Phoenix had been losing money and as anyone who has worked for an American parent company knows this is something they address with some vigour! David Smith who had been running a laboratory in Manchester was appointed by Hollister to turn the business around. The Americans gave David 2 years to turn around the losses.

They closed their other laboratory in Falmouth and amalgamated staff that wanted to transfer to Phoenix. Suddenly we were a large full service laboratory and set about changing our profile from largely NHS to a mixed and more specialised service. After much hard work by all the staff we began to turn around the laboratory and become profitable.

The US owners then decided to dispose of the their 'non-core' business and we completed a management buyout in December 1993. We moved to our present location in Exeter, one year later and have steadily concentrated on high quality work and service. Every technician now undertakes college training and the majority of our staff are now qualified. CPD is also very important; in 2005 we spent almost £30,000 on CPD training.

In 1999 we bought out Shorter Dental Laboratory in Oxford and in 2005 acquired Ceramet Dental Laboratory, moving their technicians into our new 'state of the art' crown and bridge laboratory in Exeter. Our staff now number about 55 providing a full service to dentists throughout the UK and Eire.

In the future our mission remains the same - to provide our customers with the best products and services we can. Our investment in our staff, equipment, processes, materials and laboratory is all part of supporting our mission. We enjoy working with our clients and we hope they enjoy working with us. With this partnership, we believe this provides the best outcome for the patient.

Phoenix Dental Castings
- a brief history

Beginning as the ABC Dental Laboratory Phoenix arose and grew to be one of the biggest CoCr framework manufacturers in the UK producing around 70 jobs each day.

In the late 80's Phoenix sold out to a larger medical company called Ethicare which in turn was bought by a US company called Hollister. In 1992 the government effectively gave Dentists a pay cut and reduced prescribing which hit CoCr very hard.