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Sugden
“ We’ ve done a lot of traveling to North America and Asia to pursue enquiries, meet customers, and get orders over the line. With two lines just landed in North America and there’ s another huge machine being commissioned in the Middle East. On the VanderPol side of things, we’ re gaining traction in the market for these products and establishing the best practices to grow the brand from both a sales and awareness perspective.
“ We’ re currently implementing ProgressPlus, a new CRM system, which will be fully embedded by the end of the year,” he adds.“ By adding this system, we’ re hoping to further streamline operations and create even more efficiencies, but we’ re not stopping there. We’ re evaluating each department to identify improvements and then giving ourselves a timeline to implement new processes that make an impact.”
However, Sugden’ s product range and order book are not the only aspects of the business that have grown.“ When it comes to staff, we’ ve invested in both new and existing people to ensure we’ ve got the best people in the right places as we continue to grow,” Chris explains.“ Many of our staff started off as apprentices and we remain committed to supporting apprenticeship schemes. We’ ve also added a quality control engineer to oversee the quality of parts we source externally.
“ Similarly, we’ ve streamlined our supplier base to focus on creating positive, longlasting relationships with key partners. Alongside external suppliers, we’ re also taking back some control by investing in a new 5-axis CNC machine to boost resilience and enhance our in-house capabilities.“ In terms of projects, we are installing a large capacity pancake line for a client in North America. Our capacity was 19,000 pancakes per hour, but we’ ve exceeded this figure by
creating a product line that produces 30,000 pancakes per hour. We’ re super excited about this development and we believe it will give us a huge opportunity to expand our offering to other high-capacity customers.”
While on the topic of new product development, Chris shares a glimpse of a new product launching in 2026, although the details are still under wraps.“ We currently have a new product line under development, which we’ re committed to launching next year at Interpack, a processing and packaging exhibition held in Germany,” Chris says.“ Whenever we explore new product development, we always assess the market to identify where demand lies. Our historical product lines for English muffins and crumpets are slightly niche, so we now focus on creating products for a global audience.”
◀ Chris Baldwin
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