Our new meeting room has been furnished with comfortable armchairs and a coffee table as opposed to the traditional furnishing of a large meeting table and upright chairs. This has proven to be an extremely effective alternative to the formal meeting environment.

We have decided to name the meeting room The Lomas Lounge in memory of a very valued colleague – Paul Lomas – who sadly and suddenly passed away 7 years ago. This is one way we can honour and remember an ex colleague who was liked and loved by everyone who worked with him. For those of you who did not have the pleasure of knowing Paul, he was a big man with a big character, a big smile and a true gentleman.

Chris Rotheram has joined the management team as QA Manager and he is also a Qualified Person which further strengthens our QP coverage for the manufacture of pharmaceutical products.

Chris joined us directly from Lofthouse of Fleetwood Ltd (Manufacturers of Fisherman’s Friend). He joined them back in 1977 as a 16 year old Lab Assistant in their QC Lab. After many years of part time study he achieved Chartered Chemist status and in 1998 he became eligible to act as a Qualified Person. Throughout his time with Lofthouse he undertook several roles in QC, QA and IT.

At UPL his role is that of QA Manager / Qualified Person, but on the personal front he is a ‘local lad’ – born in Fleetwood and lived in Cleveleys all his life. Chris is married to a District Nurse and they recently celebrated their silver wedding. Both their son and daughter are studying at university.

We are delighted to welcome Chris to the UPL team and wish him every success in his new role.

We also rewarded the 16% of employees who had 2 years or more continuous attendance with an extra days holiday to acknowledge their commitment and hard work. Congratulations and thank you to you all for your 100% commitment.

The last ‘Lost Time Accident’ took place over 600 days ago and that is great news for the company as it means we remain as one of the safest manufacturing companies within the North West.

Thanks to everyone for staying safe, there is still a lot of work to do to ensure we keep improving, but this figure reflects the hard work by everyone at UPL to reduce our accident & incident rates.

We give a bonus to employees as they achieve each multiple of 5 years with the company and the list at the end of this page shows all those who were acknowledged in the recent awards ceremony.

However, a special mention goes to the following people who have been with UPL for 20 years: Barry Thornber, Sue Hardman, Jason Thompson, Amanda Minshull and Keith Voyle, and a particular thank you goes to Joanne Senior with 25 years service and Ian de Havilland with 30 years service to UPL.

Thank you to you all for your dedication and hard work.

“It was with the greatest pleasure at the recent Long Service Awards, that I presented awards to Ian DeHavilland and Joanne Senior in recognition of their thirty years and twenty five years service at UPL.

Ian joined us in 1981, when we had very few employees. He actually approached us for a job, and I could see that he was keen and willing to perform the variety of roles that the company needed at the time. First jobs were loading shipping containers and making shipping crates. Ian progressed to production, and successfully installed our first ever filling line in Lytham. He has performed most of the duties and tasks that there are at UPL, and risen to every challenge that UPL and our customers have given him. Thirty years on, Ian is an Associate Director.

In 1986 I interviewed Joanne. She had applied for a job in the packing department, but in actual fact did not intend to stay for long – but twenty five years later she is now a Director of UPL. Joanne progressed from the production line, to being a supervisor, and then moved on to set up our first micro lab. She has played a major role in UPL’s continued development and has a first class reputation throughout our industry.

Their continued enthusiasm and commitment for all things UPL belies their combined service of fifty five years, and they have, and continue to make a huge contribution and have a positive influence across the business.

Having done a quick calculation, Ian and Joanne have presided over the manufacture of circa 81 million litres of product, and the filling of nearly 900 million (900,000,000!) products.

I would like to offer my congratulations to them both, and very sincerely thank them for the part they have played and their continued loyalty and dedication to UPL.

There are therefore, opportunities for talent, intelligence, hard work and commitment to the UPL cause. And, although there are good times and tough times, UPL folk stick together.

I consider myself fortunate to work with two such people.

Thank you both.”

Mike Peters

UPL has a long-term commitment to improving the environment and in 2010 we introduced a comprehensive recycling review. At that time the ratio between waste product that was sent to landfill and waste that was being recycled was 41% recycled and 59% sent to landfill.

Since then we have analysed all aspects of the business to identify the different recycling waste streams that could be introduced to reduce the amount of waste being sent to landfill, and we now have a wide range of recycling initiatives and programmes in place to address the separate waste areas.

Electrical equipment – we were already using a Weee compliant container for redundant computers, but this has now been increased to include all electrical waste so that it can also be recycled.

Cardboard – we have purchased some specialised cages that are strategically located around the premises so that all waste cardboard can be put into these cages before transfer to a cardboard skip. This then goes on to be recycled.

Metal items – a special Metal Skip has been installed to keep metal items separated for recycling.

General waste – this was being put into a skip that was being collected 4 times per week and driven several miles to the landfill site. To reduce this wasteful travel we installed a compactor skip that instantly reduced the collections to 2 per week. This effectively halved the travel distance for our general waste and further reduced our carbon footprint.

Plastic waste- two separate streams were identified:

• The first being plastic containers / closures etc. These items are now palletised either in their original packaging or boxed up and palletised if loose. These items are then collected by an external recycling company for processing.
• The second area is the plastic pallet wrap that is used to cover all our incoming pallets and the plastic bags that typically line the boxes containing bottles / tubes / closures. A bailer was purchased that enabled these items to be segregated, then bailed and sent for recycling.

Aluminium cans – specialised bins have been installed in the canteen for the cans to be separated and collected for recycling.

Specialist Waste – we have established a close relationship the company that collects the specialist waste which typically comprises of out of spec / out of date chemicals / bulk liquid and finished product. We have been working together to ensure that we recycle as much specialist waste as possible and the latest load analysis revealed that 64% is now being recycled into energy and composting, and the remaining 36% goes for treatment and then to landfill.

In summary, a year after the introduction of this recycling programme, UPL are now at the point where 73% of our total waste is recycled and the remaining 27% goes to landfill. This is a fantastic achievement, but we want to continue to improve upon this, so we intend to maintain the focus on this important area and our target is to achieve a recycling level of 85% by 2015.

We are delighted to confirm that UPL’s Clean Water Campaign to raise funds to assist the millions of people worldwide who do not have access to clean water has been an outstanding success! After a week of challenging events by the staff, family and friends of UPL we have managed to raise a fantastic £5000 for this charity.

UPL staff successfully organised the following  ‘Water themed’ events during November:

Nov 20^th:  A 37 mile Sponsored ‘Sea View’ Bike Ride. This started out from the UPL factory on a very cold and misty day and participants had to cycle a very ‘hilly’ route to 266m above sea level! This took them to the Sea View Point at the summit of Beacon Fell in the Trough of Bowland overlooking Morcambe Bay, although the heavy mist and fog did prevent them from getting a satisfying view from the summit. They then cycled all the way back to the UPL factory, with a much needed stop for ‘sustenance’ in the pub on the way back!

The North West weather made our fundraisers work extremely hard to complete the two challenges and we are very proud and grateful for their achievements.

Congratulations to everyone who participated in these events and a big thank you to everyone who sponsored our intrepid cyclists and walkers. The £5000 raised will make a huge difference to many people’s lives.

As we reach the end of another year we would like to say thank you to all of our customers and suppliers for their continued support in 2011 and also thank you to all UPL staff for their hard work and commitment throughout the year.

Please note that UPL will be closed for the Christmas break from December 23rd and return on January 3rd.

A Merry Christmas to you all and a happy and healthy 2012.

The plans incorporate:

A new on site Distribution Centre, and

An extension to the main building that will have two distinct areas:-

• Additional Warehousing
• An Innovation Centre that would include NPD labs and ‘real life’ product testing areas (salon, spa, shave areas etc.)

Founder and managing director Mike Peters said “Manufacturing is vital for the future for the UK economy – Britain needs a manufacturing industry. I think we need to give people the choice to buy British and support employment here, rather than goods manufactured in Taiwan or China.”

“However, it’s very difficult for us to compete with the Far East on labour costs so our mantra is to be better – We bring better products to the market – and we are known for our innovation and smart products. But we want to get better all the time and that’s why we’ve applied for the new building.”