8
FEATURES
Job training
scheme picks
up business
honour
NATIONAL Grid Transco has been honoured in
this year’s Business in the Community’s award
scheme for corporate responsibility in the UK.
The company also sponsored the Business
in the Environment Award, one of 19
categories in the Business in the Community
Awards for Excellence.
The awards, now in their fifth year were
developed to encourage companies to
measure, continually improve and
communicate their positive impact on society.
They focus on impact and evidence of results
and are open to UK businesses large or small.
National Grid Transco’s Jobs Training for
Young Offenders was named a national
example of excellence in the Healthy
Communities Award category. The programme
aims to stop young offenders returning to crime
by offering them training and employment as
gas groundwork engineers.
The company also received a highly
commended in the national Neighbourhood
Renewal Award for impact on a specific
location, rural or urban. It recognised Transco’s
Affordable Warmth programme which aims to
benefit up to one million homes, particularly
people in low-income groups.
Strong culture
The award sponsored by National Grid
Transco was won by Shields Environmental,
which offers the world’s first nationwide mobile
phone recycling scheme. This both helps to
provide affordable communication in
developing countries and also equates to
savings of more than 250 tonnes of landfill.
National Grid Transco director of
communications Gareth Lloyd said: “We have
supported this particular award for several
years because the company has a strong
culture of environmental responsibility, both in
our UK electricity and gas businesses.
“Several of our community investment
programmes have an environmental or
sustainable development theme — a prime
example being the network of environmental
education centres at 12 of our electricity
substation sites.”
The awards were organised in association
with the Financial Times, sponsored by the
Department of Trade and Industry and
supported by ScottishPower, Company of the
Year 2002.
Business in the Environment director Patrick
Mallon said: “The real power of the awards lies
in what we all learn from their example. The
support of National Grid Transco is invaluable
to raise the profile of the BiE Award each year.”
FEATURES
Dominic takes steps
to help youngsters
Liz and Roger Sutton with current
and future milk producers
Goat’s milk is
S
and no
OME people might say it was vision
that led to Cheshire grantors Roger
and Liz Sutton launching themselves
into dairy goat farming.
The couple themselves say it was a
gamble that fortunately paid off.
After starting with just five goats in
1985, they now own one of the six
largest goat herds in the country and
supply milk, goat’s cheese, butter,
cream and yoghurt, to nearly every
major retailer and supermarket chain in
the UK.
Different from the days when it was
very much “garden gate marketing”,
said Liz. “I think our children grew up in
the back of the car.”
Liz and Roger both come from
farming backgrounds, and when they
married in 1980, Roger was working as
a representative, selling animal
feedstuffs. In 1982, he began
managing a beef unit at a farm in the
middle of Cheshire’s Delamere Forest.
Three years later, Roger’s employer
decided to cease beef production so
the couple started their own business
at the site with five goats. At the time,
there was little market for dairy goat
products.
Frozen, unpasteurised milk was
available, but usually in health food
shops or small specialised outlets.
“Roger just had this idea that there
was a real future for goat’s milk — so
we decided to take the plunge.” said
Liz. “We started off by making cheese
in the farm kitchen and personally
delivering it to local customers — which
is why my daughter Charlotte and son
James spent so much time in the car
when they were very young.”
The couple persevered as the
business gradually expanded. They
decided that the constraints of cheese
making were not practical, so they
joined forces with a local dairy to sell
the milk to a local supermarket.
“Soon after that, in 1987/88, we
decided to do our own marketing —
and very quickly landed our first big
customer, ASDA,” said Liz.
“Fortunately for us, supermarkets
were beginning to look at stocking
alternatives to cow’s milk to meet
customer demand. We were able to
meet that demand — so Roger’s hunch
was correct.”
By 1992, the couple had moved their
business to a farm on the Tabley estate
near Knutsford and started their own
dairy processing plant. In 1997, the
milk production side moved to Feldy
tops –
butts!
Lodge Farm* at Aston by Budworth,
Northwich, with farm manager Graham
Routledge moving there to run the site.
Graham had