tim at Black Belt Embroidery have settled into their unit since arriving at Space Business Centre.

“It is wonderful to welcome Black Belt Embroidery, a unique growing business as part of the community at Space Gloucester and I look forward to hearing about their future success.”

Peter Davison

Peter Davison is deputy editor of The Business Magazine. He has spent his life in journalism – doing work experience in newsrooms in and around Bristol while still at school, and landing his first job on a local newspaper aged 19. By 28 he was the youngest newspaper editor in the country. An early advocate of online news, he spent the first years of the 2000s telling his bosses that the internet posed both the biggest opportunity and greatest threat to the newspaper industry and the art of journalism. He was right on both counts. Since 2006 he has enjoyed a career as a freelance journalist. He lives in rural Wiltshire with one wife, two children, and three cats.