The recent reassurance of British manufacturing, and the increased consumer demand for ‘Made in Britain’, is great to see but it is important that this growth does not happen at the expense of ethical working conditions and practices. I was somewhat concerned to read that  the University of Leicester has uncovered mass exploitation and employment law violations in the UK textile industry.

The report by the University of Leicester estimates that workers are being collectively denied roughly £1m in wages each week, and forced to complement their wages with welfare benefits. There were 11,700 employees in the sector in 2010. From this workforce 75-90% were being just paid £3 per hour. This is less than half of the legal minimum wage of £6.50 and far below the UK living wage of £7.85 per hour.

According to the report, the workers are predominantly women and largely from Indian, Pakistani and Bangladeshi migrant communities or from eastern Europe. In short, people that have few alternatives.

If true, this report is damming and serves to undermine the current renaissance of British manufacturing across all sectors. In the 70’s & 80’s the poor quality of the output from the Layland automotive factories affected the reputation of British manufacturing, both nationally and globally. This is a reputation that, arguably, has taken 30 years to shake off.

My concern is that if a small number of British manufacturers show signs of being disreputable that will ultimately affect the reputation of the UK manufacturing sector as a whole. British manufacturing, no matter what the sector, needs to be a brotherhood that upholds its standards for mutual benefit.

Of course there are unethical people in all sectors of business but it would be a crying shame if a few bad apples spoilt the whole bunch.

See the Guardian article here>>>

– James

A little over a week ago we wrote an open letter to John Lewis asking if they fulfilled a promise given two years ago about the amount of British made goods they intend on stocking before 2015. We have now received a response, and it makes for very pleasant reading.

Here is the letter is full:

Thank you for your letter to Andy Street, Managing Director John Lewis, about John Lewis’s support of UK manufacturing, which has been passed to me to respond to as I am responsible for Sustainability and Responsible Sourcing at John Lewis. Firstly, having seen your website, let me say how impressed I am by your family’s decision to live a year on only British goods. I imagine it is proving a challenge, but nevertheless fulfilling.

I can confirm that we continue to make very good progress and have exceeded our pledge to increase sales of UK products by at least 15% by end 2015 on a 2011 baseline. We have reported on our progress in our annual CSR report each year since. Our customers are increasingly looking to buy more products from the UK too, which helps John Lewis to further drive our commitment to source more products from the UK.

For our financial year ending January 2014, we achieved sales of UK sourced products of £588m, a 31% increase on the 2011 baseline. We will publish 2014/15 results on 12 March 2015. These sales have come from products sourced from 215 UK factories across almost all products categories we sell: luggage, shoes, gifts and accessories, carpets and soft furnishings, beds, sofas, furniture and homewares. One significant change since 2011, is the inclusion of clothing in the list of products we are buying from the UK. Increasingly, as costs rise in the Far East, more garment manufacturing is relocating back to Europe and the UK and, I am pleased to report we sell a small range of schoolwear, menswear and womenswear made in the UK.

John Lewis owns and operates a textile production unit in the north of England, which produces our own-brand duvets, pillows, furnishing fabrics and ready-made curtains, and provides our made-to-measure curtain service.

Consequently, we believe we have a good understanding of the issues and challenges facing UK manufacturers and that we are uniquely placed to add our support. For this reason, we set ourselves the target we did to increase sales of UK products by at least 15% by end 2015 on a 2011 baseline.

I hope my response reassures you that John Lewis remains committed to supporting UK manufacturing and that we are taking practical steps to increase that support where we can.

It seems that John Lewis are not only delivering on their promise to stock more British good but are actually exceeding it!. This seems to be driven by a consumer demand for items made in the UK, which is exactly what needs to happen. It must be said that we have anecdotally seen an increased in the amount of British made goods over the last two years and the figures appear to confirm that.

It would be interesting to write to the other high street stores that have made promises to stock more Britishwares over the last two years (namely Topshop, Marks & Spenser, Debenhams) and see if they have equally fulfilled their commitment.

All that is really left to be said is “well done John Lewis and keep up the good work!”.

– James & Emily

Last week we launched our range of made in Britain logos for manufacturers to download for free. We stuck them on our website, without much fanfare, hoping that one or two businesses might find them useful. Since last Wednesday these resources have been downloaded 421 times (so far)!

As you can imagine, we are overwhelmed by the response from industry and the obvious need this logo fulfils. It is clear that the message is getting through… it is a good idea to clearly mark your products as made in Britain.

We have started seeing a small number of websites that now carry the logo but we are really looking forward to seeing it on packaging. I am sure that the first product we get shown proudly displaying the marque will be worthy  of a blog post on this very site.

– James & Emily Bradshaw

If you are a British manufacturer please spread the word of these resources being available through social media, your website/blog or even just call your friends. 

The made in Britain logo resources can be downloaded here>>>

Today I had the pleasure of being invited to tour the workshop of Robert Loomes, one of Britains few remaining watch makers… and what a treat it was!

The Georgian sand stone town houses of Stamford feel a rather apt setting for the work undertaken by Robert and his team of highly skilled watch makers. Indeed, crossing the threshold you immediately  leave the modern world behind and seemingly step into the pages of David Copperfield. Moving up the tight staircase and ducking under low-hanging doorways we start at the top of the building. In the two attic rooms are a couple of guys hunched over antique clock faces currently undergoing expert restoration. As well as making top quality watches Robert Loomes also restore all manner of timepieces for clients including many of the UK’s top collectors and museums. However the top floor is also where they house a kiln to enamel their own watch faces. Robert Looms are currently  the only watch maker in the country to still undertake this processes, and you can see why. Starting with a copper base plate they hand grind the enamel and sieve the powder over the top. This is then fired before a decal with the numerals is applied to the hardened white surface. The face is then fired once more. The issues here is that there is such a high failure rate in this process that the table is littered with dials that have failed to achieve the quality demanded.

Moving down the building we enter a room crammed with copper and brass clock movements and the office of Robert himself. Robert is the chief designer of the business. His vision is to create the his own, 100% made in Britain, watch movement. Already, years in development his walls are lined with technical schematics of individual watch parts. He proudly explains that, having been told by other watch makers that making a totally British made movement was impossible, he is getting very close to proving many people wrong.

That is not to say that his current movements are not made in the UK. Robert explains that he was lucky enough to have procured some 1950’s Smiths movements a few years ago. He currently modifies these Coventry made movements for his current range of watches.

We continue the tour, past the ground floor, on which the reception area sits, to the bowels of the building. Suddenly, we are back in the 21th century again. This is where Robert Loomes make their British made watches and what I have been looking forward to seeing. Mixing modern technology with traditional techniques you finally get the sense here that this is a thriving, forward thinking  business.

Here another pair of guys are busily beavering away getting a set of watches ready to be taken to the top of Everest. These special edition watches will be carried up to the summit by the Royal Gurkha Regiment as a part of their 200th anniversary of service with the British army. Robert adds that these watches, apart from the addition of specialist oils, are exactly the same mechanically as the ones they usually sell. Being able to deal with these extremes of temperature and pressure must be testament to their hardiness and quality.

It is clear that, while Robert Loomes is a businesses in love with tradition it is also keen to look to the future. Robert himself is committed to British manufacturing and it is great to meet someone for which this is a real passion.

Robert Loomes watches range in price between £5000 – £20,000 and are made in limited edition of between 5-100 pieces.

– James

Andy Street – MD of John Lewis

Dear Mr Street,

As loyal customers of John Lewis and campaigners for British manufacturing we were heartened to read in the press during the Summer of 2013 of your commitment to supporting the British manufacturing sector.  At that time you mentioned that you intended to ‘increase sales of UK products by at least 15% by 2015 to £550m, amounting to more than 12% of annual revenues’.  It was also noted that of the 350,000 products on sale across John Lewis in 2013 only 10,500 were made in Britain.

Two years have now passed since you made this promise and, while we have admittedly seen some increase in the amount of British made goods stocked in store, we thought it would be interested to assess if your original targets have been met.

We would be grateful of you could give us some hard data on the number of items John Lewis now stock that are available in store and online that are made in Britain and what percentage of John Lewis’ annual revenue sales were as a result of items made in the UK over the last 12 months?

In the last 2 years we have seen similar commitments being made by large retailers such as Topman, Debenhams and Marks & Spencers. In the case of these 3 examples the resultant action, to back up the press coverage achieved by their announcements, ultimately failed to materialise in any significant form. It is indeed clear to us that John Lewis has made a far greater effort than the above to increase their British made stock since 2013 but we would like to see if you managed to meet the targets you set yourself.

If you fell short of your promises then perhaps you could offer an explanation as to why this might have happened and what your ongoing commitments to supporting British manufacturers are moving forward? If you met, or indeed exceeded, your commitments then you should be duly commended and the public made aware of your achievements.

We hope to hear from you shortly.

Yours Sincerely,

James, Emily & Lucan Bradshaw

We will keep our readers informed of any response we get!

Here is a link to one of the articles in the Telegraph talking a John Lewis is other retailers commitment to made in Britain from July 2013. 

Made In Britain Logos FREE DOWNLOAD

If you are British manufacturer then we have designed a FREE made in Britain logo for you to download. In fact the following download is not just one logo but contains a number of variations to allow for any type of application.

The logo has been created for you to use as a means of offering assurance to consumers, clarity when exporting and ultimately increasing your sales. The made in Britain logo is offered with a free to use personal and business licence. What is more, you can be sure that we will NEVER charge for it’s use.

 Please complete the form below to download the Made in Britain logo resource file>>>

Do us a favour: All we ask is that you subscribe to our blog so we can keep you up to date with our campaign (click here). We would also ask you to spread the word of these resources being freely available. Email your manufacturing colleagues and share this page on social media using the links at the top of this page. 

Why we are offering this Made in Britain Logo:
Can you believe that there are still British manufacturers that are not clearly marking their products, packaging, websites that they make their stuff in the UK? By offering this logo free of charge you now have no excuse but to take advantage of this fantastic USP. Our campaign is about creating a sustainable UK manufacturing sector  and the first critical stage of that is ensuring that British made products are clearly identifiable.

How to use the made in Britain Logo:
We believe that the logo we are offering provides, above all others, the clearest possible message when identifying British made products. We advise you to place this logo in a prominent location on all of your marketing resources.

There is no clear framework defining what made in Britain means but when using the logo you must adhere to the Trade Descriptions Act 1968 which says that the majority of production/manufacturing process must have taken place in the UK. When using the logo, especially on websites, make sure that the logo can only be attributed to products made in the UK.

We ask that you do not alter the files in any way. If there is another version you would like please get in touch and we may be in a position to crate it for you, and for the benefit of other manufacturers.

The downloadable ZIP file contains: 

– Large full colour square Made in Britain square logo to be used on any colour background (high resolution PNG)
– Large full colour Made Britain long logo to be used on any colour background (high resolution PNG file)
– Large monochrome square Made in Britain long logo to be used on any colour background (high resolution PNG)
– Large monochrome Made Britain long logo to be used on any colour background (high resolution PNG)
– Small web sized square full colour Made in Britain logo 300pxX300px (PNG file)
– Small web sized long full colour Made in Britain logo 146pxX300px (PNG file)
– Small web sized monochrome Made in Britain logo 300pxX300px (PNG file)
– Small web sized long monochrome Made in Britain logo 146pxX300px (PNG file)

FEEDBACK: If you need anything additional to any of the supplied files or require the made in Britain logo resources in an alternative file type please contact us.