Excellence award for Charles Bentley & Son
LOUGHBOROUGH’S brushware and homeware specialist Charles Bentley & Son cleaned up at the Family Business Awards by taking home the award for Manufacturing Excellence, and receiving a highly commended in the Family Business of the Year category.
The Family Business Awards recognise the work, success, innovations and achievements of family businesses.
The Loughborough-based company is 159 years old and is in the sixth generation of ownership by the Bentley family, with six family members currently serving on the company Board.
Charles Bentley & Son has achieved five per cent growth in the last two financial years and has recently developed a new plastic-free collection in partnership with the Marine Conservation Society.
The company manufactures more than two million brushes annually at its Loughborough base, and also imports home and leisure products.
Its customers include big name retailers such as Aldi, Tesco, Dunelm, Next and Wilkos and they also have a partnership with the National Trust.
Charles Bentley, managing director said: “This award is really the culmination of the last two years of hard work. Although we are a family business, we recognise that the wider team – some 145 people - all have a part to play in the company’s success, and this award is a tribute to each and every one of them.”
“As a Midlands manufacturing company, the family ethos is core to our business, and we pride ourselves on our quality products, both the ones we manufacture and those we import – we don’t sell anything we aren’t proud to put our name to.”
The company, which originally made chimney sweeping brushes, employs 145 people after offering permanent contracts to 25 new operatives in the warehouse on Monarch Way in Loughborough.