When I was hired as Managing Director six years ago, I wasn’t sure we’d reach the next year, let alone our 25th anniversary. The business was in an incredibly precarious position and although we were absolutely determined to save the company, our future remained unknown.
The cause of this was mainly a £1.2m unpaid VAT (Valued-Added Tax here in the UK) bill that hadn’t been paid by my predecessor. The business was in panic mode, our customers were losing confidence in us, our staff were losing trust in us and we knew we had a long and difficult journey ahead.
Decisions needed to be made and they needed to be made fast. Within a matter of months we had worked with HMRC to develop a payment plan, made key and senior hires to restructure the company and placed a huge emphasis on collaboration and engaging with our customers to ensure we were being completely open and honest about our situation.
I’m sure you’ll have guessed by now that it worked. Six years on and the business is almost completely unrecognisable and a much larger operation too. As with any other business there are always going to be hurdles for us to overcome as the business continues to grow, however that initial uphill struggle when I joined the business, was a very valuable learning experience for us.
Now I see it as if it were an opportunity. We stripped the business back and rebuilt it in a profitable and sustainable way, clearly defining our USPs and making sure that we excelled in them every way possible.
Of course so many thanks must go to our loyal staff and valued customers who stuck with us even in the darkest times and without both, we definitely wouldn’t be where we are today.
Celebrating 25 years is an important milestone for us and while we always put pressure on ourselves to go forward, there is also real value in looking back and seeing how far we’ve come.
Over the last year alone, we’ve completely rebranded and updated all of our online marketing, installed a new production line with a second installation already in progress and managed to exceed our financial targets this year, despite the impact of Covid.
In addition to this, we’ve also focused on further improvements across all areas of our factory.
We’ve invested in the Quality department, bringing in new processes and technology to ensure our customers are always getting the highest quality product. We’ve invested in the production team, making sure that we have key and trending ingredients in stock at all times so that orders can be turned around even faster. And of course we’ve invested in the R&D part of our business, ensuring that customers always have access to the latest formulations and ingredients to help their businesses thrive.
There is so much opportunity for Redrose and we’re now looking forward to the next step in that journey. We have fantastic customers, an unbeatable internal team and the passion and drive to become one of the main global manufacturers of nutraceutical products.
With this in mind I must once again thank everyone who has helped us to get to this point. The customers, new and old, are continuing to grow with us, the staff across our facility are always working to better themselves and our excellent suppliers who have helped us to build a robust supply chain to help us excel. Thank you to all of you, without your support and dedication Redrose would not be where we are today and definitely not be celebrating our 25th Anniversary.
Thank you,
David
