The company
Seabrook Crisps are a major northern supplier of crisps to trade & direct customers nationwide, and are implementing ambitious plans to further expand their valued brand across the country.
The issues
The highly competitive crisp & snacks market was placing pressure on staff and management to enhance productivity and maintain high levels of focus on costs. They recognised that certain areas of cost management were taking undue management time and there was a need for deeper expertise. Back in 2004, they engaged Beaconplus to plug this gap.
What we did
Initially engaged to address a mobile phone cost issue the brief quickly extended to organising car kit installations, ordering new handsets and providing valued advice on developments of the more ‘leading edge’ devices.
We identified errors in the charging of a new electricity supply, recovering £2,700 and ensuring an annual saving of some £1,600.
We investigated and corrected historical gas charges and recovered £24,400, with ongoing monthly savings of around £1,500.
We queried unnecessary energy charges of £3,500 at one site and found that an unused storage facility was still being heated.
We implemented new arrangements for call charges & fixed line rental cost and sourced a maintenance provider for their ‘state of the art’ telephone system.
We proactively proposed and are progressing an option to reduce water costs by installing a borehole, representing an extremely significant cost saving to their manufacturing operations.
The result
We have saved Seabrook Crisps some £95,000 over the past two and a half years and become a trusted advisor to the company.
We now manage all telecoms and utility costs, reviewing all invoices on a monthly basis. We are also called upon from time to time to provide ad-hoc advice and input to the company’s improvement projects.
