James T Blakeman & Co Ltd is one of Europe’s leading manufacturers of sausage and meat products. The Blakeman family business has been supplying the domestic, export, catering and fast-food markets since 1953. Despite nearing on 70 years of success, the company has never lost its close-knit family-run ethos. James Morris, Head of Business Development, explained to Hannah Barnett how Blakemans has always been a company that invests in the business, their processes and their people.
When James Blakeman launched his business in 1953, it was a family firm that was small in scale but high in quality. The early iteration of Blakemans was based on a farm in Stoke-on-Trent where he and his wife Ann turned sheds and stables into a small manufacturing unit.
At first, the company supplied four retail outlets with 100 lbs of sausage, poultry & cooked meats per-week, produced on hand operated machines. The success of this modest start allowed the couple to acquire a filler and bowl-chopper and soon, sausage production at the farm topped the three-ton mark.
This sort of smart reinvestment back into the business has continued dependably to the present day. The company now has close to 300 employees, across two factories under one roof in Newcastle, where it produces an impressive 500 tons of sausage and meat products per week.
Head of Business Development James Morris stressed that it is constant investment from the original owners and their children who later worked their way up in the company, that has brought Blakemans into the position it enjoys now.
Investment means more than nuts, bolts and figures at Blakemans, as Mr Morris explained: “The Blakeman family’s approach to investment is multifaceted and continual. Simultaneously financing developments in the business, its machinery and its people has
ensured that we have the ability, expertise and talent pool that enables us to react quickly to customer demand in a fast paced, agile and adaptable factory”
A two-fold operation
The turn of the millennium saw a lot of changes for Blakemans as James Blakeman took up the position of chairman, putting his son Phillip and his daughter Susan in charge of the day to day running of the business as its directors. The siblings’ first accomplishment was to open a purpose built, state of the art cooking plant in Newcastle-under-Lyme: operating as a separate business, James T Blakeman Services allowed them the scope to enter the cooked market.
“Opening the cooked plant gave us the scope to increase the raw manufacturing business too,” Mr Morris reflected. “Both businesses support each other, so the manufacturing plant makes the meatballs and the sausages, hands them over to the cook plant where they are cooked, frozen or chilled, packed and sent on to the customer as a fully cooked, ready-to-eat product.”
In 2008, a portion of the cold store at the Newcastle site was closed to make way for the manufacturing facility to move into, meaning that the whole outfit would work seamlessly under one roof. This investment also included a large office extension and
brought about the creation of a product development suite allowing the business to formulate bespoke recipes to fit with their customers’ requirements
Product demand called for further investment in 2017 with the conversion of a cold-store unit into an automated production facility capable of taking a block of frozen meat to a cooked, chilled and packed finished product ready to roll out to the customer in a mere 40 minutes.
True to form, one capacity increasing investment led to another: “We had a further extension in 2018 which we call ‘phase four’,” Mr Morris explained. “This new production facility enabled us to include the production of pigs-in-blankets to our repertoire, alongside chilled produce. They are all hand rolled, and this year we will be producing nearly 400 tons of them on the runup to Christmas.”
2022 has brought a further investment with the installation of two new inline ovens. One replaced an older model with the other being an additional unit. These installations have seen an increase in production volumes for the cook plant 50% whilst simultaneously reducing energy consumption per kg produced.
The Blakeman team take their responsibility to reduce their carbon footprint and their impact on the environment very seri ously. They have completed multiple energy saving and environ mentally friendly projects so far; from the instillation of new ammonia refrigeration systems, upgrading the lighting throughout the business, ensuring that all of their food waste is used to create renewable energy and have received delivery of 5 new, more energy efficient temperature controlled delivery trailers. The environ ment was also considered during the design of the livery for these trailers, swapping out the predominantly dark blue colour of Blakemans tradition with a mostly white design to reduce the
work load of the units as much as possible when trying to combat heat absorption on sunny days. The financing of projects like these has enabled them to hit their 2025 environmental targets already but, as ever, they’re not stopping there.
As one project comes to fruition there are always others waiting in the pipelines. Their next steps are already well under way, including the installation of solar panels at the production facility and changing over their systems for the temperature control of production areas to more efficient ammonia systems.
Customers and partners
Blakemans positions itself in a diverse sector with a customer base to match. It supplies products in the fish and chip, fast food and catering markets for the mainstay of its custom.
Operating as a foodservice and wholesale supplier, the company does not deal directly with retailers, but it does have its products in items sold by many leading outlets: “We do a number of lines under licence for some of the big brands out there. We are Marks and Spencer’s A- list approved suppliers across both sites,” James said. “We supply a lot of components that go into retail items like ready meals and food to go, from sausages and meatballs to sausage meat”
Despite this well-established presence in the industry, James stressed that the company has not lost its personal touch. “We are a family-run business still,” he said. “It’s not always about being the most commercially competitive. We pride ourselves on only using quality raw materials, ensuring that we are offering dependable, high quality products, every single time.
“Our consistent growth comes from our existing customers, enquiries and word of mouth. We haven't got 10 salespeople out on the road constantly trying to increase volume, opting to prioritise customer service and product quality to grow the
business organically instead. Our ethos of serving our customers reliably and with integrity has seen us maintain a good number of these relationships for over 40 years, which I think speaks volumes about the business and our offerings.”
Blakemans clearly prizes its employees and takes pride in the fact that many of them know the business inside-out. The majority of their executives and management team have worked their way up their career paths within the business, with the aid of support and training. Mr Morris, a member of the Executive Committee said, “We've all been here a few years and the majority of us have grown through the business, starting from the factory floor, working our way through the ranks and into the positions we are in today. The committee allows us to get together at short notice and make informed decisions quickly, as a collective, without having to answer to stakeholders”
Suppliers
Blakemans robust business relationships extend to its suppliers
Mr Morris was serene about rising costs and turbulence in the supply chain, stating that part of business is navigating diffi culties in markets as they arise.
He continued: “We are fortunate that we have loyal and strong relationships with our suppliers, from packaging, to dry goods and meat. We have sourced our suppliers carefully, looking for
the same quality and reliability that we expect of ourselves. Our suppliers know that we’ll still be going strong long after all these problems have been and gone, that the business is in a good position and can ride through the rough times.”
While Mr Morris accepts that a sharp rise in prices has made it impossible not to pass on some costs, he is clear that Blakemans have only done so when entirely necessary.
“I know there are other manufacturers out there that have done four or five price increases this year,” he said. “We’ve done one. We understand that our customers need continuity in pricing, that constant increases are interruptive and problematic. So we utilised the buying acumen of our colleagues and contracts that we had in place to delay the need to implement a price increase until July, when we only passed on what we had to in line with the increase in costs that we've had.”
Looking ahead, the Business Development Manager was real istic and quietly confident. He said the company has never strived to divert from its ethos of being dependable and delivering on quality. Consistency is key with Blakemans and it continues to reap the benefits after seventy years of reinvestment into the company and the people who run it.
James summarised: “We don't try to diversify into areas where we feel we're not experts. We stick to what we do best. We don’t aim to be the biggest. Our goal is always to be the best.” n for more information please visit Blakemans.co.uk or contact James Morris at james@blakemans.co.uk
