The Big Profile: Simon Young, Ingram Brothers

The confectionary company’s managing director explains the highs and lows of a 126-year history.Your senses are immediately engaged by the warm aroma of toffee, chocolate and fudge flavourings when you step into Ingram Brothers’ factory in Paisley.

Here, this 126-year old family business enthusiastically navigates the turbulent waters of manufacturing in the West of Scotland, having negotiated its compulsory displacement from Glasgow to continue to produce specialist icings and flavourings for some of the biggest names on the high street.

Today, Simon Young, as managing director, and his brother, Mark, as sales director – the great-grandsons of founder George Ingram – are in a strong position as they contemplate the company’s future and begin the process of handing over the business to the next generation.

We sit, socially-distanced, in the impressive boardroom, prior to a tour of the facility – and with Simon fully clad in hygiene protective gear.

“Succession planning has been high on our agenda for the last few years. My daughter, Emily, joined the business seven years ago and Tara, my niece, joined four years ago.

“They will be supported by a long-serving and widely experienced team, which I regard as the bedrock upon which our success has been built. This core team, which includes my wife Linda [who works in product development], has provided consistent support.”

From the start of the Covid-19 pandemic, Britons have craved fleeting moments of pleasure. For many of us, a slice of chocolate cake, resplendent in dark fondant, or a glazed doughnut, with its smooth vanilla or caramel icing, have been the perfect comfort food.

Despite the matronly warnings that too much sugary carbohydrate is causing widespread obesity, these treats have not only been good for the soul, but a saviour for the supermarkets, chain bakeries and coffee franchises.

Simon Young is well-versed in the debate about too much sugar in our diet and the obesity crisis, while the recently-published report from Leon restaurateur Henry Dimbleby has raised the spectre of a sugar tax.

“We are facing challenges on sugar reduction. Actually, this is something we are excited about, because we see how that can be done.

“However, we need the legislation to move and we need the people in charge of legislating to get up to speed about what needs to be done – they are behind the curve and they need to talk to people who actually know – we’re trying to have that conversation.’’

The demand for comfort treats has also been manna from sugar heaven for Ingram Brothers, working flat out on 24-hour shifts to meet the demand for its specialist icings, fillings and flavourings. George and James, the original Ingram brothers, started making syrups and treacles and selling them locally in 1895. Glasgow was a manufacturing hub for baking, jam-making and confectionery, especially after 1880, when plentiful supplies of continental sugar and prairie wheat became available.

Before the First World War, George decided to go out on his own, paying off his brother, but retaining the Ingram Brothers title. He moved from Broad Street in the Gorbals to Sussex Street in Kinning Park.

“He developed the business into sugar-milling because of the connection with Greenock, where raw sugar was coming into the Walker’s and Westburn refineries – Glasgow was a hive of activity for bakeries and confectionery companies,’’ explains Young.

The roll-call of Ingram customers included MacDonalds, the originators in 1932 of the Penguin biscuit; Beatties Biscuits at Drumchapel, which made biscuits for Marks & Spencer; the United Co-operative Bakery Society, makers of the Chieftain brand; MacFarlane, later MacFarlane Lang, at Tolcross; King’s of Wishaw, which made the Oddfellows; and the Creamola Factory in Scotland Street, makers of custard and Creamola Foam.

The two Scottish family businesses of McVitie & Price, and MacFarlane Lang, formed United Biscuits in 1948, listing on the stock exchange, with MacDonald’s acquired in 1965.

“Ingram Brothers was milling sugar for all of these businesses, but in the mid-1960s and early-1970s all those wonderful industrial businesses started closing down, swallowed up by United Biscuits or, in Creamola’s case, by Rowntree Mackintosh, then Nestles.

“My father, Eric Young, the son of May Ingram, the founder’s daughter, came into the business in 1965 and realised there were massive changes happening.’’

Eric Young studied law, attending Cambridge University, but the Second World War interrupted his studies, and he joined the 11th Hussars. After the war, he was a keen point-to-point horse rider before a career-ending fall. He served as a local councillor and married Camilla, an Australian, and they settled in Fenwick.

In 1969, after an acquisition in Bridgeton, Ingram Brothers also become suppliers of other ingredients to the independent bakery trade across the whole of Scotland.

Simon Young started in the business in 1974.

During his first month, aged 19, he was asked by his father to give a lift home to Ned Beattie, who was just retiring.

Ned had spent 52 years working with Ingram’s. He was hired originally to fire up the boilers for the steam lorries so they could be driven down to Greenock to load 2cwt bags of sugar from refineries.

The steam lorries remained in use until 1958, unloaded by hand at the four-storey Kinning Park factory.

Simon recognises it was a hard job for the likes of Ned. “It’s amazing that my life in this industry has had a connection with Ned’s time, which was of another age – and, as I look at my time having reached 66, there is another exciting age to come.

“In 1980, I just got married and my Dad said to me he was thinking of closing the business because it was starting to make losses he couldn’t see could be paid back – I didn’t know what I was going to do because I’d done this since leaving school.’’Despite a £2m turnover, the company was still making losses. The brothers invited Glasgow University accountancy graduate Alfie Dempster to identify the problem.

He concluded that the low-margin, wholesale side of the business – selling dried fruits, canned goods and sundries – was not profitable enough, and manufacturing was contributing only £250,000 to turnover.

His radical suggestion was the company should concentrate on manufacturing. Dempster was invited to join as company secretary and helped the Young brothers reshape the business.

“Back in the 1980s, our building, of 36,000 sq ft, was increasingly unsuitable for food production and had outlived its usefulness. Glasgow Council wanted us removed, as they were developing all of Kinning Park around the time of the Glasgow Garden Festival.”

Ingram’s was offered £100,000 for the factory and bought a smaller 23,000 sq ft site on Dixon Blazes Industrial Estate in the Gorbals.

At this point, Eric Young retired [he died in 2006], leaving his sons Simon, factory manager from the age of 23, and Mark, in command. The brothers took on a debt of £1m from Bank of Scotland, along with other sources of finance.

Simon and his elder brother Mark, now 69, had arrived in the business as supermarkets were becoming more powerful, alongside the advent of highly automated industrial bakeries. The craft bakeries in every town across Scotland were in the decline and Ingram’s was fighting with larger wholesale competitors to remain afloat in a declining market.

At this point, a former retired chemist called Peter Cassells, who taught Simon how to develop the manufacturing side of the business, joined the team, creating a portfolio of new products.

“Peter was a very clever man, he pointed out that we had the ability to make all kinds of products we were previously buying in.

“So we set about doing this, building it slowly – we started making soft icings, around half a tonne a day – we were also selling retail products into William Low’s.”

Unfortunately, this lucrative contract ended abruptly when Tesco took over the supermarket chain in 1994. The company reached a turnover of £5m, but, as the wholesale side was wound up, this dipped.

Another realisation was that milling sugar was increasingly just another raw commodity that could be bought from Tate & Lyle or British Sugar.

Ingram’s increasingly enjoyed success in contract manufacturing for some of the UK’s bigger bakery outlets as well as independent companies, which led to a range of prestigious customers and own-brand products.

“We were fortunate in that we paid off the loan on the new building and became debt-free – then along came the M74 road extension!”

The motorway extension became a headache for Ingram’s. The route was planned to go right through the factory and a compulsory purchase order was made for the site. The district valuer, part of HMRC, was a tough negotiator.

Strict rules specify there is “betterment” that might allow a company to benefit financially from a forced move. The district valuer also has the power to assess the cost of a company move; if this was more than a sensible business person would be likely to invest in the business, the district valuer could legally wind the company up.

“We had a hard time negotiating with them – we owned the factory freehold and one day a civil servant comes and says, ‘I’m here to discuss rental from you’.

“I said, ‘but we own this place!’, he said, ‘not any more’.”

Ingram’s, granted a minimum amount to find new premises, now faced the challenge of trying to find suitable food manufacturing site in the Glasgow area.

However, a breakthrough came. Off the Glasgow Road on the approach to Paisley, the US conglomerate McCormick, a Fortune 500 business famed for its rack of spices, had built a high-care clean factory to make 30,000 tonnes of sauces a year for McDonald’s.

The business was moving to Cheshire and the facilities, with part of the adjoining land owned by Renfrewshire Council, were for sale. Simon and Mark persuaded the council to make use of the building for another food-manufacturing company employing local people. With the bulldozers were approaching his Gorbals factory door, he needed an answer.

In July 2007 he phoned McCormick’s directly in Maryland, even although he hadn’t seen the inside of the building, and made a cash offer of £2m. They accepted. “It was a momentous decision – I hadn’t even surveyed it,’’ he recounts.

According to Simon, Renfrewshire Council were very helpful and pleased to see another food company in Paisley. McCormick’s was happy too and Ingram’s was able to purchase the required land over next few years.

Simon and his team were able to put in the necessary wiring for their machinery, pipework for steam-plant, pneumatics, bulk silos, build racking, fabricate platforms and install computer systems.

As the M74 works continued, Ingram’s was still making products several hours before the bulldozers moved in to start the demolition. Ingram’s was able to move its operations and workforce into the new factory on 4 January.

It was a frantic time, made worse by a simultaneous tax inspection, an Environmental Health Officer inspection and VAT investigation in the early hours of 2008.

“They descended on me thinking I was doing something illegal, I said to them ‘Are you crazy? We’re just moving in and we’ve got so much to do to get going’, yet they wanted to sit down around our board table and check all the paperwork.”

The new facility, with its new specialised mixing machinery, attracted industry attention. “We told potential customers that out of this ‘process’ will come the unique product you are looking for.”

Ingram Brothers began to limit its range, focusing more on milling sugar for soft icing and formulations for specialist bakery use. Customers came with formulas and requested they be made, while others began using Ingram’s own formulas to make fondants, filling and soft icings.

The creative input of food technologist David Trussler has been crucial in driving the business forward. When a request was made for a special icing that could withstand being frozen, Trussler was able to invent the ideal solution.

Today, Ingram’s has a turnover of £8m with a staff of 45, and there is a profit-sharing scheme for everyone in the company.

“From that £250,000 of manufacturing back in 1974 to £8m is a fantastic achievement for our business,” says the managing director.

Ingram Brothers’ success has been an ability to examine how something is made and then make it even better. The firm even used its skills to manufacture its own hand gel at the start of the pandemic.

Now, Ingram Brothers prepares to embark upon the next stage of its long history.Emily, 29, a business graduate from the University of Glasgow – and with diplomas in Advanced Food Hygiene, Advanced Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Point, British Society of Flavourists Training Course, and the Chartered Institute of Procurement and Supply, and currently studying part-time for an MBA – is preparing to take over as managing director.

Tara, 28, a BSc (Hons) in psychology with sociology, will take over as commercial director. After graduating, she moved to London and worked for the press office of Selfridges’ food and drink department; providing her with valuable customer-focused skills.

She gained further experience by working as a UK press liaison for a number of hotels and tourist boards in the Caribbean, Middle East and Europe.

Evidently, the future of Ingram Brothers is safe in the hands of the next generation. Emily and Tara, backed by a team equipped with comprehensive knowledge and technical skill, are in an ideal position to guide the company into a new era.

“When we took over the business, it was in a pretty rough state,” concludes Simon. “My father thought about closing it down.

“We are passing it on to my daughter and my niece and they will take it on – we are leaving it in a better state than when we started.”

Source: insider.uk