We had so many companies put themselves forward for our Scottish business review of 2022 feature, that it seemed only right to put together a part two.
So here's another selection of companies big and small, dotted around the country, all with interesting stories to tell about how they overcame challenges in 2022 and what opportunities they see in 2023.
Eden Mill Distillery
Eden Mill distillery was established in 2012 on the banks of the Eden Estuary in St Andrews - the first to make spirits in the region for more than 150 years.
Today, the business has a unique selection of limited release single malt whiskies and an extensive gin portfolio crafted in part from botanicals foraged in the local area.
“Following the challenges of the pandemic, 2022 has been an exciting year for us at Eden Mill”, said marketing director Matthew Turner. “Firstly, in collaboration with the Scottish-born Michelin-star chef Gordon Ramsay, we launched Ramsay’s Gin, crafted with a selection of delicious botanicals, including honey berries and Mara seaweed locally-sourced from around the St Andrews coastline.
“Secondly, in honour of St Andrews Day, we launched the Art of St Andrews Collection Single Malt, whose design showcases a bespoke piece of art from local artist Mairi Clark.
“And to close out the year, we have just launched three limited edition Cask Mastery Single Malts matured in rum, madeira and port casks.“
Turner continued that work is underway on Eden Mills' new distillery and visitor centre, which is due to open in early 2024.
“The distillery will be able to welcome up to 50,000 guests every year,“ he explained. “We are located within the University of St Andrews Eden Campus, a site dedicated to zero carbon research and initiatives.
“Power and heat from the gin stills will be supplied by the university's solar array farm in the Eden Campus and the university’s green energy supply, while the distillery will draw energy from the university’s biomass plant, as it reaches capacity.”
Commsworld
Commsworld is a telecommunications and internet service provider founded in 1994 by Ricky Nicol.
Headquartered in Edinburgh, with Steve Langmead as its current chief executive, it employs 140 staff operating across public and private sector contracts.
Commsworld has grown rapidly in recent years, fuelled by its involvement with five of Scotland’s largest public sector ICT contracts – Glasgow, Edinburgh, North Lanarkshire, Renfrewshire and the Scottish Borders.
Private clients include the St James Quarter, Par Equity, Burness Paull, CGI and Arnold Clark.
Langmead said that 2022 has not been without its challenges., with the war in Ukraine meaning that sourcing materials was brought more close to home. “Among those we’ve now forged a successful relationship with is Scottish-based, global fibre manufacturer Emtelle.
“We also continued to secure new business, including a contract worth a potential £150m over 15 years to transform North Lanarkshire’s digital infrastructure and connectivity.“
As for 2023, he added: “It's already shaping up to be a year in which we secure further UK-wide growth.
“We recently won a new contract with Northumberland County Council to upgrade the network connectivity of 110 schools and we are well on the way to securing further contract wins in the first quarter of the year.”
Ocean Plastic Pots
Ocean Plastic Pots takes plastic waste, such as discarded ropes and fishing nets collected from beaches and recycles them to make plant pots.
Founder Ally Mitchell started the business following a career as a commercial saturation diver.
“During lockdown I was asked to join the salvage operation of a cargo ship that ran aground in Scotland carrying 200 tonnes of plastic, so diving in waste plastic everyday was the inspiration for starting the business.
“Each of our pots provides a 26-gram saving on carbon emissions, which can be used to grow plants that benefit our environment and as an educational tool to grow awareness of the ocean plastic problem.“
Mitchell said that one of 2022's biggest challenges was during a big clean-up on the Isle of Ulva, identified as one of the most polluted islands on the west coast of Scotland, because of its proximity to the Atlantic Ocean - eventually removing five tonnes of waste from the beach.
“Technology has been a big factor in aiding me in rethinking the plastic problem, especially as someone with no manufacturing experience.
“To communicate my story to customers and shine a light on the journey of cleaning up the coast of Scotland, I have been using my Samsung Galaxy smartphone while out in these harsh environments, which led to me being spotlighted by Samsung, which shared my story with their own customers.“
Adarma
This has been a busy year of expansion for Edinburgh-based cyber security company Adarma.
Its customer base has increased by 40%, while the headcount reached 300 members of permanent staff.
Adarma also received a £2m grant from Scotland’s national economic development agency to boost its research and development. This forms part of an internal investment programme, which will create 50 new roles and accelerate the development of its threat management platform, driving the development of new intellectual property.
Chief executive John Maynard explained that 2022 also saw the company partner with The Prince’s Trust to develop and launch a new inclusivity and skills development initiative aimed at helping vulnerable young people from disadvantaged backgrounds and neurodiverse communities discover new career paths.
The two-week programme offers participants a blend of classroom lessons, mentoring and on-the-job learning opportunities to give them the knowledge and confidence they need to pursue a career in cyber security.
Young Spirits
Young Spirits is an Edinburgh based boutique bottling and spirits business, which has tripled revenue in three years and grown from two to 42 employees.
Established in June 2019 by co-founders John Ferguson and Alex Harrison, who have backgrounds in the operations and drinks industries respectively, they were both looking to set up a new venture when they met through their partners at a bar in Edinburgh.
During its first three years, Young Spirits has partnered with more than 200 clients to fulfil a huge range of bottling, blending, labelling and sourcing needs – as well as developing and launching two of its own spirits brands.
Harrison said: "This year we have been continuing to adapt and grow after the pandemic, while another big impact to our operations this year has been the outbreak of war in Ukraine.
"Global supply chains have been disrupted, and we have found ourselves short of glass bottles and corks, the price of these materials has increased considerably, and while we used to be able to order with next day delivery, we now have to forecast and order our requirements months in advance."
More positively, the business launched its own single cask, single malt whisky brand, Ferg & Harris, consisting of a core range and additional special releases.
"We have also taken on another warehouse unit, marking our third move/expansion since starting out," explained Harrison. "We are really excited to expand into our 30,000 square foot space, providing us with additional space for blending operations and short-term cask storage.
"We also have hopes to host our own tasting events in our on-site bar in the future."
Aiber
2022 has been a significant year for Scottish med-tech firm Aiber on several fronts.
Perhaps most importantly, new investment was secured and, as air travel ramps back up, the company has been hard at work refining its ‘carry onboard’ medical emergency product.
The technology has the capacity to connect with ground based medical services, enabling vital signs and other critical incident data to be shared, so doctors can effectively ‘review and recommend’ during a medical emergency onboard. Aiber also ‘hand holds‘ the crew during these emergencies, helping them to react confidently during stressful situations.
In May, Aiber closed a seven-figure funding round led by BGF, alongside existing investors Scottish Enterprise and Equity Gap, which has supported growth plans.
"This funding, combined with six months of inflight trials supported by Boeing, led to an upgrade of our product – focusing on ease-of use improvements and a more compact design," said chief executive Anne Roberts.
"In 2023, we aim to double our workforce with new roles in software development, sales, and service support, as well as further rolling out our product to customers in the aviation and maritime sectors in geographical territories such as Europe, the US, and the Middle East."
Modern Standard Coffee
Modern Standard was founded by Lynsey Harley in 2015 and it is now the fastest growing specialty roaster in the UK.
Based in her home-town of Glenrothes, the company sources its coffee using a direct trade model from producers in Africa and Central and South America. Each year, Harley visits the producers ensuring relationships are maintained and formed. The coffees are transported to Scotland where they are roasted and packaged up to supply retailers such as Sainsbury’s, as well as the hospitality and catering industries.
"I think this year has been an interesting one," she said. "We've found it a challenge around available labour, so we've made a huge effort on internal learning programmes and mentoring to up-skill our staff.
"We're lucky that between myself on the coffee front and Ricky Neal, our technical director, on the coffee machine side of things, we're able to pass on our experience, but it takes time and effort to do that, so if you're in need of growing quickly then that's been hard."
A four-fold increase in energy bills has also not helped, with customers across hospitality reporting even higher rises.
"New store openings will start to be limited and consumers are mindful of how much and how often they go out to eat and drink, so I think for our sector, we're seeing squeezes from all sides on energy costs and it's probably going to kill off more decent businesses than Covid did."
Harley concludes that demonstrating value to customers will be the winner in 2023.
"Be that other businesses who see your partnership as key to growth, or consumers looking for a better coffee at home, as they're not able to treat themselves as often."
BR-DGE
Founded in 2018, BR-DGE is an Edinburgh-based payment technology business led by Brian Coburn.
The company helps merchants deliver a streamlined payment experience for customers and during 2022 it started working with Kenwood Travel and Travel Counsellors in the travel space.
BR-DGE also hired Kenny Scott as chief technology officer, Emily Whalley as senior travel specialist, and Mark Whybrow as enterprise sales manager.
New fintech partnerships were signed with Vyne, Trust Payments and Worldline as BR-DGE grows its offering.
Coburn commented: “Getting under the bonnet of businesses and solving some of their complex payment challenges has helped us to gain a greater understanding of the issues merchants experienced in 2022.
“In particular, we are helping travel businesses by reducing their failed payments via dynamic routing through a multi acquirer strategy and connections to the entire payments ecosystem, ultimately benefitting their bottom line.“
In 2023, BR-DGE is looking to make inroads into sectors including retail, transit and gaming, but also continuing to grow its own platform so that it remains in-step with the latest payment trends.
“One area, in particular, we are taking a close look at is online fraud,“ said Coburn. “Our product team is carrying out some really interesting work within network tokenisation which is a game-changer in the fight against payment fraud.”
Kin + Carta
In November, digital transformation company, Kin + Carta expanded its European division by opening its new office in Edinburgh.
David Tuck, the Edinburgh-based group chief executive for Europe, said the business is now active on most of the UK and Scottish government frameworks.
“With our new city centre hub in Edinburgh and growing team, our goal is to service the Scottish Government with teams in Scotland and across the UK.
“We have a longstanding relationship with the city and we see our new site as an international hub.
“We also have a number of our leaders who call Edinburgh home, including our public sector client lead, director of managed services, head of mobile, and our chairman.“
Tuck went on to state that one of Kin + Carta's big aims for 2023 is to save clients one million tonnes of CO2.
“Where better to do this than in Scotland, a country that is creating more green jobs than anywhere else?
Outside of Scotland's capital, Tuck added that the firm has expanded across south east Europe, with operations now in Kosovo, North Macedonia and Bulgaria.
“This has enabled us to offer our clients larger distributed teams and access to a wider pool of talent, it has also given us much greater diversity, which brings us resilience.“
Thomas & Adamson
In the construction sector, 2022 was the year defined by volatility.
Alastair Wallace, senior partner at Glasgow-based property consultancy Thomas & Adamson, reckons that while all industries have struggled with the fallout of the Russian invasion, for construction, a huge percentage of raw steel is imported from Russia and Ukraine.
"This has massively affected supply - and price - while materials like soft wood, aluminium, glass and curtain walls come from European nations like Germany and Poland, which are heavily dependent on Russian gas supplies for energy."
Another big challenge has been skills shortages, with the likes of bricklayers and stud partition teams in scarce supply. "It’s not about training or even pay - there just isn’t enough people available to do the job," commented Wallace.
In the domestic market, the story of the year has been of delays and costs.
"The predicted descent into recession is seeing public sector cuts and capital works increasingly vulnerable - there has been a lot of work, but with supply constricted, the price goes up and just about every project has been impacted by delays."
Wallace added that in the private sector, there will still be entrepreneurial thinking and there will be work for to do, so the immediate future is more about coping with fluctuating volume and scale.
"The construction industry is famously resilient, opportunities always arise, and it’s about laying the right foundations so you can make the right move at the right time."
To read the first part of this list, click here.
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