THE BEST IN THE WEST
South West Businesses Clean Up at National Food & Drink Awards
Two leading food manufacturers in the South-West have been honoured at this year’s prestigious Food & Drink Federation (FDF) Awards, which celebrate the excellence, innovation and talent of the UK’s largest manufacturing sector - the Food & Drink industry.
An innovator in the provision of meals to the Health and Social Care sectors, apetito | Wiltshire Farm Foods, (based in Trowbridge) and the UK’s largest independent and premium cheesemaker, Wyke Farms, (based in Bruton) were worthy winners, with Wyke Farms scooping the Environmental Leadership Award, and apetito’s David Lambert taking home the Food and Drink Engineer of the Year title.
In his role as Project Engineer, judges were impressed not only by David’s innovative approach to conceptualising and driving forward ambitious and business critical projects to time and budget, including the replacement of production lines to double operational capacity where he managed the technical process end to end, but also the fact that he has increased production speed by over 6%, making savings of more than £50,000. Just one of his projects, ‘Cook Quench Chill’ increased cooking capacity by 58% alongside saving 52 tonnes of CO2e pa. He also leads the technical team to ensure HACCP flows are up to date and meet all requirements.
David’s commitment in mentoring of the company’s graduate engineers has been a major benefit as the company continues to innovate and launch trailblazing projects across the UK as it looks to meet its Net Zero pledge by 2040.
As a progressive cheesemaker, renowned for the quality of its cheddar and following the launch of its flagship Ivy’s Reserve Vintage Cheddar and Farmhouse Butter as the world’s first carbon neutral dairy brand, Wyke Farms has led the way across the dairy sector in creating a sustainable working farm where all electricity and gas are self-sourced from biogas and solar (generated from farm and dairy waste which has no other value). The working model has the capacity to be scaled up and make a ‘once in a lifetime’ industry change.
Wyke’s commitment to look after the land and community is reflected in its staff retention with over 33% being employed for more than a decade and 89% remaining with them for more than five years.
Contracted milk suppliers are an integral part of the business with many farmer suppliers working with them for over 40 years.
Judges praised the winners as being inspirational and role models to other manufacturers – signposting the way to defining the future of food production
Speaking of the win, apetito | Wiltshire Farm Foods CEO and Chair, Paul Freeston, commented:
“David is an exceptionally talented engineer and an exemplar to our business of someone who goes the extra mile every day. Not only does he make a real difference to our business, but he shares his knowledge and talent freely with our apprentices and supports next generation engineers who are the future of manufacturing”.
Richard Clothier, Managing Director of Wyke Farms concluded:
“Our goal has always been to innovate and lead the way in the dairy sectors as a family-owned business that is highly agile with sustainability enshrined in our core values. We work tirelessly to ensure this vision is achieved. The award is a testament to the hard work and dedication of our entire team.”
View the list of all the winners here: https://www.fdf.org.uk/fdf/events-and-meetings/fdf-awards/fdf-awards-winners-2024/
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