Churchstoke company scoops awards

Montgomery Natural Spring Water based at Churchstoke has scooped two prestigious awards.

One was the overall Supreme Supplier of the Year award, announced during The Co-operative Retail Trading Group (CRTG) supplier awards in London.

The charity award evening, run by CRTG, which encompasses all Co-operative food stores in the UK, was held at the London Hilton Park Lane Hotel, with some of the biggest names in the food industry up for the awards.

The Montgomery Natural Spring Water Company, which supplies The Co-operative’s own-brand Fairbourne Springs mineral water, also picked up the Ethical Supplier of the Year Award and the Supreme Supplier of the Year Award for 2010.

A percentage of the sales from The Co-operative’s own-brand range of mineral water funds PlayPump water systems in Africa. To date, enough money has been raised to provide fresh, clean drinking water for one million people in Africa.

Richard Whittall, operations director of Montgomery Spring, said: “We are absolutely delighted to have won not just one but two awards on the evening. This is great news for the whole team and positive testament to all their good work.

“Demand for our water has been on a huge increase over the last couple of years and our attention to quality and excellent service levels, even at times of high demand, for orders is paying off.”

The company has been a supplier of The Co-operative for the past eight years and also supplies still and sparkling bottled mineral water and flavoured water into many other retailers, wholesalers, food service and licensed outlets across the country, having a 32 per cent growth in production since 2009.

Investing in resources and new systems - most recently 350,000 in a new warehousing facility - has enabled the workforce this year to expanded to more than 40 people.

Montgomery Natural Spring Water Company is a subsidiary of Harry Tuffins Supermarkets.

Picture caption: From left, Richard Whittall, Peter Marks, group chief executive of the Co-Operative and Barrie Russell, BGR Sales.