Rich’s Products Ltd, the UK arm of a global food products company, has invested in a new state-of-the-art production site in Andover.

 

The company is based in Fareham and supplies a range of food, including breads, pastries, cakes, pasta, pizzas and seafood.

 

This new investment is intended to turn their fortunes around after “challenging conditions” in the 2016-17 year reduced its pre-tax profits by 62.9%, from £2.9m to £1.1m. 

 

The company also suffered from "exceptional price increases" in dairy products and the collapse of grocery wholesaler Palmer & Harvey in November, and they are beginning new distribution contracts to help mitigate this risk going forwards.

 

David Hunt, managing director for UK and EME at Rich Products Corporation, said:

"Significantly, we are also making strategic investment in the business by building a new state-of-the-art production site in Andover to allow for future expansion and efficient ways of operating.

 

“The new site, set to open by the end of the year, represents a multi-million-pound investment and heralds our commitment to long-term expansion and technological advancement.

 

"Featuring state-of-the-art technology and exceptional working conditions, this an ambitious project that represents our long-term future commitment to the UK. With plans for the next five, ten and twenty years, the new facility will increase production and business efficiency as we enter a new phase of growth."

 

 

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Moving to into a new production site is the perfect time to take stock of how you measure attendance. Is it an efficient and accurate system? 

 

(If you’re still using paper timesheets, please be aware that those are neither efficient nor accurate)

 

Here at Time and Attendance South East, we can offer you a wide range of products, both hardware and software, which could improve or replace your existing systems. 

 

How about our clocking terminal? All you have to do is hold your smartcard in front of the reader and it recognises you and clocks you in or out, thanks to the radio frequency technology. 

 

Since you don’t have to touch or swipe the card against a surface, there is very little wear and tear, or problems caused by dust accumulation. It even works through a wallet. The cards have a theoretically infinite lifespan, because they don’t need batteries, and they have a durable plastic shell which is easy to wipe clean. We can provide a blue food hygiene version. 

 

The clocking terminal has more functions, such as checking your holiday allowance or flexitime hours, or booking onto a particular job. One very useful feature for management is that the terminal can send details of who has clocked in or out to a printer as part of a fire drill, meaning that there’s no more need for inaccurate and insecure paper registers.