The protest is a bid to pressure both the company and the UK Government to “pay them what they are due”.

So far the company has not handed over holiday pay, pay in lieu of notice or wages outstanding to any of the 12 made redundant.

The staff have also employed the help of a law firm to file an insolvency claim so the Government is liable to pay all who are due statutory redundancy money.

Refusing to allow the business to go down the tubes completely, they have been in talks with a number of bodies.

Matthew Duffield (25), who worked in the company’s administration offices, told the Tele he and his colleagues had received a “great deal of support” from Business Gateway and were now relying on the banks to secure funding for the new company.

“Prisme doesn’t own the premises or the factory machinery and we are hoping that with the new company we will be able to use both,” he said.

“Over the past two weeks we have all met up between 8am and 5pm to discuss the business plan and to make sure everything is in order and at night we have taken turns to sleep in the factory.

“We were not given any warning that we were going to lose our jobs, and there was a huge lack of communication as to the reasons why — we didn’t want to just accept that.

“The new cooperative venture, which we hope to call Discovery Packaging and Design Limited, will have to be scaled down as the company lost a lot of big customers, but we have had a lot of support.

“Business Gateway have been great, they helped us set up meetings with accountancy and law firms and also make a business plan that will work, now we just need to get the go-ahead from the bank.

“The company who let the property have told us we have to be out by the middle of next week so we are hoping to get everything sorted before then,” he added.