10 minute read
SEEVENT
Phantoms & Plastics
Q&A with Neil Gates, Managing Director of Seevent Plastics
When was the company founded?
Seevent Plastics was started by Ken Fisher in June 1987 at a single unit in Peter Road in Lancing. In those days Seevent Plastics were manufacturing a bomb carrying device for the MOD which fitted under the wing of the Phantom Jet. We certainly don’t do that anymore but we do have units 2-9 on the same Peter Road site. Ken retired and sold me the business in January 2014.
What sector does the company now trade in?
Over the last six years, we have developed the business in Pharmaceutical, Animal Feed, Solid Fuel and Aggregate packaging and by continued research and development, have enabled our customers to reduce their packing costs by up to 25%. In 2016, we wrote and had published a parliamentary review on sustainability and the environment well before the Blue Planet programme some years later.
What are you doing about sustainability within your industry?
The challenge for all manufacturers in Plastic is creating the closed loop supply chain. At Seevent, we are already successfully using a minimum of 30% post-consumer waste in many of our products and making all our products 100% recyclable. This
is ahead of Government legalisation which is currently proposed for 2022. Nearly all our factory waste is recycled and we have less than 1% going to Landfill. What sector is your largest customer? Our largest market sector is now Pharmaceuticals and we have recently been appointed Global Supply Chain partner to GSK and we have a lot of product development going on for this particular market sector. This is being developed by our sister company, Polyplus Packaging in Reading who now specialise in Antistatic and Pharmaceutical markets. How has the global pandemic affected your sector? The current Pandemic crisis has affected us like nearly all businesses in the UK. Many of our customers in the retail sector have had to close and we have had to diversify as quickly as possible. We are now heavily involved in the supply of aprons to hospitals and nursing homes. Unfortunately, body bags are another product we are now turning our skills to due to the demand. We have had to furlough a number of staff but hope that we can open for business as usual very soon without losing any staff. How has your bank assisted during these difficult times? Natwest Bank have been one of the great partners to Seevent over the years and their continued support at this time has been truly magnificent. When we started on our expansion “We are now heavily involved in the supply of aprons to hospitals and nursing homes.” plan in 2015, Natwest put together a package enabling us to increase our production by 30%. They believed in us and it paid off. They have allowed us to develop and experiment without onerous restrictions and have been a true supporter in everything we have done. When the pandemic hit, Natwest were the first to get in touch and secure a CBIL loan for us.
Seevent Plastics Ltd 2-7 Peter Road, Lancing, West Sussex, BN15 8TH Tel: 01903 755877 Email: 07740 411056 Web: seevent.co.uk
Distilling the ethos of Community Spirit
How Generation Distillers switched their gin making skills to produce essential hand sanitisers
TThere has been so much written about two specific types of business during the last few weeks. Those that are on the edge, support for which may or may not be enough to keep them afloat; and businesses that are thriving, those that fit well into the #stayhome lifestyle – conferencing apps as an example. But some businesses are doing something completely different and using their vision and their capability to try something very different from the norm, and being hugely successful.
Claire Kentish Barnes and her husband Ed launched their distillery near Lewes two years ago. Their vision: to create a portfolio of drinks that are beautifully made, transparent in their making and marketing and made using locally sourced ingredients. Their business also supports other local enterprises by sourcing as much as they can from other local independents.
Usually at this time of year, the pair
would be preparing stocks for summer trade, showing the gin at events and trade shows and developing new business; but they are not doing any of that – they are making hand sanitiser in their distillery instead.
‘The week before lockdown, orders dropped off a cliff,’ says Ed, ‘we were lucky that we are not hugely exposed in on-trade businesses (pubs, restaurants and hotels), but all of our customers were anxious, unsure of what the next weeks would bring and understandably reluctant to tie up capital in stock that they may not be able to sell.’
‘I had heard of some of the bigger distilleries making hand sanitiser from the alcohol that we have stored and make in our distilleries’ says Claire. ‘We thought that this was something we could do, but were unsure of the need for it in our local community’. Claire posted on a few local social media sites that they have the capability and wanted to gauge whether there was a need for the product - the response was overwhelming! ‘We didn’t even think about making an alternative choice after that, we were straight into planning mode – how are we going to make this happen’?
With a background in product sales and marketing, Claire was experienced in managing projects and getting product to market, and Ed’s experience as a master brewer and FMCG consultant gave them operational expertise; but the pace of
this project and what this small distillery have achieved in the time is what sets them apart.
Claire and Ed delivered their first batch of hand sanitiser two weeks after receiving the online response. There were a number of very important aspects to this project that we needed to get through before we could launch the product. We needed to protect ourselves and our existing business, but alongside this we wanted to get the product to market as soon as we could. We engaged with HMRC, HSE and trading standards initially to ensure that we were working within the guidelines. ‘There was confusion as to whether
PHOTO BY PHOTOGRAPHY FIRM
we could denature the alcohol ourselves, thus removing the duty liability on the product. Spirit duty is £28.74 a litre and needs to be paid on everything leaving our bonded warehouse. To make hand sanitiser, we need to denature the alcohol, but we didn’t have a licence for that.
Being part of a trade association meant that we had a direct communication link with HMRC and via the lobbying of the British Distillers Alliance, we soon had the news that we were after, that those with a bonded warehouse were able to effectively denature the alcohol and make hand sanitiser without the duty liability’. This came with a number of caveats, in particular the use of the World Health Organisation formulation for alcohol based hand sanitiser. This was great news, and gave them a very clear focus – the recipe and methods were prescribed. frontline workers. For every 1L that they sell to the public, they give the same away in donations. At the time of writing, they have made and sold/donated 500L and we have another 800L on order.
But moving from being a distiller to being a biocide producer threw up lots more questions - did they need to be registered as a producer to bring the product to market? Did they need to have the product independently laboratory tested in order to launch? Would anyone buy it from them if they just followed the formula and didn’t get it tested?
Other more practical issues almost halted their ability to press on – plastic is scarce at the moment, mostly coming from China, plastic bottles and containers were near impossible to source on the open market. A call to a local warehouse and a call from a company who had bottles in stock and were looking to free up some warehouse space meant that they had their first and second consignments covered.
One of the main drivers for delivery is to make hand sanitiser at an affordable price so that it is comparable to the standard cost per unit that organisations have become accustomed to paying. The pair also decided to sell the hand sanitiser to the public as well as producing bulk for care homes, and Although Ed and Claire have worked tirelessly and continue to do so to get the hand sanitiser to those that need it, the project has a real community feel about it. ‘Right from the start we involved our own community in this project by asking them about their needs. We have had so much contact from local councils, NHS trusts, care homes, schools, charities, volunteer groups, food banks and individuals all congratulating us on our efforts and supporting us to ensure that the product gets to where it is needed most.
We have had great support from the Sussex Innovation Centre, and had exposure through local press and local business forums, there is a real community spirit from the local business community as we come together at this time of crisis and it is humbling to be able to be a small part of that’.
www.generationdistillers.co.uk Claire Kentish Barnes clairekb@generation11.co.uk www.generationdistillers.co.uk @generation11gin +44 (0) 7747 848764
Home Invaders
Unwanted visitors can trigger mental health issues during lockdown, says Paul Bates, Managing Director Cleankill Pest Control
Working from home and spending more time at home generally has become the reality of the lockdown for many.
For Cleankill Pest Control this has resulted in an increase in calls from residential premises as people are spotting furry intruders and insects that would often go unnoticed.
Cleankill Managing Director Paul Bates says the mental health implications of having an infestation during lockdown when you can’t leave your home can be quite serious for some and affect the ability to focus on work.
He explains: “It’s bad enough having a pest problem during normal times, but usually people can get out of the house or go off to work and can escape the problem. The lockdown has resulted in an increase in calls from residential premises to Cleankill as people are spotting furry intruders and insects that would often go unnoticed.
“Hearing constant scratching or pests running about in your roof space is really stressful along with the worry of not knowing what damage they are doing and whether they are gnawing through cables. Rats are also appearing in people’s gardens especially in urban properties as there is less food being discarded in the streets. This means the rats are having to explore new territories to find food.”
As well as rodents, people have been calling about clothes moths which they might not otherwise have spotted if they weren’t in their homes 24 hours a day. People are also finding time to tidy cupboards and loft spaces and uncovering textile moth problems that have been hidden.
It’s also the time when pigeons and gulls are starting to arrive and nest on balconies or enter roof- spac - es, presenting a health risk to residents who are forced to spend more time in their own outside spaces during lockdown.
Squirrels are starting to breed and are expert at gnawing through soffits and fascias and accessing lofts where they will nest while potentially damaging wiring and rafters.
There has been an increase in calls about stored products infestations as people try to use up old ingredients at the back of cupboards, or sort through packets of dried goods only to be horrified to find the contents inside moving on its own.
Cleankill recommends using a professional pest control company to tackle problems particularly where rats, mice, birds or squirrels are concerned.
“Rats and squirrels can be quite aggressive and getting rid of the creatures requires a lot of knowledge and expertise. A trained professional should be able to get rid of the problem safely, humanely and quickly. But if you buy off the shelf products it is hard to know without training the correct dosage or the best location to use them in. You could also endanger children, pets and wildlife. It’s also more likely that the problem will return and cause further stress,” Paul said.
