Pride Valley Foods
International success tastes good for County Durham-based Pride Valley Foods.
The Seaham firm manufactures speciality naan breads, tortilla wraps and pitta bread and with a turnover of £22 million, is recognised as the UK's market leader in speciality breads.
Established in 1990 by Chairman Hossain Rezaei, the company now employs over 245 people and is reaping the rewards of its commitment to export communications.
But even with such impressive statistics, the business was not going to rest on its laurels: "We are the UK's leading manufacturer of flatbreads," says Mike Shear, Senior National Account Manager. "Yet, there is only so far you can go in the UK market. Our next step had to be mainland Europe. Ours are well known products in the UK, but in Europe they are unique and innovative."
But the company was faced with a conundrum. To render the products suitable for export, they all needed repackaging. How could it expand the business without expanding the production plant to repackage all the products to be exported, and all the increased costs that would involve?
Their answer was what Mike describes as "a simple solution to a huge problem". Pride Valley Foods decided to produce a single packet with a cardboard insert that featured ingredients, recipe ideas and product information in six key languages: English, French, Dutch, German, Danish and Spanish.
Pride Valley's export sales now stand at 12.5 per cent of turnover, covering countries such as Germany, Denmark, the Netherlands, Spain, Sweden and - as of May 2005 - France. So the six languages featured on the generic inserts covered all linguistic requirements.
Mike, whose enterprise earned him an award for Individual Achievement at the North East chamber of Commerce 2005 Export Awards, explain: "We wanted the product and packaging to be informative and attractive to a European market."
And communicating with its customers was not the only benefit of investing in a translation programme. One of the key reasons the business looked to build markets was to support further employment.
Pride Valley Foods continues to invest in new multi-lingual packaging which has included the investment of £1100 in the translation of ingredient declarations, enabling the company to access almost £450 in financial assistance through the ERDF-backed funding from the Regional Language Network North East.
Mike says that has been essential: "Every bit helps. The resource is there to help us - it is invaluable."
And this is just the start of a rolling programme of language work. Pride Valley is now ready to start translating more company material to launch even more innovative products to the new markets and Mike fully intends to maximise the help available through the RLN. "It's great to know there is financial assistance there," says Mike.
As a direct result of improving international communications, Mike has widened the company's markets and improved customer communication. "What the RLN does is fantastic. We should all take every opportunity out there to sell UK products in the wider EU market."
Zélie Guérin, RLN North East Manager, supports Mike: "There is an excellent resource available to businesses, where they can access financial assistance in the translation of documents, which as Mike proves, really can show a marked improvement to their bottom line."
CONTACT DETAILS :
Pride Valley Foods Ltd
Mike Shear
Senior National Account manager Seaham Grange Industrial Estate Seaham
County Durham
SR7 0PT
0191 521 1111
Back
|