Want your business to benefit from half a billion pounds-plus?
A project two years in the making to get Gloucestershire’s biggest businesses to spend an extra £550 million of their budget with small and medium-sized county firms is about be unveiled.
Good afternoon,
Welcome to the second edition of The Raikes Journal this week. In Monday’s edition we looked at the origins of an incredible project to help make Gloucestershire a better place for the many young people growing up with ADHD. Our best-read story to date. Today we talk about money and a very different project. And when we say money, we mean lots of it!
This is the story of a plan that will enable Gloucestershire’s biggest businesses to spend an extra half a billion pounds with small and medium-sized county companies.
Raikes spoke to some of those at the heart of the talks and we let you how it will work, how you can find out more and get involved and benefit.
We’ve also corralled our usual pick of the stories that have caught our eye so far this week, including a quick view of the future of fashion house Superdry.
And we introduce you to another charity – one with a very handy guide to help those parents and carers help young people navigate issues of gender identity.
We hope you enjoy everything below. Remember, although we are a community interest company here to serve you, we need to pay our way. Which means all our archive will soon become hidden behind a paywall after two weeks, along with our Top 100 Businesses in Gloucestershire series, the main story on our Friday email newsletter (from this week), and then our Thursday main story too!
* Everything you read on Raikes is made possible by the generous support of our partners (who we will be revealing over the coming weeks) our founding members and our paid-up subscribers. A massive ‘thank you’ to all our other subscribers too. If you are not already, please consider upgrading to paid and making this community interest company sustainable. The support of all of you is invaluable! To get in touch email andrew.merrell@raikesjournal.co.uk.
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Why today’s main story?
If ever the power of the concept of spending your money locally is going to hit home, it is Together Gloucestershire that will convince you. It’s been in the wind for a while, but those behind the project now feel confident enough to release some figures. And they are very, very seductive. By its calculations the county’s biggest businesses can be helped to spend an extra five per cent of their annual procurement budget in the county. This would make our small and medium-sized firms an incredible £550 million better off. Now you can see why those who have been sitting around the table for two years so far to make this happen remain excited.
Briefing notes
📉 Lots of speculation this week about Superdry, the Cheltenham headquartered fashion brand famously started by Dowdeswell resident and entrepreneur extraordinaire, Julian Dunkerton. Reports have spoken of 'talks' with a 'US private equity firm' led by US investor David Kempster, owner of Britain Oak Furnitureland. Will it happen? Raikes decided to put things in a little context, beginning with Dunkerton’s successfully battling himself back into the board in a boardroom in 2019 in a bid to reverse the firm’s fortunes - a battle not without its casualties. It took three years to return the firm to the black amidst all sorts of challenges, including tough economic conditions. Nevertheless, in December 2022 speculation began about a potential buy-out amidst concern over finding a new lender to replace an existing £70 million asset-backed lending facility. Share price rose briefly in early February 2023, but from then on in it has been a downhill trend. In fact, share price is down 92 per cent over the last five years, rising a little with more talk this week of a sale. That comes after the departure of its fourth finance boss in five years just four weeks ago as losses widened.
🥬 Whether you are excited by the idea of a vertical farm or not, Jones Food Company has opened its second in Lydney in the Forest of Dean. Everyone’s posted the firm’s press release. For some, including James Lloyd-Jones, the ceo of JFC, this is technology coming to our rescue. The Gloucestershire ‘plant’ will grow crops including basil, coriander, flat-leaf parsley, dill, green lettuce, red lettuce, baby leaf pak choi, bulls blood, mizuna, komatsuna, and baby leaf cress.” For others, including the Soil Association, it is not so clear cut. It welcomes a move away from 'conventional pesticide-intensive agriculture', but questions whether vertical farming should be brought under the banner of 'organic'. As it says, true solutions to creating farming that is sustainable and healthy for the planet and those who live on it tend to have 'deeper roots'.
Another Gloucestershire firm joins The Circus
We know the firm is not the first to back the hugely exciting Gloucester-Hartpury Women’s Rugby team, but Cheltenham-based SF Planning is more proof that the businesses of Gloucestershire are putting their shoulders firmly behind the club, nicknamed The Circus. Simon Firkins, founder and managing director of the Cheltenham firm of planning experts, said: “The team are true trailblazers, breaking down barriers and stereotypes and championing the message that there’s a place for everyone in sport; a message we strongly support. We’re looking forward to seeing more great performances from them this season. Fab timing too, with the team sitting nicely at the top of the Premiership following the win against Sale Sharks last weekend.” SF Planning joins companies including Prima Dental, Pro Global, Cygnet, Choice Trade Frames, Westons Cider, Cotswold Raw, HCR Law, AIS, who have also lined up to support the winners of last year’s Allianz Premiership title. Interested in sponship yourself? Hartpury has a lot going on. Email: sponsorship@hartpury.ac.uk.
Our chosen charity: Young Gloucestershire
Young Gloucestershire was bound to come up as Raikes introduces you to the many charities of Gloucestershire. The new 'free downloadable resource' it is currently promoting gave us the perfect excuse this week. The charity supports young people to have the confidence, motivation and skills to improve their lives. As part of LGBT History Month, an annual month-long observance of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender history, the charity is offering a free downloadable resource aimed at supporting parents and carers to help them navigate the journey of gender exploration with their children. You can download a copy here and find out more about Young Gloucestershire here.
How your business can become a customer of companies with £550 million to spend in Gloucestershire
By Andrew Merrell
“Imagine a dating website, but for businesses,” is how Adam Vines jokingly described the project he is helping steer along a very long road – but one where the match made in heaven could deliver a win of several hundred million pounds for the county!
To pretend this is just a ‘dating website’, some sort of Gloucestershire-centric matchmaking machine bringing big and small businesses together to do business, would be to do it a disservice considering the amount of work already complete and yet to be done.
And Vines knows that better than anyone. He is one of those who has been driving the project from the start.
But it is a useful way of introducing the idea that everyone invested in the project they call Together Gloucestershire, and which after two years of looking at how to make it easier for the county’s biggest firms to spend locally is about to get its first public scrutiny.
When Vines and others sit down at the Gloucestershire Business Show at the University of Gloucestershire’s Oxstalls Campus on Wednesday next week they will reveal the aim is to make it easier for Gloucestershire biggest firms to increase their county spend by just five per cent.
It may sound small, but such are their budgets that single-figure percentage would amount to an additional £550,000,000 being spent in the county annually.
