North West Enterprise Awards 2017

4 SME NEWS / North-West Enterprise Awards 2017 , Sachets Ltd is amanufacturer of household, baby needs and healthcare products, based in Oldham, United Kingdom. Chris Ball talks us through the services that the firmoffers, and what makes it successful. Best Household Products Manufacturer 2017 Established in 1986, Sachets have a high-quality range and have invested heavily over recent years to ensure it continues to deliver great value for its customers. All of its products match or better brand leading quality at unbeatable value for money. Chris explains how the firm develops its own brands, and how the team at Sachets looks to achieve its mission. “Whilst we develop and deliver our own brands, we also have the privilege of contract manufacturing private label products for major retailers and brands. We have several successful, longstanding private label manufacturing relationships. “Essentially, we achieve our long-term success through strict quality control and continuous improvement. Our passion for product quality is the foundation upon which we continue to meet our customers’ expectations.” Discussing the experience and knowledge of the firm, Chris talks about the company’s track record and what its strengths are. He talks about the certifications that the company holds and how this helps it to work. “Boasting a wealth of experience, we are a long-standing business with a strong customer base and an excellent track record in branded and own brand product development and manufacturing. Our strengths are, firstly, our ability to develop innovative production lines to deliver high quality, brand matching products efficiently and secondly our focus on customer service leading to high availability of products with short lead times. Additionally, Sachets is certified to ISO 9001.2008 and BRC Consumer Products Personal Care and Household standards.” Differentiating itself from its competitors, Sachets places an emphasis on putting the client first. Chris discusses how the team work hard to step up to any challenges and want to exceed customer expectations. “Here at Sachets, we try to focus on our relationships with customers, stepping up to the challenges they set for us and repeatedly delivering on them. Product development is not straight forward and it is our continued investment in formulations, product design, packaging design and capital spend on equipment to ensure we can compete.” Talking about the trends within the manufacturing industry, Chris tells us what key developments there are specific to the North West. He notes that there is a lot more pressure on the team to succeed and match demands from clients and other factors, as well as a shift in the customer base. “Pressures are constantly building. We have increased wages, rising overheads, pensions regulation, health and safety considerations all of which drive costs up yet we are required to compete with the rest of the world. Automation is high on most manufacturers priorities, yet our approach is always to ensure that we retain flexibility. The changing customer base as we see the rise of Lidl and Aldi and the continued growth in the pound shop and value retailers is always in our thoughts as we invest for the future.” Referring back to the wealth of expertise within the firm, Chris notes that there is also extensive experience in the surrounding areas of the North West. “Thankfully, we have a wealth of expertise on our doorstep. This helps us develop manufacturing solutions quickly and easily. We have a strong local supply base delivering high quality packaging for our products and the North West is a great source of appropriately skilled labour.” In line with its vision, the internal culture at the firm is that staff focus on quality and continuous improvement. These are the key attributes needed to succeed and this helps the team ensure that staff are able to provide the best possible service to clients. “Regarding the internal culture at Sachets, our focus is on quality, continuous improvement and flexibility. These are the key attributes needed to succeed, and our staff are always looking to learn and improve, this is a sign of our ongoing success.” Looking ahead, there appears to be a bright future for Sachets, as Chris mentions some great new products which are due for release. This will help the company build on its success as it looks to further establish itself as one of the leaders within the manufacturing industry. “Going forward, we have some great new products coming out. We have new premium toilet block formulations, a new shaped premium gel air freshener and we are introducing more wet wipe products including flushable moist toilet wipes in the coming weeks.” In his concluding comments, Chris talks about the North West business market, and what upcoming developments he foresees which the firm will have to adapt around. In relation to the North West and the manufacturing industry, our market is very national / international. Whilst we have many North West customers, the customer base in the North West is pretty stable. We have good relationship with our North West customers, and I do not think we will see much change specific to the North West. We will have to see how Brexit impacts our customers. As imports get more expensive it creates local opportunities and we are pushing hard to develop opportunities in Europe. NWE17024