A report by the Boston Consulting Group (BCG) recently revealed that the UK is now the cheapest place to manufacture in western Europe.

The BCG found that not only was the U.K. the cheapest location in western Europe but that eastern European costs were on a par with the U.S. Brazil is now one of the highest-cost nations, while Mexico has lower costs than China. 

A spokesman for the BCG states “Many companies are making manufacturing investment decisions on the basis of a decades-old worldwide view that is sorely out of date,” he said. “They still see North America and western Europe as high cost and Latin America, eastern Europe, and most of Asia – especially China – as low cost.” This is certainly not the case any more.

This news is obviously a great headline for British manufacturing but producing your goods in the UK should not just be a cost decision. Increased quality control and a better supply chain should also form the basis for any manufacturing businesses reason for producing in Britain. There is perhaps one more reason too –  supporting your local economy and giving your community jobs. For those that have continued to manufacture in the UK over the past 30 years this has been a real consideration, and those businesses should be saluted.

The recent resurgence of the re-shoring of manufacturing to the UK is fantastic, likely driven by the lowering costs this report mentions. While we are keen to welcome these businesses back to Britain it is important that they make a renewed commitment to Britain in the long-term and not just while the going is good.

Hopefully this time they will be back for good (hence the tenuous link to the featured image)

– James

We have been wrangling with the Charity Commission since January but we can now confirm that we are a charity. Registered Charity Number 1157235.

Our aim is to use our fayre (www.britishfamilyfayre.co.uk) and other activities to raise funds which will allow us to help a number of young people each year to pursue education and entrepreneurship that will allow them to ‘make it’ in Britain. With the rise of manufacturing in the UK there are already serious concerns that there is a lack of skilled labour. Hopefully we can do our little bit to sort this out.

What can you do you support our new charity? Simple, come to the British Family Fayre 2014!

Businesses – please support us by taking a workshop at the fayre.

Joe public – travel, by whatever means, to join us for a great day of celebration… and bring your family!

More information about the British Family Foundation is here: www.britishfamilyfoundation.org

The iconic British designed and made lava-lamp defined a generation and is now celebrating it’s 50th birthday. I would like to guarantee that there is not a single person reading this post that has not owned at least one.

Here is how they are made:

I just had an unfortunate meeting with Micheal Fallon MP, who is not only the member of parliament for Sevenoaks (our local council) but also Minister of State for Business. I thought, logically, that he might be interested in what is going on with our fayre (the biggest in the region), our charity (helping young people in British manufacturing) and our work with the Made in Britain Mark…. It would seem I was quite wrong.

This is a difficult post to write because we always want to be positive and we also try to avoid the debate about politics. This said, I feel moved to vent my frustrations following our rather brief exchange. I was not sure what I had hoped to get out of meeting Mr Fallon but I certainly had not been prepared to be presented with someone who I found extremely impolite and more than a little patronising. There is really no way to sugar this pill… he seemed to feel the need to belittle and undermine our efforts from the start.

I tried to explain what we were trying to do with the fayre and the charity, and also tried to get his view on the Made in Britain marque. All points were met with disinterest and an air of arrogance. It got to the point where I quickly felt that I was wasting my time and, as politely as possible, said my goodbyes.

Mr Fallon has been the Conservative representative for Sevenoaks since 1997. I can only assume that those that vote for him year on year have never actually met him. Needless to say I feel that he is going to be as useful as a chocolate fire guard in our efforts to promote British Industry.

In a couple of weeks, as part of the board for the Made in Britain marque, I am meeting Ian Wright MP who is labour’s shadow minister for industry. I will report back as to whether I have a little more faith in this guy than Mr Fallon.

– James

Is your PC or laptop at home or work made in Britain? Chances are that it is not. Indeed many believe that such things are not actually made in the UK, but you would be wrong. There are loads of companies that build great quality computers in the UK and they are often far cheaper than those we import. In a recent survey, undertaken by PC manufacturer Novatech, they concluded that 41% of the SME businesses they asked would be willing to buy British…. that is if they knew of any companies that made them here.

Novatech Founder and Managing Director, David Furby, said: “There’s very little technical difference between a global brand’s PC and a British-built PC – we all use the same high quality components – so if you took them apart they’d look almost identical inside.”

This is all well and good but you can read this statistic in two ways:

1 – Only 41% of business would be ‘happy’ with a PC made in the UK, or;
2 – There is 41% of the UK SME market willing to buy British but don’t know the companies that make them.

Being a glass-half-full kinda girl, if I owned a UK computer business, I would look at these results as a major opportunity. The problem is they do not seem to help themselves. Go to any UK computer manufacturers website, including Novatech, and see if you can find any mention of being made in Britain. Not even a Union Flag in sight.

– Emily

Here is a video which will tell you more about Novatech:

The British Hops Association have suggested that there has been a 100% rise in the price of US grown hops in the wake of the recent trend for craft beers. The aromas provided by American hops are apparently highly prized by UK craft beer makers and this, combined with an increased interest domestically, is likely to result in shortages in the coming years.

The BHA is, quite rightly, calling for UK breweries to not forget about their own hop growers and asking them to buy British. Living in Kent, a famous centre for hop production, it seems illogical that we would import such a readily available crop from the States. However, even in the UK the 2014 hop crop is reported to already have been ‘sold out’. So, does this mean that the pumps may soon run dry? I very much hope not.

It would seem our demand for good beer is driving a farming sector that was once reputedly on the verge of dying out. This must be a good thing. I also hope that we start seeing some more hop crops growing around the UK to meet this demand. They do look stunning.

– James

Lucan was extremely excited when he got home this Friday as there was a squidgy purple parcel waiting for him on the doorstep. It is not often that a 3 year old gets post and so it could have been almost anything inside and he would have been thrilled.

Luckily not only was he excited by the outside he was almost beside himself with what was inside. A new pair of dungarees and not just any old dungarees, some dungarees from Wild Things. He was instantly taken by the great simple shark design and insisted on wearing them there and then. The great face on the front was topped off with a super soft fin on the back to give a great overall effect. This is a new design so isn’t on the website yet but it will be there soon. There are also some great girls wear too as well as tents for playtime.

From a mum perspective the dungarees were great quality corduroy fabric and clearly made to last the toil that they will no doubt get over the coming months.

Lucan was almost literally wrestled out of his dungarees tonight to get into the bath so I think I can say these will be a firm favourite for as long as he can squeeze them on.

Check out Wild Things at www.wildthingsdresses.com perfect for a present or just a treat they are great fun and let kids be kids in their clothes.

– Emily

We were offered a few weeks ago the chance to review a new product to the B&Q garden line up, the EasyGrow technology. I must say here that B&Q kindly donated the plants for this review via a £10 gift card. It would seem that we are easily bought. The EasyGrow website states that the purpose of the new technology, which will replace all polystyrene packaging from now on for their bedding plants, is to reduce peat usage and also to reduce the amount of polystyrene going to landfill. Both of these sound like a pretty good idea to me and I am happy to admit that I have done battle with more than a few polystyrene trays in my time. However, the point which is more pertinent to me was that they now are supporting local plant growers and all the plants we bought (and the vast majority that we found in store) were grown in the UK. This has to be a good thing and hopefully one which might one day make it onto the front of the tray rather than the back!

I was really pretty impressed with the ‘teabag technology’. Lucan, being only 3, is not the gentlest pair of hands with plants and yet even with his rough handling, the ‘teabags’ came out the green trays with ease and into the holes he made all by himself. It has to be said he was really very chuffed with himself and managed 2 or 3 completely unaided, something which really is testament to how easy the system really is. This was great on many levels but more than anything getting him involved and interested in gardening and looking after plants is something that is important to me.

Once all the plants were planted there is one bonus which is that, while you can recycle the green trays, you can also use them as seed trays to propagate the next round of seeds. This is exactly what I have done and I am looking forward to my tomato seeds getting going in their new green home.

All in all the technology of the biodegradable teabag style outer for the plants works well and seems to make gardening easy enough to make it childs-play. The proof will be rather in the flowering and hopefully the front of our house will be awash with begonias and verbenas in the not to distant future.

– Emily

Saturday 3rd May has been in the diary for a while and was a day that we were really looking forward to. It has, I am glad to say, not disappointed at all. We have spent a super day at Munchies on the Meadow 2014 in Cobham, Kent. We were invited last year to open the very first Munchies on the Meadow and had a great day. So, we were really excited when we were invited back for a second year and this time they very generously donated a stall for us to start raising funds, and awareness, for our charity the British Family Foundation. The weather was exceptional, and a year of hard work and dedication by the organisers made for a slick and fantastically attended event.

There were many of our old friends at the event: Kent Chilli Farm, Howards of Kent, Nelsons Brewery, Kent Crisps and Simply Ice Cream. There were also lots of new friends to be made as there were lots more stalls than last year. 

As part of our stall we ran a raffle to raise money to begin our charity work. We are pleased to announce the winners of our raffle were:

1st Prize – Mr Wells
2nd Prize – Ben Keelan
3rd Prize – Amy Taylor

We will contact everyone via the details they gave us and hope to have their prizes with them as soon as possible.

All in all it was a really great day and despite not winning the Munchies Bake Off (my attempt was terrible, having been forgotten while watching Masterchef) we had a great time meeting people nd getting some fantistic feedback about our plans for the foundation.

Thank you to everyone we met who were so supportive of the charity and we look forward to coming back to Munchies on the Meadow 2015!

– Emily