News Article

A NORTH East food manufacturer is saving almost £10,000 on its energy bills thanks to help from a team of regional energy experts.

Energy specialists from MAS North East are helping County Durham-based Redemption Foods save 17% on its yearly fuel bill.

Redemption Foods, which makes high quality soups, sauces and baked potato fillings for the food industry, called in the regional experts when a major customer fell into administration a year ago at the beginning of the recession.

The company, which is based in Consett and employs 20 people, decided to focus on reducing costs while trying to regain the lost turnover.

Managing Director, Mark Crow, said: “Losing a major customer was a major challenge for the company, but we decided to use it as an opportunity and while looking for ways of recouping the lost turnover we called in MAS North East which helped us identify and eliminate energy waste from our processes.

“We have seen a major difference in our monthly energy bills and also undertaken extensive in-house training so our workforce is prepared to carry on the good work started by the MAS North East team in the field of continuous improvement.”

MAS NE carried out an energy diagnostic at the plant in May 2009, part of which involved a full review of the site’s refrigeration equipment.

This work identified that better management and control could result in a significant reduction in energy consumption and Redemption Foods implemented the recommendations immediately.

An analysis of the energy consumption both prior to and following the changes has quantified the savings to a value of £9,600. This is approximately 17% of the site’s energy costs.

MAS North East Energy Specialist Steve Fountain said: “Redemption Foods is a well-run, forward-thinking company and we were delighted to offer some guidance on how they could make some energy savings to help them through these challenging economic times.

“Due to the success of this project MAS NE is staying on site to offer further support to develop an energy monitoring system which allows Redemption to analyse, understand and manage their energy costs going forward.”

Energy champion training is also being planned to complement the introduction of the monitoring system and to allow Redemption to focus further on reducing energy costs.

One North East Manufacturing and Productivity Manager, Colin Herron, said: “The support provided to Redemption and its outcome demonstrates the value that the MAS NE service adds to small businesses in the North East region.

“Redemption Foods is a prime example of a company that turned a negative into positive, using the economic downturn to analyse where productivity savings could be made and prepare the company to take advantage of the opportunities that will arrive when the UK economic recovery begins.”

The MAS North East project is to be part financed by the European Union’s European Regional Development Fund (ERDF) Competitiveness Programme 2007-13. ERDF is bringing over £250m into North East England to support innovation, enterprise and business support across the region. It will help create and safeguard 28,000 new jobs, start 3,000 new businesses and increase the region’s productivity by £1.1bn per annum.

MAS North East is part of Solutions for Business, the Government’s package of publicly funded support products offering help to companies to start, grow and succeed. Solutions for Business makes it easier for companies to get the advice and assistance that they need.

For further information on the full package of support, visit www.businesslink.gov.uk/northeast or Tel: 0845 600 9006.

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For more information, contact Bryn Littleton (press office) on 0191 2296713 or 07717 468918 or by emailing bryn.littleton@onenortheast.co.uk
For more information on MAS North East call: 0191 501 8609. Email: enquiries@mas-northeast.co.uk
Website: www.mas-northeast.co.uk