Alan Rayner, an agricultural feed salesman, had the idea of providing local farmers with polythene bags for packing poultry.

He set up a mail order business with his wife Dorothy, supplying agricultural plastics and home-freezing products from the garage of their Windermere home in the Lake District.

[3] The Lakeland Head Office is now based in Windermere at Alexandra Buildings with its distribution centre on the Shap Road industrial estate in Kendal.

Lakeland has around 4,000 products in its range and produces around 18 catalogues each year which are posted to its customers or picked up in store.

[4] Lakeland have been eyeing an expansion into the Middle East since March 2010, opening their first store in 2010 in Mirdif Centre mall in Dubai.