British Sugar Case Study

The Challenge

British Sugar operate four advanced manufacturing plants, alongside a customer supply site and head office, supporting a workforce of over 1,200 employees and operations that range from intricate manufacturing processes to essential office services. 

They were seeking a collaborative FM supplier to help meet their diverse needs, including adhering to GMP (Good Manufacturing Practices) to maintain required product quality and safety standards, whilst balancing budgets across multiple sites.  British Sugar are also committed to further enhancing their brand reputation and relationships within the community, through social value initiatives.

Our Approach

To meet British Sugar’s specific needs, we designed a bespoke Integrated Facilities Management package, with a range of soft and hard FM services - all supported by a single account manager and operating a collaborative, ‘one team’ approach.  This also meant consolidating supply chain management and providing a single source of reporting and data analytics across their facilities.   

Our tailored service approach for British Sugar includes:

Tracking performance and delivery across the whole estate: Via a single reporting source, with advanced data automation and forecasting tools, we apply expert insights and knowledge into financial management and driving ongoing improvements.   

Making a positive difference through social value initiatives: In collaboration with British Sugar, we are proud to work with ACT (Access Community Trust), a charity providing services that promote social inclusion across Suffolk and Norfolk. 

Delivering to specialist GMP requirements: Compliance with manufacturing standards is delivered through a series of initiatives, including an elevated set of 250+ SOPs (Standard Operating Procedures) with extra focus on food safety and cleaning, supported by comprehensive face to face staff training. To perpetuate operations meeting the highest food safety standards, biannual audits are implemented to meet ISO 22001 and BRC (British Retail Consortium) requirements.  

Supporting a wide range of customer operations: Spanning areas which include recruitment, specialist painting and decorating, goods loading, and deliveries, guiding and sampling checks on legionella. We work closely with British Sugar’s teams in their Operations, Health, Safety and Wellbeing, and Food Safety and Quality areas. Not only do we support them with multi-skilled people, we are also a member of their operational team meetings and maintain open two-way communication through direct chat groups. 
 

The Results

We are proud to have established a successful, long-term strategic relationship with British Sugar built on a shared vision, values and deliverables – spanning over 16 years so far.   Achievements during this time cover a full range of operational areas, including:   

Recognised standards of manufacturing, food safety, cleaning and quality measures:

• Accreditation from the Royal Society of Public Health, following HACCP (Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Point) standards and operating to ISO 22001 for managing a food management safety system. 
• Applying the British & European cleaning standards for quality and measuring systems (BS EN 13549)
• Achieving 100% completion rate for customer and compliance audits, over last 10 years.

Delivering energy efficiency and savings

• Significant investment in modern cleaning equipment, including state of the art steam cleaners, using 95% less water and delivering an improved level of cleaning standards within GMP areas.
• Tracking of factory production processes related to containment breaches (spills) to pinpoint and fix any defective infrastructure.

Improved reporting:  

• Instant access to 25+ detailed dashboards that track real time service costs, productivity, health and safety, GMP processes and overall performance.  

Supporting social value and mental health: 

• Refurbishing STEAM House Cafés, a group of mental health crisis cafés in the region, to encourage social value in the local community.  
• British Sugar and EMCOR UK developed a shared apprenticeship levy to facilitate training for ACT members. 
• A 50%+ reduction on return-to-work reports linked to mental health absence.

The key to making this happen is the people, here at British Sugar we only see one team ‘our team’. Working in a dynamic and challenging environment requires understanding, commitment and a sense of belonging and I’m pleased to say that EMCOR UK delivers and supports us to make all our products and ensure we meet our customer’s expectations.

Site General Manager, British Sugar