Twig branches out in Spain and S America

GLASGOW production house Twig has signed another international distribution deal that will put its educational science films on sale in 40,000 schools across Latin America and Spain.

The agreement with Spanish publisher Santillana follows a similar deal last year between Twig and US supplier Carolina Biological covering 15,000 schools. More than 1,000 short science films will go on sale this week in Santillana’s schools in Spain and also in Argentina, Chile, Colombia and Peru.

The deal is the first of several Twig expects to announce this year as it moves towards its goal of boosting annual sales by 50 per cent. The company generated revenues of slightly more than £1 million in 2011, its first full year of trading.

“The rationale of our business is that we must be distributing internationally – in fact, less than 10 per cent of our business comes from the UK,” chief executive Anthony Bouchier said.

In addition to its science catalogue, Twig has also started making films used to teach maths and geography, and plans to move into history next year.

Bouchier said the company’s library should reach 2,000 films by the end of 2012, up from roughly 1,250 currently. By the end of 2014, Twig aims to have 3,000 films covering “the spectrum of human knowledge”.

Owned by its management team, Scottish publisher DC Thomson and the venture capital arm of Scottish Enterprise, Twig now employs 50 in Glasgow and a further eight at a sales offshoot in London. The company has worked with Education Scotland in the development of its films.

Twig products are now sold into more than 20 countries and territories. Bouchier said the company has a number of other distribution agreements in the pipeline.