THE WOLDS STORY · LINCOLNSHIRE

It started
at the table.

WOLDS began with a simple idea: everyday paper napkins did not have to feel everyday.

NOT A MASTERPLAN

We weren't trying to build
a big brand.

WOLDS started at our own kitchen table in Lincolnshire. We love cooking, having people over and the details that make a table feel properly considered. Paper napkins were useful, but too often they felt like the thing you bought at the last minute rather than part of the table itself.

So we made the sort we wanted to use: premium 3-ply paper napkins with distinctive designs, 24 in a pack, made for real lunches, dinners and everything in between.

THE START

One idea.
Then a fairly big bet.

There was no grand launch plan. WOLDS began by asking whether something as ordinary as a paper napkin could have enough character to change how a table felt.

The founder's approach was, by his own admission, a little gung-ho. Before WOLDS had taken a single order, around £15,000 had already been committed to turning the idea into something real. Stock, design, packaging and all the things a product business needs came first. Proof that anybody actually wanted it came afterwards.

THE FIRST ORDERS

Then the orders
started coming in.

The first ones felt very good. They also made the whole thing feel much more real.

There was still plenty of doubt. A few orders did not mean WOLDS was going to become a business of any scale, and there were moments when it was difficult to believe it would grow at all. But another order arrived. Then another. And another.

Slowly, the question changed from “will anybody buy this?” to “how far could this actually go?”

THE FIRST TRADE ORDER

Then a shop
wanted WOLDS too.

The first trade order was a different kind of milestone. WOLDS was no longer simply something customers were choosing for their own tables. A retailer was willing to put the napkins on its shelves and introduce the brand to its customers.

That first stockist made the opportunity feel bigger again: perhaps WOLDS did not just belong on our table, or even on customers' tables. Perhaps it belonged in good shops too.

OUT INTO THE REAL WORLD

The first event.

Then came selling face-to-face. An event meant seeing people stop, pick up a pack, talk about a design and choose the one they would put on their own table. It gave us something an online order never quite can: an immediate sense of what people noticed and what they came back for.

THE PART THAT NEARLY CHANGED EVERYTHING

For a moment,
it could have stopped.

Growing a product business means committing before you know exactly what happens next: stock, packaging, new designs, events and all the decisions that sit behind a finished pack. At one point the risk felt much bigger than the business itself. Walking away would have been the easier option.

We didn't. We tightened things up, kept going and concentrated on making the product and the brand better.

WHAT HAPPENED NEXT

It became bigger
than we expected.

More orders. More designs. More collections. More retailers wanting to stock WOLDS. What began as a small observation about an overlooked part of the table started becoming a proper British homeware brand.

That growth has not changed the point of it. WOLDS still makes design-led paper napkins for the moments people actually live: a quick lunch, friends for dinner, drinks in the kitchen, Christmas, birthdays and a Tuesday night that deserves a better table.

WOLDS · NOW

Still useful.
Just less ordinary.

Today WOLDS creates premium 3-ply paper napkins from Lincolnshire, with full-size and cocktail formats, seasonal collections and designs made to mix rather than match perfectly. We sell directly to customers and work with independent retailers who want something distinctive on their shelves.

SHOP THE NAPKINS STOCK WOLDS ↗

07 · WHAT COMES NEXT

We're not trying
to stay small.

WOLDS started with paper napkins. We don't think that means it has to end there.

The ambition is to keep building around the table: more designs, more collections, more retailers and, when the product is right, more of the things that make people want to gather in the first place.

We are already exploring what that could mean. Airlaid napkins could give WOLDS a softer, more substantial option for a different kind of table. And we keep coming back to a simple thought about kitchen roll: if it lives on the worktop every day, why shouldn't it be designed to deserve the space?

Neither idea is about adding products for the sake of it. The aim is to take useful things that are normally overlooked and give them enough character that people are happy to leave them out.

We want WOLDS to become a British name for considered, characterful tableware and homeware — without losing the usefulness, humour and everyday quality that made the first pack worth making.

AIRLAID NAPKINS DESIGNED KITCHEN ROLL MORE STOCKISTS BEYOND NAPKINS

We don't know exactly how big WOLDS becomes.
That's rather the point.

WHY WOLDS

Paper napkins,
taken seriously.

Our paper napkins are designed in Lincolnshire with the table in mind first: strong enough to be useful, considered enough to become part of the setting. Each pack contains 24 premium 3-ply napkins, with illustrated, botanical, food-inspired, checked and seasonal designs across the WOLDS collections.

Because the best tables are rarely the most formal ones. They are the ones people stay at.