EWGA

A NORTH Lancashire wine merchant may have grown and diversified over the last 40 years, but this does not mean it is too big to care about its customers and suppliers.

EWGA was established by Pamela and Gerald Moeckell at their family home in Silverdale, and following in his parents’ footsteps, son Adrian took over the firm around 14 years ago to become director.

Starting out small and dealing just with European producers, the firm now has wine coming from all over the world, including Australia and Chile. It supplies to many restaurants and hotels in the North West and beyond, as well as other wholesalers.

Sales director Janette McLaughlin, who has worked for EWGA for 12 years, said: “It was originally quite a small business, but in recent years we have expanded a lot. We still provide a high quality service though - we are very people orientated.”

And it is not just the UK base which has the family feel. “We select our suppliers carefully and have a great relationship with them,” said Mrs McLaughlin. “They are like-minded people. Like us they don’t want to supply to supermarkets, they are small businesses whose personalities we get to know - they are not just another number.

“It’s family businesses supporting family businesses.”

The addition of the ‘bonded warehouse’ was one of the main factors which allowed the firm develop, and it also meant they could begin selling their own exclusive wines.

Mrs McLaughlin explained: “The warehouse has meant we can store larger quantities of wine and not pay tax until the bottles leave us. And this means we can have our own exclusive wines, which makes us stand out from others. We stock 500 different types of wine, and around 100 of these are exclusive to us.”

South Lakes Services

A SOUTH Lakeland business owner moved to the area thinking he would just do a small window cleaning round – back then he couldn’t imagine how much things could change in five years.

Keith Dobson, who relocated from Somerset to Cumbria in 2007, now owns a multi-functional company that employs 52 staff and is continuing to grow every day.

South Lakes Services staff clean a number of local schools, offices and holiday lets, do maintenance jobs and laundry.

Mr Dobson said: “After the window cleaning I got asked to clean a few offices and it just went from there - it all expanded quite quickly and now window cleaning is just an additional service. We clean more than 150 holiday lets, and do laundry for a number of hotels and bed and breakfasts, as well as all sorts of maintenence, which includes cutting a lot of grass.

“We used to contract out things like the laundry, but just came to realise that we could do it ourselves.”

After substantial growth, Mr Dobson decided he needed a helping hand in management, and recruited Adrian Barker as his business partner.

He said: “Adrian has worked with me for two years - he was needed when the business grew quite rapidly.”

And the whole team is a close-knit group, coming together to provide top-quality service. Mr Dobson explained: “We pride ourself on the quality of service we offer - we are very hands-on and personable. If people own a holiday let but live far away for example, they can have confidence in the knowledge that we will do a good job.”

RSR Total Solutions

THERE are not many businesses that would let staff take their dogs for a walk during the working day.

But at RSR Total Solutions, employees are treated like members of the family.

Company secretary Michelle Goodfellow said: “We are a small company that has a family feel and I think this makes people happier when they are getting on with their work – it’s more relaxing and nice to know you are not just a number.

“We have a small office but it creates a community feel.

“We are quite flexible with hours too, as long as people do their jobs properly.”

The Milnthorpe-based firm, run by Mrs Goodfellow’s husband Phil, specialises in helping other businesses save energy and therefore money.

Their main customers are those in the food processing industry and supermarkets, which include Heinz, Morrisons, Sainsbury’s and the Co-operative. “We look at systems and see how people can improve their energy efficiency,” said Mrs Goodfellow.

“We can see where they are using most energy and where they can save most, and can put in energy efficient equipment to ensure this happens.” She explained that this saved thousands of pounds to those who used the service.

“Most people want the payback time for start-up costs to be within three years and this happens because the amount saved on bills is so large.”

And it seems that RSR may be one of the few companies to have benefitted from the recent economic crisis that the county has suffered.

“Because of the recession people have been looking at how money can be saved and as we can offer them a solution, it has probably made us busier,” said Mrs Goodfellow. Subsequently, between 2009 and 2011, the firm employed nine extra staff, who she said ranged from the age of 18 to 68.

“Age is not a barrier to us, we have a nice mixture of different people.”