With the current challenges posed by the global pandemic fallout, the post-Brexit landscape, the cost of living crisis (we could go on…), leveraging products of UK manufacture and UK-based services offers huge advantages for food production, food packaging and pharmaceutical businesses.
Why buy British?
1. The most obvious benefit: supporting UK business helps us all grow! Food manufacturing supports over 450,000 jobs; British pharmaceutical accounts for another 75,000. That’s a big opportunity for us all to work together to contribute to the wider economy and help make us all stronger, quicker.
2. With less distance to travel and no border queues to negotiate, delivery time for all products is optimised to ensure a quick, reliable turnaround from order to replenished stock at your production site.
3. With less delivery miles required UK to UK, the associated carbon footprint will be reduced. Buying British is an easy win for (and should be an integral part of) your business’ Environmental Sustainability Policy.
4. The cost of imported goods has changed (and in most cases increased) with the implementation of post-Brexit import tariffs. Obviously, import tariffs are irrelevant for UK-made products!
5. Sustainability and traceability are essential issues for UK manufacturers. Companies like Activate work tirelessly to support the ongoing and ever-increasing challenges facing our key industries, with particular focus on meeting the exacting requirements of BRC Global Standards. An immediate effect of the COVID-19 pandemic was a heightened suspicion of ‘cheap’ imported products and the end consumer’s demand for traceable, home-grown ingredients and manufacture increased dramatically.
Supporting British manufacturers for over 20 years
Activate Lubricants have been supporting British manufacturers for over 20 years and we believe this is a big part of how we are able to make our service so consistent. Ultimately, we are all looking for certainty and our customers frequently comment on the peace of mind they enjoy due to the trust they have in us.
This is the same peace of mind we get from manufacturing our own high quality, fully synthetic, foodgrade lubricants right here in the UK, and having an experienced, UK-based team on hand to support customers on-site, on the phone, via our e-training portal or (lately) via Zoom!
This end-to-end UK service allowed us to provide uninterrupted service throughout the various COVID-19 lockdowns and to support over 600 food lubricant users within the food, food packaging and pharmaceutical industries during one of their most challenging times in recent history.
With the easing of lockdown restrictions, we are again able to visit any site in the UK or Republic of Ireland in person to perform a GAP analysis, install our lubrication systems and run through our engineer ‘toolbox talks’.
In-person site visits are very important to us, our solely UK-based team enjoying the same quick reaction and short travel distance benefits mentioned above. We offer free GAP analyses to all prospective customers and regularly visit existing customers to provide ongoing monitoring and advice, and on-site training.
So, let’s continue to support the UK, support UK manufacturing and support the UK food industry – it’s good for all of us!
Whether you’re an Activate customer or not, please don’t hesitate to contact us for any advice on lubrication compliance, processes and products. We’re happy to take your call!