Quality treats

I've been in the food industry for 30 years, but the first 17 of those were in the fish sector. It was big change going from fish to bakery, I can tell you. For a start it is warmer and you smell better!

I was at the cake maker Lightbody of Hamilton for 10 years before joining Border Biscuits. When I joined Lightbody it was a £10M business and when I left it as part of Finsbury Foods it was a £72M business. So that was a sleigh ride and a half, but it was a fantastic experience. For the first eight years I was the operations director and for the last two years I was the md.

I was attracted to this position because I'd always liked what owner and md John Cunningham was doing here, so I was thrilled to come in and help him run the business. I like the ethics of the business and the overriding commitment to put quality first.

John started the business almost 30 years ago. It grew from very small and humble beginnings  ̶  with only one or two bits of kit that had been rescued from a fire sale.

We've always been in Lanark and grown step by step. It has never been our ambition to be the fastest growing company  ̶  and I have worked for one or two where it was, so I know what that is like  ̶  but here we are determined to build on quality first and foremost.

Life for Border Biscuits started with the production of Viennese whirls, then the dark chocolate ginger was launched in the mid-1990s. That is our biggest seller. In 2010 we sold 17M of them. Last year that had grown to 24M. Sadly, I don't know how far they would stretch out if you laid them in a line!

The Deliciously Different range, which is based on desserts, came out about four years ago. We also have the Outrageously Tasty range and the newest baby is our range of shortbreads, which have real fruit in them. They will be going into the multiples later this year. We've been working on these for a long time. If we are not convinced something is not the absolute best we can do, then it doesn't go out. I have seen us delay launches if things aren't tickety-boo.

We've got over 30 products in the range now, which we supply to all of the major UK multiples, as well as having strong wholesale trade. At the moment, about 10% of our output is exported.

Successful strategy​

We have enjoyed steady growth over the last few years but, like everybody else, we were hit by the recession so we had to get around the table and think about what we were going to do in terms of a strategy.

We had to make some tough and swift decisions.

In the past, promotions weren't a big part of our strategy, but now they are a major factor in our business life. That changes your whole business strategy because it affects all of your dynamics and you have to fall in line with that.

We also made a major investment three years ago in our automated line, which went live two years ago. Everything we had done up to that point had been batch baked, which is traditionally how you made biscuits. This was a huge change for this company, as well as being a big investment.

It is a great piece of kit, but it does take a lot of learning. It was a huge culture shock. When you are used to baking and depositing, and putting it into the rack and cooling, this is very different set up. It is going to make 450 biscuits a minute regardless of where you are, even if you are on a tea break. You also have to treat it as a single entity, even though it is very long. You can't look at it and say there is the mixing bit, the baking bit and the packing bit, because it is continuous.

It has really enabled us to increase volumes significantly. The main product we wanted to run on it was the dark chocolate gingers, because we make so many of them.

The line has also enabled us to use some techniques that we couldn't do successfully in batch baking because it offered up different kinds of bake profiles.

We still have a very typical batch process for much of what we do, though, with a weigh-off section, and mixing area, before the product goes into a range of moulders or formers. It'll then be deposited onto baking trays, then onto racks and then into one of our rack ovens.

Because we have a wide range of products, it can throw up some quite tricky technical issues. For example, some of our products have quite large pieces of fruit in, which we have to make sure we don't scorch, while still ensuring we get a decent length of bake time for the biscuit.

Once they've cooled they'll go into the packing area, and we have a range of packing options from gift packs, flow-wrap, mini-wrap and cartons.

Straight line speed​

The automated line is a completely different process. All our different moulding operations can be slotted on to that line. The biscuits go on the oven band and straight into a tunnel oven. If we had a long enough factory, the line would be in a straight line, which would be lovely, but I don't have a long enough factory.

We are building an extension, which will enable us to straighten a good section of it. The fewer transfer points you've got, the fewer the biscuits are going to come out of alignment. While that's not key all the time, it is important if you are enrobing the biscuit in chocolate because they will stick together. On the automated line, the product doesn't come off until it is in the pack.

Not all our products will work on the line. We have eight products on it already and there'll be another eight by the end of 2013. Sadly, it isn't as simple as saying here is the batch recipe, crack on. Everything has to be looked at, including the recipe sometimes, because the moulding is different and the bake profile is entirely different.

 It is much more controllable than a rack oven, but you do have to look very closely at your bake profiles. Every time we look at a product transfer, you have to look at every single stage, and you don't know if there's going to be a problem until you try it. We thought one of our products would be very easy, but it wouldn't go over the transfer plate without building up sugars throughout the course of the day. In a previous life, I've seen it take up to a year to get something to work right.

In addition to the new strategy and automation, we've been working very hard to make sure our values of quality, excellence, success and community are at the heart of what we do here. 10% of our profits go into a Border Community Enterprise, which is really unusual. We support many local projects where our employees will go on paid days to take part in initiatives, such as working with disabled adults to build a garden.

All of our hard work was recognised when we were named Biscuit Company of the Year at the Food Manufacturing Excellence Awards last November. It was a great shock and a wonderful honour that sent a buzz right through the business.

Listen to our exclusive podcast interview with Scott to discover how winning the Food Manufacturing Excellence Award sent a buzz through the business.​

Factory facts​

ADDRESS: South Faulds Road. Lanark, Scotland

STAFF: 110  ̶  a number that doubles at peak times

SIZE: 5,000m2

PRODUCTS: More than 30 types of biscuits

OUTPUT: 2,200t

CUSTOMERS: All the UK major multiples

TURNOVER: £11.5M

OPERATING HOURS: 5am ̶ 10pm Monday to Friday and some Saturdays when required

Personal​

NAME: Dee Scott

Age: 50

TITLE: Chief operating officer

CAREER HIGHLIGHTS: "Taking part in the Africa Matters project last year where we went to Kenya and trained community and conservation leaders. It was such a rewarding and humbling experience."​

DOMESTICS: I have a son, who is 13.

OUTSIDE WORK: "I am part of a yacht racing team."​