Mopping up the market

A SADDLEWORTH business is gearing up to handle a return to mop manufacturing.

Peter Scott, chief executive officer at Greenfield-based Robert Scott and Sons Ltd., told Chronicle Business: “We are actively recruiting new staff to handle the demand.

“This is good news for us and the local economy and has been met with a very positive reaction from all our customers across the UK.

“The ‘Made in England’ tag is a definite plus and above and beyond all else, seeing the mills in full production again is a great sight.

“We are now producing a variety of traditional and new mops and cloths here and at our Heywood and Burnley operations and hope over the coming months to further increase capacity as demand grows.”

Cheaper manufacturing and material costs available abroad led to a diminished capacity at the mills and hit the Greenfield workforce.

Many of the UK’s leading manufacturers of both professional janitorial and retail cleaning products have, through financial necessity, been sourcing product supplies from overseas markets.

This trend is unlikely to stop entirely, concedes Mr Scott: “One of the few benefits that seems to be emerging from the current economic problems we are all now facing is the opportunity to revitalise the UK manufacturing side of our industry.”

For more than 75 years Robert Scott and Sons Ltd have been one of the country’s largest manufacturers of industrial and domestic cleaning textiles as well as suppliers of one of Europe’s largest ranges of janitorial cleaning products.

For much of this time the company’s mills in Greenfield were the main source of mops, cloths and other woven products for professional and domestic UK markets.

The benefits are demonstrated by the success of the company’s Big White Mop. Launched six years ago, the Big White Mop is increasingly seen as an alternative to microfibre and traditional cotton mopping systems by all sectors of the market — and the important healthcare sector.

Mr Scott concluded: “Cleaning with cotton mops and cloths is becoming an expensive purchasing decision. With the sharp increase in cotton prices seemingly not going to come to an end in the foreseeable future - the Big White Mop Range offers a real alternative

“Big is definitely beautiful when it comes to the ‘Made in England’ Big White Mop.”