Businesses are being encouraged to take advantage of the Derbyshire County Council cut-price offer that could save them money and stop them falling foul of the law.

Businesses that manufacture, import, store or supply goods or services to consumers face numerous trading laws which are enforced by the Derbyshire County Council Trading Standards service.

Trading Standards supports businesses, helps consumers and tackles unfair and unsafe trading practices.

Officers’ advice could help businesses avoid legal action being taken against them.

For one month the rate charged for this bespoke business advice will be almost halved as part of a campaign to promote the service.

The advice service usually costs businesses £65 plus VAT per hour but for the next month the county council are offering it at just £35 plus VAT an hour − a saving of £30 an hour.

For example, among other things, officers can help businesses ensure the safety of their consumer products, help them get their food labelling right and provide them with guidance to ensure that their terms and conditions comply.

Many businesses don’t know about the help the Trading Standards officers can provide, or are reluctant to ask for help. In many cases businesses have realised too late they could have avoided the unnecessary expense of wastage or recalls by involving Trading Standards at an early stage.

Getting something wrong can harm consumers, cost businesses money, damage reputation and lead to prosecution.

Councillor Carol Hart, cabinet member for health and communities at Derbyshire County Council, said:

“No business wants to fall foul of the law and it can be costly if they inadvertently do. For sound advice and peace of mind we have a team of experienced Trading Standards officers with a wealth of knowledge who are happy to help any business that trades in Derbyshire, large or small, with practical advice and guidance.”

She added:

“We hope this offer will encourage more businesses to take up the service, which is a sound investment for them. By using it businesses could avoid lots of problems and save money in the long run.”

Businessman Mike Channon, who owns Tablet Hookz in Derbyshire, manufactures a device for mounting tablets and phones on car, aeroplane and train seats and tables, so people can enjoy hands-free entertainment while they travel.

Mr Channon said:

“I would recommend to anyone who is thinking of bringing a product to market that they should get advice from Derbyshire County Council Trading Standards before they do. I’ve found their advice invaluable. Finding out at a later stage that your product or the instructions don’t comply with the law could be a very costly mistake, if legal action is taken against you.”

Businesswoman Helen Wang, of Abakus Foods in London, got help from us with the packaging of her healthy snacks, which are sold in Derbyshire.

She said:

“Derbyshire County Council Trading Standards helped us check our packaging design to make sure it complies with regulatory standards. The detailed report was helpful for us to know what we can and cannot say on the packaging. The comments were very insightful and the turnaround was quick. We will be back in the future.”

Chesterfield Champion, Central Technology (CT), were awarded Veeam’s VSCP Partner of the Year award at the Veeam’s Partner Awards ceremony in early March.

This award recognises the Veeam partner that has made the greatest contribution to the popularisation of Veeam powered services. The award was presented on the 8th March at Veeam’s Partner Awards by Greg Bailey, Veeam’s Sales Director for Channel & Cloud UK&I.

CT was nominated and awarded this honour for delivering innovative ideas to maximise the development as well as improvement of Veeam products. Effective marketing and business practices that has positively promoted the benefits of Veeam services were also highlighted.

Demonstrating the delivery of effective technical ideas was CT’s Director, Chris Barr, who influenced the addition of a crucial cyber security protection feature in the most recent Veeam Backup and Replication release – a ‘recycle bin’ for the Cloud Connect Backup repository’ which provides a true air gap between the customers’ onsite environment and the data stored with the service provider.

Ian Snow, Managing Director at CT, said:-

‘The team here at CT places great value on our long standing partnership with Veeam and the benefits that it offers all our customers. Our partnership and combined expertise has enabled us to offer the very best in hosted products and services, including addressing a critical cyber security challenge amongst our customers.’

Ian continues:-

‘The ability to influence the development of a product that provides the highest level of protection and availability for customers is incredibly satisfying and is testament to the work we have achieved together. From a service provider perspective, we see tremendous opportunity for the growth of Veeam’s suite of business continuity products. They are a leader in their space and will continue to help us deliver world-class cloud-based backup and recovery services to our customers at a time where legacy back-up solutions do not provide the protection organisations now need.’

Mike Tonks, Veeam’s Territory Manager Cloud UK & Ireland, said:-

‘I am delighted to award the Veeam VSCP Partners of the year to CT. Our strong relationship has resulted in solid growth on their platform particularly around BaaS and DRaaS offerings. We are excited about the future for CT and Veeam and we look forward to continued growth.”

Outdoor company Go Outdoors has confirmed that it’s new Chesterfield store will open on Saturday 17th March.

Go Outdoors follows a number of retailers to invest in the town recently including Deichmann Shoes , Trespass and Patisserie Valarie as well as a number of new independent stores.

Whilst the store is set to open this weekend, the official opening will take place the following weekend on Saturday 24th March with actor Ross Kemp cutting the ceremonial ribbon to mark the opening of the new store at Spire Walk Business Park. The celebrity guest will be onsite from 9am, taking part in a question and answers session, welcoming new customers and signing autographs.

As part of the official opening on the 24th, families will receive a complimentary £20 gift voucher if they are one of the first 200 shoppers through the door. Other incentives at the opening event include an 15% discount over the weekend and a free Go Outdoors discount voucher offering a range of savings across a variety of products and brands.

Cathelco are supplying marine growth prevention systems (MGPS) for four jackup barges owned by Gulf Marine Services, the largest operator of self-propelled, self-elevating support vessels in the world.

The systems will protect the barges against blockages in pipework caused by the growth of barnacles and mussels which can impair the efficiency of engine cooling systems and ancillary equipment.

The systems will be installed over the coming months when the Kikuyu, Kawawa, Kudeta and Keloa return to the GMS yard in Abu Dhabi for scheduled maintenance work.

The order was obtained by Cathelco Middle East who are based in Sharjah and provide sales and technical support throughout the region.

Stevenson Verghese, Managing Director of Cathelco Middle East, said:-

“Bio-fouling organisms grow rapidly in warm, shallow waters and therefore Cathelco MGPS are widely used on jackups to prevent the problems caused by blockages in pipework.”

Cathelco will be supplying two types of MGPS systems for each of the vessels, one to provide protection when they are in transit with their hulls floating on the water and the other for when the platforms are in the elevated position.

The seachest installations, protecting the vessel in transit, will consist of two pairs of copper and aluminium anodes connected to a control panel, whilst in the elevated position copper anodes will be used protect the submersible pumps.

In operation, the copper anode produces ions which flow through the pipework and create an environment where mussel and barnacle larvae do not settle or grow. At the same time, the aluminium ions produce an anti-corrosive layer on the internal surfaces of pipes.

The concentrations of copper are extremely small, but effective in preventing blockages caused by bio-fouling. As a result, the system is environmentally benign and does not harm the wider marine habitat.

Cathelco are the largest manufacturer of MGPS equipment in the world with a record of over 50,000 installations during a period of more than 60 years. It’s systems are used on offshore platforms and jackup rigs in locations from the Middle East to the Russian Arctic as well as numerous types of commercial ships including offshore supply vessels.

Chesterfield Champion Global Brands win national award as their Crooked Beverage Co offer is presented with gold award at Casual Dining Show.

The first alcoholic sodas in the UK, Crooked Beverage Co has been presented with a gold award at the Casual Dining Show 2018 for excellent innovation and overall product. The three-strong range has revolutionised the concept of the alcopop as they shake up the RTD category with their second gold award so far this year.

The competition, which comprised of two stages, took place across both days of the Casual Dining Show on the 21-22^nd February at the Business Design Centre in London. 50 entrants were initially being judged, with event attendees casting their favourite vote throughout the day. Following these results, 13 products were submitted for a further round to determine the winners.

The second stage of the competition included a 90 second pitch in front of a panel of 7 judges including Simon Xavier, executive chef from The Restaurant Group, Megan Lewis-Thomas Head of Food Development and Marketing at Casual Dining Group and Glenn Evans, Head of Food Development at Las Iguanas, La Tasca & La Vina.

The awards were announced later that afternoon with Crooked being amongst the 5 brands to receive gold out of the 13 finalists. Final comments from the panel included :-

“Judges were impressed with the low sugar, better for you, “no baddies” nature of the product. They went as far as to say they are making Alcopops cool”.

Charlie Leaver, innovation manager from Global Brands, said:-

“We are so glad that our truly innovative product has been recognised as thus. A great deal of strong work and consumer led insight has gone into the development of this product and we are delighted for the judges to not only recognise this but to also call us out for making alcopops cool again”

“There are so many features of Crooked that we are proud of, from our Vegan registration, to the awesome artwork by Lisa O’Hara to of course the fantastic, unique liquid. For a well-respected institution such as the Casual Dining Show to recognise us as such is a real honour.”

The brand earlier this year also won a gold in the Drinks International Pre-Mixed Drinks Challenge 2018 for design and packaging as the cans continue to take the market by storm.

Over a third (36%) of businesses taking part in the region’s leading economic survey say better broadband speed and reliability is critical to future success.

A further 53% of firms completing the first East Midlands Chamber Quarterly Economic Survey for 2018 cited good broadband as ‘very important’.

Only 2.4% of early respondents said it wasn’t important.

Broadband speed and reliability was the biggest single concern of regional businesses (89%), according analysis of mid-survey responses.

The second-biggest concern (69.5%) was mobile connectivity, closely followed by better roads (69.1%), business rates (66%) and red tape and regulation (62.5%).

Just over half of respondents (50.6%) expressed concerns over energy security while 45.3% said greater support for reducing energy costs and usage was either critical or very important.

A third of companies (33.9%) said support to develop a better corporate social responsibility (CSR) profile was either critical or very important to their future success, supporting evidence gathered by the Chamber over the past two years.

Chris Hobson, Director of Policy at East Midlands Chamber, said:-

“These provisional results confirm what we’ve been telling Government for some time, that connectivity is vital to business success, whether its broadband, mobile telephony, roads, rail or air.

“We are already world-leaders when it comes to the technology that will drive the fourth industrial revolution but if we are to remain at the forefront of development in a post-Brexit global economy we must have the best connectivity, the fastest possible broadband, excellent mobile coverage, a 21^st Century rail network, the best international air links and the roads as free from congestion as possible.”

The results from this Quarterly Economic Survey will help form the East Midlands Chamber’s Manifesto for Business for the year, which will be launched to MPs at Westminster later in the spring, and shape campaigns and lobbying activity for the rest of the year and beyond.

The current Quarterly Economic Survey closes late on Monday 12 March. To take part, visit http://bit.ly/2GuuVy5.

The surveys are being sponsored in 2018 by the University of Leicester School of Business. For further information about the University of Leicester School of Business visit www2.le.ac.uk/departments/business.

A quest to find the crème de la crème of the region’s commerce has been launched.

The East Midlands Chamber’s Business Awards are the only annual industry honours where submissions are judged purely by corporate peers.

And they are the only county-by-county accolades that offer winners a chance to compete on the national stage of the British Chambers of Commerce (BCC) Awards.

The winner of the 2017 East Midlands Chamber Nottinghamshire Outstanding Growth Award – iCON Aerospace Technology, of Retford – went on to win the BCC High Growth Business of the Year Award for increasing turnover by 30% and creating 150 jobs in two years.

The company is a world leader in highly-engineered products utilising polymers in sealing, containment, propulsion and protection systems worldwide.

Scott Knowles, the Chamber’s Chief Executive, said: “You can’t overestimate the value of taking part in awards. They make organisations focus on what they do best, offer opportunities for outward promotion, raise the kudos of the firm and make employees more proud to belong to the organisation. It’s win-win at every level.

“The Chamber’s Business Awards are one of the most contested and prestigious awards programmes and the only ones that offer winning businesses on a county-wide basis the chance to compete on a regional and national scale.”

Organisations can enter as many awards categories as they like. The categories for each of the three counties are Apprentice of the year, Business Improvement Through Technology, Commitment to People Development, Community Impact, Education and Business Partnership, Entrepreneur of the Year, Excellence in Customer Service, Excellence in International Trade, Manufacturer of the Year, Marketing Campaign of the Year, Outstanding Growth and Small Business of the Year.

One of the category winners will also scoop the Business of the Year Award, sponsored by Mazars, one of Europe’s largest accounting firms and headline sponsor of the Chamber’s awards programme.

The deadline for entries to this year’s awards is 5pm on Friday 18 May. For further details and to download county-specific application forms visit http://www.emc-dnl.co.uk/businessawards.

The Chamber will host gala dinners in Derbyshire, Nottinghamshire and Leicestershire in the autumn at which the awards will be presented.

Winners of specific awards from each county will go forward to the BCC regional awards for a chance to compete for a national accolade.