Airedale Group: Inside the Yorkshire chemicals family firm helping to make the nation’s soft drinks, cider and shampoo

The company, which operates from a four-acre site in the village of Cross Hills between Skipton and Keighley, began life in 1973 when founder Brian Chadwick began trading dyes to the local textile industry.

Five decades on, the firm is now in its third generation of ownership by the Chadwick family. It now employs around 120 people and made sales of almost £140m last year alone as it serves a vast array of customers across different industries - playing a key part in the production of everyday items from disinfectant all the way through to cider.

This year has seen some major changes for the company, with the business reorganised into one united brand with five divisions; while Chris Chadwick has moved from the managing director role to become executive chairman with a focus on business development and strategic direction.

His replacement as MD is Richard Ward, who had previously worked for chemical distribution giant Brenntag before initially joining Airedale as business director last November.

Ward, who took over as MD in August, smiles when asked what has changed with his new role.

“The buck stops with me with everything now,” he says. “I’ve had the luxury of nine or 10 months to get to know the business before stepping into the new role.

“It is an exciting time for us, it really is. There’s lots going on and lots of investment in the site in terms of people, assets and equipment.”

Among those investments is a new £1.5m automated small pack filling operation which is in the process of being commissioned and has the potential to fill 480 products an hour.

Operations director Dan Fox says the technology will free up staff for other roles - with its introduction meaning that instead of five people manually labelling and filling products, just two will be required; one to feed units in and the other to take them off at the other end.

Ward adds: “We are a growing business and have got lots of other projects and operations where we haven’t got enough people. This enables us to redeploy to other areas where they can add value for different products and different processes.”

Ward says the change earlier this year to bring the firm’s different operations under the single Airedale Group banner is part of associated efforts to grow the size of the business.

“It allows us to market our business in a much clearer way to suppliers which is important because we want suppliers and manufacturers to choose us as their route to market in the UK. It also enables us to focus more closely on some of the growth markets that we are looking at, particularly food and beverage and life sciences.”

He adds: “The market is very fragmented with lots of suppliers and our ethos is around customer service and being able to support customers through different stages in their own development. We see a bit of an opportunity to offer that to more customers. We have expanded our product range in both areas. On the food and beverage side we are quite strong on acidulants going into soft drinks and alcoholic drinks and we have grown more into sweeteners and colours.

“There is a lot of product development that goes on - every day when you go into the supermarket you see a new product on the market on the shelf. We are actively involved with some key soft and alcoholic drink producers in helping them formulate these new products.

“In life sciences, we have actually got agreements now from manufacturers of ingredients for shampoos and cleaning products and cosmetics who want to service the UK market through us.”

The pair are cautious about discussing who their exact customers are but Ward says that “many of the UK-based cider manufacturers” are among those who use their products.

“We produce key ingredients to give cider its distinctive taste,” he explains.

Among the manufacturers they do work with is South African firm Isegen, which makes malic acid used in both soft and alcoholic drinks.

Ward says their broader approach is based around people. “This is a partnership with customers. We are not a huge corporate organisation and have a very personal approach to our customers and to our suppliers to the extent that every single board member has our own customers and suppliers we look after directly. It is a very personal, relationship-driven business.”

Fox says that same approach applies to the firm’s staff, with many employees hired following word of mouth recommendations by existing staff members.

The firm also engages with local schools to show career opportunities available in their industry.

Ward says: “It is amazing how kids’ eyes widen when they see some of the basic experiments where we show them what chemistry is all about.”

The pair say there have been recruitment challenges due to issues like Brexit and Covid contributing to shortages in areas such as logistics and fierce competition from supermarkets and delivery firms for drivers.

Fox says: “There is a nationwide problem and Brexit caused that to become more acute because a lot of European drivers went home.

“We had to react on salaries during Covid but we didn’t overreact. There was nobody threatening to leave but we made sure our drivers weren’t losing out.”

Ward adds: “It is not just about headline pay, it is about the conditions, the culture, the quality of the organisation, the security of the role and the other benefits. We are a people business.”

Earlier this year the firm purchased McCann Chemicals, its third acquisition since 2015.

Ward says: “We want to continue to be the preferred supplier of choice for our customers and also the route to market of choice for our suppliers.

“I see our business doubling in size over the course of the next five years-plus. But we will only do that at a pace we can manage both financially and from a management perspective as well.

“We’re ambitious but quite cautious in our approach to how far and how deep we commit.”