Kendal Business Is The Cream of the Crop
World-class pharmaceutical research company, Kendal Nutricare, and its CEO, Ross McMahon, have both scooped prestigious awards during the last week of March, earning more third party endorsement for product innovation, export success and a commitment to Kendal and the Kendal-based workforce.
Kendal Nutricare has been the named the North West regional winner of the FSB & Worldpay UK Business Awards’ ‘Export Award’ and is now waiting to hear whether it will be one of the four regional winners in this category to go forward to the national final on May 10, to compete for the national title and prize.
Ross McMahon has also been named the Institute of Directors’ North West Start-Up Director of the Year, at a ceremony held at the Midland Hotel, in Manchester. The IOD North West Awards celebrate the best of the best across British businesses, and those directors that are at the forefront of leadership excellence.
Both accolades are well-deserved for a business that has turned around the fortunes of a long-established Kendal factory that had experienced five years of redundancies whilst under its former ownership.
When Kendal Nutricare took over the H J Heinz factory on Mint Bridge Road in Kendal in June 2015, it saved 88 jobs and started to implement a programme of innovation that would give a new attack brand, ‘Kendamil’, a unique selling point within both export and UK markets.
‘Kendamil’ has become not just the only infant formula to be manufactured in Britain, but the only one that uses a full cream recipe, rather than a skimmed milk formula. It is already sold in over 6000 mother and baby stores in China and is now breaking into markets in the Middle East, South East Asia, South America and North Africa.
Its success has laid the foundations for the launch of another specialist product, aimed at a different target market and stage of the life cycle. The nutritionally balanced, superfruit smoothie – Kendalife – will be an adult nutrition drink shaking up the market in late spring 2017.
The result of Kendal Nutricare’s success has been significant job creation. There are now 118 people employed by the company and numbers are set to rise, as the factory’s capacity increases.
Ross McMahon says: “We are delighted with the number of accolades we are winning, as this demonstrates that leading business figures are looking at our activities and results and adjudging them to be outstanding. That raises morale within the factory significantly and keeps us focused on innovation, excellence and export, and our ambition of extending our reach here in the UK, where we shall have some significant news to break soon.
“These two news awards make it a tally of four within the last six months and we have also been a runner-up for two national business awards and one regional award. We are tremendously proud of this record of success, especially as we have been established for less than two years.”