July’s newsletter- Summer Season

Welcome to the third edition of Viscose Voice of 2024. This month we focus on exhibiting at London Packaging Week, our recent visit to our cork supplier in Portugal and lots more!

London Packaging Week 2024:

We’re exhibiting at the Food & Consumer Pack show that is part of London Packaging Week between the 11th and 12th of September at the London Excel. With more than 4,500 visitors expected to attend, we’re going to be busy and look forward to meeting our customers old and new. If you are attending, pop along to stand C16 and say hello.

Register Here.

Portugal visit:

At the beginning of July, our team visited our wine cork and bartops (also known as t-stoppers) supplier in Portugal.
In 2020 we added corks and bartops to our product portfolio. As a sustainable, natural product, they align perfectly with our other eco-friendly products and increase our one stop shop offering for the food and drink industry. A natural wood and cork stopper is a premium finish for any bottle. However, they are not tamper-evident so partner perfectly with our plastic-free, biodegradable seals and heat shrink open top capsules.

This was an educational trip for our team, with them witnessing the entire process firsthand as well as seeing some of our own product being made in real time.

It was fascinating to learn that 34% of the world’s cork oak forests are in Portugal. These forests are some of the richest ecosystems in the world and absorb approximately 14 million tons of CO2 every year.

We offer full customisation and different finishes of the bartops, such as:

variety of head top materials (wood, metal, glass, plastic)
painted head tops
top & side printing
laser printing

During our visit we had a demo of our supplier’s digital printer and laser etcher in action. Alongside this, we were encouraged to see the numerous quality checks that are completed to ensure the stoppers are TCA free.

This was an insightful and successful visit which allowed us to strengthen the bond between us and our manufacturer as well as gaining some key knowledge to share with our customers. A big thank you to our wonderful Portuguese partner for having us, and we look forward to visiting again soon!

Some pictures from the trip:

Picture 1:
A cork oak tree with outer bark stripped ready for processing. Fun fact: The process of stripping the bark doesn’t harm the trees in any way and trees regenerate every 9-12 years)

Picture 2:
Sheets of bark ready to enter the manufacturing process

Picture 3:
Our MD Emma getting up close with the raw materials!

Picture 4:
Hard to believe those sheets of cork oak seen in picture 2 are transformed to make this beautiful premium product

Visit to the Isle of Wight Distillery:

Last week we visited our friends at the Isle of Wight (IOW) Distillery. After working together for 4 years it was a pleasure to introduce our MD, Emma and new account manager Seren and see the gin process firsthand.

It was brilliant to catch up with the team and tour their distillery and bottling facility. We learnt all about how they make their wonderful gin, rum and vodka and how they maximise their natural environment. Their passion for the environment as well as their staff really shone through.

The IOW team are focused on preserving the planet with a real emphasis on the circular economy. The honey used in their spiced rum is harvested on site from their own bees, the salt in their salt vodka is from the island shores as well as their most famous ingredient – samphire aka mermaids kiss.

Thank you to the wonderful team at IOW Distillery for having us, they are a true inspiration for eco-conscious producers – we can’t wait to visit again soon!

Some highlights from the trip:

Xavier Baker Co-Founder & Director of IOW Distillery and our MD Emma with the Viscose sponsored oar’s used by the rowing team in their Talisker Whisky Atlantic Challenge Row!

The refurbished pub that is now also home to the wonderful distillery & Mermaid Bar and beautiful local artwork celebrating the key ingredient: Samphire aka Mermaids Kiss the inspiration for the brand.

Sunny Ryde, Isle of Wight

Online shop update:

As you may remember from our last edition of Viscose Voice, we launched our new ‘Buy Online’ website feature in May. This brings you a selection of our most popular items that pair with some of the bestselling containers across the food, drink, medical gas and pharmaceutical industries. These can be dispatched for you immediately and sold in box quantities. Since our launch in May, we are constantly adding new products and in July we added bartops! You can now purchase natural wood bartops in our most popular shank sizes, 22.5mm and 19.5mm, in box quantities of 1,000 on our website. These bartops fit perfectly in any cork mouth bottle with a bore of 21.5mm or 18.5mm respectively and in particular the 700ml & 500ml Nocturne bottles.

Check out our online shop collection for yourself here.

ISO Accreditation:

In July, we had our annual ISO audit, which we passed with flying colours and set some new records!

Our audit results were as follows:

0 non-conformances
3 observations
2 opportunities for improvement

We have already started closing out some of these and we will continue to further improve, wherever we can.

Well done to our whole team for this fantastic result!

Food bank donation:

We have all been impacted by the cost-of-living crisis and the summer holidays can be especially hard for some households and families.

Sketty foodbank is one of thousands supporting families in need all year round; after donating twice last year and seeing firsthand the great work they do we were keen to support them again.

Sketty foodbank is approx. 15 minutes from our factory and provides a crucial service to 35-50 households each week and that number is growing. The service is 100% volunteer led, they have no paid staff and is open every Wednesday. A visitor will typically be given a fresh fruit and veg bag, tinned meats, dried goods such as pasta and coffee as well as cupboard essentials like chopped tomatoes. The parcels are designed to last at least 3 days. They also provide essential toiletries as well as baby formula and nappies.

We asked our staff to donate as many dried / tinned items as they could in particular items that are always in high demand such as cereals, tea, coffee and long-life milk. The turnout was outstanding again, a real testament to our brilliant staff as you can see below . We also held a company raffle for a 60inch television. All the money raised from this was donated to the food bank towards sponsoring 36 bags of fresh fruit and vegetables which again are in high demand.

Thank you to Sketty Foodbank for all that you do to support our community!

Our team and some of the wonderful Sketty Foodbank volunteers with our sponsored fresh fruit and vegetable bags

Our team with our dried food donations and on right our sponsored fresh fruit and veg bags

Staff corner

Staff summer event:

In July we held our summer staff event- crazy golf and a meal. A fun evening was enjoyed by all with a bit of friendly competition thrown in! The tension was palpable amongst the 4 teams and the ultimate winners were Matthew Swain and Olivia Davies pictured below. They received a trophy & gift card each as well as major bragging rights over the rest of the team!

Our crazy golf winners:
Olivia Davies & Matthew Swain being given their trophies

Some highlights from the event:

Menopause café:

In June we held a Menopause café. This was our 3rd café to date, and we hold them every 6 months.

This forum is a safe space for our colleagues to discuss and share their own experiences, with the aim of breaking the stigma around the Menopause. It was an enlightening morning and we’re already looking forward to the next one!

Staff profile: Claire Corbett

This month we spoke to Claire Corbett, our Customer Account Manager- Tamper Evident Solutions. Claire started her Viscose journey in 1996, when she was just 17 years old, when our head office was still based in Crawley, Sussex. Claire started in an admin role as a receptionist one day a week, whilst completing her administration college course. After completing this course, Claire moved to a sales admin and customer service role. In 2014, Claire left the business but came back within a year and was part-time from in 2015-2017 when she became a full-time member of staff again. Since then, Claire has moved into a sales focussed and sales rep role and is the key account manager for all our heat-shrink products. Claire works remotely and visits the office in Swansea every few months for team meetings.

Typical day in the work-life of Claire:

Customer engagement with our big heat-shrink customers is Claire’s daily priority. She manages all of their accounts, providing essential technical support and advice, price negotiation, as well as aiding them in growing their product portfolio with us.

Alongside this Claire manages the inbound and outbound sales activity of our heat-shrink closed top, polylaminate and tin capsules. Including technical support, quoting, sample trials and general customer onboarding duties.

Outside of work, with two young children, a lot of Claire’s time is taken up with their activities and school related admin! Claire is taking annual leave over the school summer holidays to spend time with her daughters. We asked Claire to share an interesting fact about herself with us- when Claire was younger she used to go sailing frequently. When she was a child, Claire’s parents owned a small sailing yacht and the family used to sail around the Isle of Wight a lot which she loved.

We asked Claire to tell us what she likes most about working at Viscose:

“The people and the team play are a big part of why I enjoy working at Viscose. Alongside this I love the varied responsibilities and role I have, no two days are the same here which makes it very interesting and enjoyable.”

Thanks, Claire, for your time with us for this edition.

Long service awards:

Our wonderful and dedicated staff are key to keeping our business going. We’ve had some significant work anniversaries over the last few months, and we felt these incredible achievements needed to be highlighted