News

PennWhite’s Kev Simpkins and Matt Barton are both on-call fire fighters retained by the Congleton station in Cheshire. As well as their “day jobs” and fire-fighting duties, over the summer they both took on challenges to raise money for the Fire Fighters Charity, an organisation dedicated to the welfare of serving and retired fire fighters.

Kev took part in the Charity’s tenth annual National Car Wash that saw fire crews up and down the country washing thousands of cars and giving their drivers hard earned road safety advice. Over £8,750 was raised with Kev’s Congleton station bringing in £659, the highest of any taking part.

Choosing to keep a little dryer, Matt Completed the Fire Service Three Peaks Challenge, climbing the highest peaks in England, Scotland and Wales in 21hrs 37mins to achieve a creditable silver award. In less than a day Matt hiked 20 miles, climbed 3,000 meters and drove 500 miles to raise money for the Fire Fighters Charity.

Donations to this worthy organisation can be made at www.firefighterscharity.org.uk⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠

PennWhite is now a member of Sedex, the Supplier Ethical Data Exchange. This not for profit organisation is dedicated to driving improvement in responsible and ethical business practices throughout global supply chains.

At the heart of Sedex is an online database which allows members to store and share information regarding their business practices relating to labour standards, health & safety, the environment and ethics. Membership enables our customers to view a report on PennWhite’s performance in these areas as well as highlighting to us any areas in which we fall below best practice. In due course we will be undertaking Sedex audits and these too will be available online.

To view our initial Sedex assessment, you’ll need to join Sedex, this can be done via the Sedex website for a small annual fee.

Technical Director Mark Humphries and Production Manager Stephen Whitehead are currently in China helping to commission a specialist manufacturing facility that will produce PennWhite printing emulsions under licence.

The new partnership with Chinese company ABC Allied will help PennWhite’s printing products to establish a presence in growing “local” markets, many of which have traditionally been difficult for western companies to service. PennWhite products manufactured in China will only be sold in the Far East, PennWhite’s UK manufacturing plant will continue to manufacture products for sale in Europe and the West.

Stephen has already been impressed by the new Chinese facility, “By designing the production unit from the ground up we’ve been able to avoid the compromises that can occur when a facility develops over an extended period.” Mark is equally impressed and has reported that the Chinese production team are “very keen and will get to grips with our formulations very quickly once the plant is fully operational.” This is the first time PennWhite has licenced the manufacture of their products and is another significant step for the printing solutions division of the business.

Rabbi Kay from the Manchester Beth Din visited PennWhite on 15th May to perform his annual inspection of our Middlewich facilities. During his visit the Rabbi audited our raw material storage area, production unit and finished goods warehouse, as well as processes related to the manufacture of our Foamdoctor food-grade foam control agents.

Following his inspection he certified that 35 of our Foamdoctor antifoam and defoamer products are “Kosher and Parev” and conform to the Jewish laws of ritual purity.

This is our thirteenth year of Kosher certification and our new 2014-15 certifcate can be viewed by following the link below. This certificate lists the certified Foamdoctor products which can be shipped with a hechsher, more commonly known as a “Kosher symbol”, on their label.

Promoting the delivery of fibre-optic broadband to the North West of England is the core objective of the Connecting Cheshire project launched by four local councils and BT in 2013. The project aims to provide 96% of Cheshire homes and businesses with superfast connections when complete.

David Rutley, MP for Macclesfield is a vocal supporter of the project, particularly the connection of Cheshire’s many rural areas to the fibre-optic network. He recently remarked that “The service will make a real difference to people’s lives… and will allow local businesses to expand and be more competitive.”

PennWhite, itself based in Cheshire, supplies a unique cable lubricant to contractors installing superfast broadband across the UK. PennWhite’s PWL 9702A is a water based thixotropic lubricant developed to facilitate the installation of telecoms and fibre-optic cable in underground sub-ducts. Its high viscosity silicone polymers and perfectly spherical microspheres mean it is the only such product that satisfys BT’s MAT 138A specification. It’s nice to know our products are helping our local community via the Connecting Cheshire project.