Winning ways (From St Helens Star)

Winning ways at Aimia Foods

2:37pm Thursday 25th October 2012 in News By Stephen Mather, Senior reporter

ANOTHER St Helens company is helping turn the tide of economic doom and gloom.

Haydock-based Aimia Foods fought off tough competition from more than 100 manufacturers in the UK, including Siemens and Sony to take four of the 12 prestigious awards on offer at the Best Factory Awards.

It was named the Best Factory, Best Small Medium Enterprise, Best Household and General Products Plant and Best People Management at the Best Factory Awards.

Rob Unsworth, Managing Director at Aimia Foods said: “We’ve worked extremely hard with new investments, state of the art management systems and a constant focus on innovation for several years. To win the top BFA award for best factory plus three category awards is an enormous accolade and a credit to our very talented and hardworking team.”

The Haydock factory, which makes and markets hot and cold beverage brands such as Galaxy Hot Chocolate, WeightWatchers Hot Chocolate, No Fear Energy Drink and Café Nueva, employs over 250 people over three sites.

Rob Unsworth says it’s all about the people “We truly believe in recruiting and retaining the best talent possible and investing significantly in training and development. That is the key to our success.”

Aimia’s achievements were applauded by St Helens Council which praised their “inspiring management” and “market-leading innovation”.

Councillor Barrie Grunewald, Deputy Leader and Cabinet Member for Urban Regeneration, Housing and Culture at St Helens Council said: “This is an excellent achievement and the company are to be congratulated for their sustained hard work in the manufacturing industry.”