18 | Aycliffe Today Business
WINNING
Dr John Suggate , chairman of Formula Plastics who set the company up more than 20 years ago .
FORMULA
Aycliffe Today editor Martin Walker meets Dr John Suggate , the chairman and founder of injection moulding specialists and major success story Formula Plastics ...
It ’ s safe to say most of us take for granted what goes into making the everyday machines and devices we rely on to live and work . On Aycliffe Business Park , we ’ re surrounded by manufacturing companies famous for making washing machines , lawnmowers and shower cubicles .
But there are even more smaller companies that are helping to fuel the manufacturing sector by making millions upon millions of parts that go into many of our finished products .
And Formula Plastics has its own impressive tale to tell about how it has evolved over the years .
The injection moulding specialists have now been on the business park for more than 20 years .
The firm was set up in 1996 by polymer chemist Dr John Suggate , initially to supply plastic parts to Thorn Lighting in Spennymoor .
He started out with five staff – three directors , an operator and a packer – having rented a 5,000 sq ft unit at the IES Centre , the former Underground Mining Machine ( UMM ) site just behind Crafter ’ s Companion off Horndale Avenue , which closed in the 1980s after the demise of the coal mines .
Now spread across five units at the IES Centre , totalling 44,000 sq ft , Formula Plastics has seen sales double to £ 3.9m in the last five years , with staff numbers growing to 62 .
The firm produces hundreds of thousands of plastic parts for manufacturers in the automotive , lighting and electronics sectors across the North-East and beyond .
It has certainly come a long way since former chemistry researcher Dr Suggate , originally from Chingford in Essex who studied a PhD in polymer chemistry , formed the company to solve a job-hunting dilemma .
“ I ’ d relocated to the North-East after landing a job with a packaging company in Cramlington and brought my family up ,” says Dr Suggate . “ But then that didn ’ t work out . I spent a while job-hunting but I couldn ’ t find