QUALITY, meaningful interactions between our members and new, retail-sector audiences at this year’s Autumn Fair are bringing the Made in Britain organisation a new kind of influence on consumers, and impact on future growth of British manufacturing.
Representatives from member businesses, Cesca, Lazy Pheasant and Essence of Hartland, together explored one of the urgent topics in business right now - net-zero and how it applies to giftware. The 60-minute panel discussion and Q&A was chaired by chief executive John Pearce on the Inspiring Retail Stage, to an attentive and engaged audience.
“Our aim when bringing membership together in this way is to inspire everyone to think about the future of British manufacturing differently, based on the evidence of success and achievement from our members. Everyone takes away something valuable whenever we get our membership together to share knowledge and insight on marketing and message for British manufacturing.” - John Pearce, CEO Made in Britain
Panellist, Alanna Dale, Joe Brady and Susanne Langley discussed the challenges of being ‘green’ from start up, the importance of forming a strong, engaged supplier and buyer network in the UK, and how to achieve buy-in and belief from your employees, all external stakeholders and, crucially, your end customers. Contributions from the audience included an enquiry about finding a British-based supply chain using the Made in Britain product and membership directory, and commentary regarding the Made in Britain Green Growth assessment compared with other accreditations on sustainability for business more broadly. A representative from National Trust Scotland offered enthusiastic support for locally-made products, confirming that buyers are prioritising those suppliers who can demonstrate clearly their actions and behaviours towards a more circular economy.
Exhibiting for the first time at Autumn Fair were members Co-Cre8 with the brand new Honest Bottle - the first reusable bottle that has been designed and manufactured in the UK from locally-sourced, recycled single-use bottles.
“Driving down sales of bottled water must be the number one goal to limit the amount of single-use plastics in circulation”, said Peter Goodwin, co-founder of Honest. “To achieve this, we need a dramatic behavioural change that switches consumers over to reusables - all of which need to be at the very least easily recyclable."
Don’t miss: You can see and hear from more members of Made in Britain, in person, next at the NEC on 14th Sept at the UK Metals Expo, further details here.
By Made in Britain 1 year ago | By Made in Britain