Issued December 2024
Based in Aylesford, BBMC, employs more than 100 people 70% of whom are injured military veterans or people with disabilities. With more than a century of experience in supporting the country’s most disadvantaged individuals, their industry-leading work supports people who have fallen on hard times, helping them back towards having an independent and rewarding life.
BBMC employees gain marketable work experience in the manufacturing sector. Veterans are involved across several functions fulfilling complex orders for clients across the public and private sector including Barratt Redrow, Network Rail, Amey and Kent County Council.
The charity has a reputation for building impactful, developed multilayered partnerships with its customers; starting with social value procurement but resulting in volunteering, fundraising and skill sharing across the business and charity mapping the greatest mutual potential for the partnership through utilising every part of the business.
BBMC is part of Royal British Legion Industries (RBLI), a national charity supporting Armed Forces veterans, providing them with employment, welfare, care and accommodation support. On the same site as the Aylesford factory is a 75-acre village which is home to more than 300 veterans and their families.
The village provides the full-care pathway, supporting young veterans who have been homeless, through to military families, as well as luxury care homes providing palliative, round-the-clock care to veterans in their old age.
As a social enterprise, Britain’s Bravest Manufacturing Company reinvests 100% of it’s surplus to provide greater opportunities for it’s team of veterans as well as the beneficiaries of its parent charity RBLI. So not only is your business providing meaningful employment to those who need it most, but it will also work to help homeless veterans that are facing daily challenges due to physical and mental disability, find a new home.
For every sign order you place, you are helping to provide further opportunities, improve mental health and financial independence for veterans and disabled people.
Meanwhile, BBMC has a sister enterprise, Scotland’s Bravest Manufacturing Company (SBMC), which provides flexible employment opportunities to veterans in Glasgow. SBMC was recently successful in becoming an SQA-accredited Training Centre and has supported over ninety beneficiaries since launching in 2018.
RBLI also runs their LifeWorks programme which operates throughout the UK providing free, specialist support to help veterans looking to move into sustainable employment, training or education.
Our business has a direct impact on people’s lives
Steve Hammond joined the 1st battalion of the Welsh Guards in 1977. After a life-changing injury sustained whilst serving on the Sir Galahad during the Falklands war, he was medically discharged in 1989, aged 40. With only a suitcase and his family, he returned to his birthplace of Shropshire, but due to his injuries it was impossible for him to find sustained work. To be able to return full-time he desperately needed an operation which he wouldn’t receive until he was 55, a 15 year wait.
It was then Steve got in touch with Royal British Legion Industries (RBLI) who invited him for an assessment at their site in Aylesford where they offered him and his family a house, and organised for him to get his operation within 6 weeks. They also offered him a job in Britain’s Bravest Manufacturing Company which he could start when he had recovered from his operation. Within 12 months he was back in work. Steve said: “I now have a purpose in life.”
Thanks to our flourishing partnership with RBLI and BBMC, Steve will be provided with ongoing support.
Tirtha Thapa dreamed of following in his father’s footsteps and joined the Gurkhas. In 2005, in what was his fourth and final attempt, he had the honour of joining British Army’s First Gurkha Rifles, beating thousands in the selection process. Gurkhas played a crucial role in the Far East during the Second World War, particularly in South East Asia.
Known for their courage, their curved 18-inch knife known as the kukri, and their world-famous motto, “better to die than be a coward”, the Gurkhas were, and remain, an integral part of the British Army. During the Second World War, ten Gurkha regiments played a roles at the heart of conflicts across Asia and Europe.
Nearly 30,000 British Gurkhas were killed or wounded during the war. More than 75 years later, Tirtha was continuing the hard-fought tradition of the Nepalese Gurkhas soldiers. His sevenyear service saw him undertake two tours of Afghanistan. It was his second, in 2010, when clearing suspected improvised explosive devices in an alleyway that he was caught in a blast and severely injured, losing his left leg above the knee. He found the process of leaving the forces traumatic, facing loneliness for the first time in his life.
But soon after, RBLI’s social enterprise, Britain’s Bravest Manufacturing Company, gave him what he calls a second chance. Tirtha now works alongside five other former Gurkhas, all of whom share similar experiences of conflict. Together, they apply their wide range of skills developed during their service careers in BBMC’s sign manufacturing department.
Tirtha, and the highly skilled team are motivated to win, take on new business and are respected throughout the country for the quality of their work. He refers to his new career at RBLI as his second life.
Environmental Impact
BBMC is committed to environmental sustainability and achieved ISO14001 accreditation in Spring 2022. They have recycling points throughout their factories and minimise general waste. They recycle their aluminium waste and use recyclable products such as bubble wrap.
BBMC make every sheet of material go as far as possible, for example, some clients require smaller sized signs so offcuts from one customer are used for others.
BBMC are currently liaising with suppliers about recyclable materials for their signage; rather than offering acrylic or PVC. Their aim is to offer customers the option of waterproof compressed paper, a material that is completely recyclable.
“Working every day at RBLI is the best thing that could have happened to me. “
