As the fourth biggest city in England, Sheffield is a hub of thriving businesses across a multitude of sectors. The strong foundations of South Yorkshire business have created a perfect growth environment for any budding entrepreneur. In fact, Sheffield came first place in the Startups Cities Index 2022 of top UK cities for starting a business outside of London, and 11 outstanding South Yorkshire businesses were crowned winners in the Queen’s Awards for Enterprise in 2022.
While locals might know how brilliant South Yorkshire is, it might still be a surprise to some that businesses right under our noses are having an astonishing global impact. Although brimming with cutting-edge innovation, South Yorkshire is an unassuming place.
That’s why we’re shedding light on some of the businesses, from ground-breaking technology and engineering to a deliciously sharp relish, that are putting South Yorkshire on the global map.
Corrosion Resistant Materials
Corrosion Resistant Materials are creating supply chain solutions as specialist technical material suppliers for over 40 countries across the globe.
Corrosion Resistant Materials (CRM) celebrate the Steel City on a daily basis, being expert suppliers of steel materials across a range of industries, including oil and gas, aerospace, motorsport and power generation. CRM offers a complete end-to-end service in the supply chain management of key manufacturing components.
Internationally, CRM exports to over 40 countries across the globe and not only excels in export and supply but in heat treatment and testing. CRM continues to grow yearly, with 50 per cent of 2021 sales being exports.
Being in South Yorkshire, the CRM team greatly benefits from the best manufacturing and material production right on their doorstep, taking advantage of heat treatment facilities, material suppliers and the brilliant transport links the region has to offer. In their eyes, they wouldn’t want to be anywhere else, believing South Yorkshire is the place to be for maximum efficiency in the business.
With a growing team of 12, CRM is among the remarkable, winning the Made in Sheffield Export Award as well as the Queens Award for Enterprise in International Trade.
CRM has grown with the help of local support, knowledge and the unwavering drive South Yorkshire excels in. CRM advocates the for Department for International Trade for entering new markets and gaining the knowledge and understanding that is readily available for Sheffield businesses. CRM’s advice to any entrepreneur is to reach out to these services and opportunities for knowledge growth. That, and a reliable transport partner.
ZOO Digital
ZOO Sheffield operates amongst the biggest names in the media industry, being a key provider of content solutions for the likes of Netflix, Disney and Sony.
ZOO Digital is a trailblazer and leading provider of media globalization services. ZOO spans across the globe, taking complex media content challenges and making them simpler by finding smarter and better ways of doing things. ZOO Sheffield operates from its award-winning research and development centre, ZOO Digital Labs.
With fifty developers, engineers and testers working in the city centre office, ZOO Sheffield specialises in language and production as well as industry-leading technologies and cutting-edge tools.
The Sheffield team has been operating from South Yorkshire since 2001, with a brand-new state-of-the-art facility that allows the team to combine language and culture solutions for entertainment industries. With a new workspace, ZOO Sheffield has been designed with collaborative, hybrid working in mind allowing for talent to flourish in spaces that catalyse creativity.
ZOO Sheffield is a classic example of the Yorkshire business attitude of getting things done with a flair of humility, all while being a part of daily media consumption – delivering some of the best content to big-name brands and companies. Working with the likes of Disney, Netflix, Warner Brothers and Sony on subtitling, dubbing and media, ZOO has truly conquered the global market.
With recent expansions of ZOO Korea, ZOO Digital continues to provide content creators with innovative solutions, being a reliable sole supplier for clients wherever they are across the globe. The launch of the upgraded Seoul facility continues an ongoing global growth initiative to support the biggest names in entertainment with scalable globalization services.
AJAC
AJAC, a pharmaceutical and medical supply wholesaler, is a Sheffield-founded business with a stellar reputation in the medical industry.
Aiming to provide fast, reliable and effective service between suppliers and their customers, AJAC believes effective relationship building and reliability are key for their business model.
With shipping partners across the globe, AJAC delivers wholesale medical solutions across Africa, the Caribbean, and South America.
AJAC is determined to connect UK pharmaceutical and medical development to manufacturing sales, with UK representation being difficult to come by. AJAC shakes up the global market with its high share of UK-manufactured products and leading the industry in showcasing UK-developed healthcare technology.
Trading globally presents AJAC with the task of connecting cross-culturally, requiring a multitude of skill sets and knowledge of globalised business environments. As South Yorkshire’s vibrancy increases year on year, AJAC hopes to hone in on the broad skillsets required from the local workforce, changing the game in the UK’s pharmaceutical and medical global operations.
AJAC believe in understanding the current needs of the global market, where they advise looking into compliance requirements of exportation, importation and operations of the market. With trade agreements and restrictions, they express the importance of gaining a deep understanding of the market and gaining advice from the Sheffield Chambers of Commerce and the Department for International Trade.
FourJaw
FourJaw is solving some of manufacturers’ biggest problems with their game-changing manufacturing analytics software
As manufacturing businesses face the triple pressures of rising energy costs, supply chain challenges, and a widespread skills gap across the sector, every efficiency gain counts – large or small.
The sector is no stranger to evolution. From the first moving assembly line to the arrival of Industry 4.0, the shop floor has become a more complex world and manufacturers have had to adapt equipment, teams, systems, and processes to maintain the smooth running of production lines and achieve maximum efficiencies.
This month, we take a look at how smart technology, developed by Sheffield-based technology start-up, FourJaw Manufacturing Analytics is enabling manufacturers to offset the pressures they face, by unlocking productivity gains through an accessible and affordable, plug and play machine monitoring platform.
FourJaw has been described in the media as a fitness tracker for manufacturing. In the same way that a fitness tracker helps you understand your body metrics to inform general health and sporting performance, they do the same for production machines to deliver transformative productivity gains.
Operating across a multitude of sectors, including oil and gas, aerospace, motorsport and automotive, consumer goods and textile manufacturing, FourJaw is taking the manufacturing sector by storm.
The average machine they connect to registers utilisation below 20 per cent, and because manufacturers are only earning when their machines are in use, this figure represents a huge opportunity to turbocharge growth, an opportunity most manufacturers don’t even know they have!
The way they do it is with a combined hardware and software solution, so for the first time, manufacturers can have visibility of what’s going on throughout their factory, in real-time. Production teams can communicate electronically via FourJaw to raise issues that are preventing them from getting the most out of their machines, so that these issues can be solved as soon as they arise.
It’s not surprising that FourJaw has developed such a prominent reputation from which it’s building strong relationships overseas with key players in the markets around the world. Customers span from the UK to mainland Europe, to Canada and New Zealand. The team at FourJaw are constantly looking to gain more insights into other markets.
FourJaw found great support from South Yorkshire’s Department of International Trade, which regularly runs training events and provides support and assistance for businesses with internationalisation potential.
Contributing to South Yorkshire’s strong and ever-growing reputation for advanced manufacturing, FourJaw is aiming high, resulting in significant numbers of high-value job opportunities in the region. This year alone, the FourJaw team has more than doubled in size.
Emootion
Emootion, a company that is developing posture recognition technology with e-skin, predicts to accumulate an annual revenue of £14.5million while providing 30-50 new jobs for the area in the next five years.
Emootion is developing cutting-edge posture recognition technology through non-intrusive wearables and smart fabrics called Emootion-skin (e-skin). Aiming to change the future of health and sport, Emootion combines the most recent advances in machine learning and data fusion with emerging smart fabrics and highly experimental wearable technologies.
Combining Sheffield’s business foundations with its English Institute of Sport credibilities, founder Lubos Vaci set Emootion’s roots amongst leading advances in artificial intelligence and machine learning, neurology and sports sciences. Vaci believes in nurturing Steel City talent from Sheffield Hallam and the University of Sheffield – with the aim of creating 50 jobs for graduates and experts alike as Emootion develops. To further aid in this, Emootion pledges to invest three per cent of its income on sponsorships and scholarships, helping to put South Yorkshire on the technology and IT map.
Emootion is a self-funded project driven Vaci, who predicts that e-skin will make training in sports such as figure skating 23 per cent more effective, with 87 per cent of predictable injuries of athletes being avoided.
Emootion is a big advocator for Sheffield organisations such as the Chamber of Commerce and Federation of Small Businesses that connect businesses not only to fundamental advice but to surrounding connections. South Yorkshire offers access to the Sheffield Innovation Program (SIP) and Digital Innovation for Growth (DFIG) funds tailored to SME’s. The region opens doors for developing innovative ideas and embracing new technologies, meaning companies like Emootion can thrive amongst the region’s greatest exports.
3SC Software
3SC is a software house that has been providing bespoke software solutions for 20 years this year. Over the last 15 years, it has become one of the leading experts in automated transit systems and is engaged with companies in the UK and also internationally, including in China and the USA.
One of its largest projects is the design and implementation of Personal Rapid Transit Systems (PRT), which are on-demand, zero-emission, driverless transit systems for both passengers and freight which run on a designated guideway.
The ‘Heathrow Pod’, which has now been in operation for over 11 years and is still maintained by 3SC, is an example of the PRT system. The Heathrow POD was the world’s first of its kind, bringing to market a modern implementation of PRT using the latest technology.
The company is one of those at the forefront of putting South Yorkshire on the global map and believes that we can organically help to create networks that consider South Yorkshire businesses when looking at industry/technology development by dealing with suppliers and investors from around the world.
With lots of great education providers and universities in the area, as well as an abundance of talented, driven and innovative individuals on our doorstep, the team behind 3SC believe South Yorkshire is at a huge advantage for doing global business.
Although there may be some stumbling blocks along the way, such as gaining funding and investment from outside the local area, the 3SC team believe that if you do your research, are prepared to work flexibly and enter the international stage with confidence, commitment and a product that people are interested in, then you’ll be onto a winner.
And of course, with so much beautiful scenery on our doorstep, what’s not to love?
Henderson’s Relish
Henderson’s Relish remains a source (or should that be sauce?) of great admiration for Sheffielders. It embodies the very essence of what makes the city great – it’s the cultural lifeblood behind its character and easily the region’s favourite table sauce.
Founded in 1885, Henderson’s Relish came from small beginnings on Sheffield’s very own Broad Lane as the creation of a drysalter and wholesale chemist, Henry Henderson. Selling Henderson’s from large wooden barrels, customers came from across the region to fill their own glass bottles with the spicy sauce unlike any other, for just a penny apiece.
Henderson sold barrel after barrel until 1910, when pickle manufacturing company Shaws of Huddersfield offered to purchase the business. From there, the relish production was relocated to a factory on Leavygreave Road. Passed down through generations, Henderson’s has been in the Freeman family since the early 1940s.
It might be surprising to read that until 1996, Henderson’s was listed in only one local supermarket, the Co-op. But pioneers, Dr Kenneth Freeman and his wife Pamela, oversaw ground-breaking developments in the company’s profile, becoming partners with Sainsbury’s in 1996. From there, Henderson’s became more accessible to its adoring Sheffield audience and word started to spread further afield.
Bottles of Henderson’s Relish are dispatched around the world on a regular basis. While filming Sharpe in 2008, Sean Bean ordered a batch of Henderson’s to his film set in India. In 2009, Dr Freeman sent litre bottles of Henderson’s to troops serving in Afghanistan. And, in 2014, more giant bottles were sent out to a Sheffield soldier at the request of his wife, inadvertently converting an entire squadron into Henderson’s addicts by doing so.
Over the years customers in Singapore, Australia, the United States and Hong Kong have all been in touch with the sales department. Families have been known to regularly send bottles over to kin living in New Zealand, Spain and Canada. It’s fair to say that despite its local connotations, Henderson’s Relish certainly gets around!
The success of Henderson’s in its hometown had previously been a rather modest, understated affair. Yet over the last decade or so, the Henderson’s Relish brand has gained ‘cult status’ in the city. As a selection of famous fans such as Richard Hawley continue to sing its praises, Sheffield locals show great pride in the iconic bottle. Special customised labels have also been commissioned with nods to local legends like Arctic Monkeys, Toddla T and Pete Mckee, not to mention iconic events such as Tramlines, Bears of Sheffield and the Tour de Yorkshire.
With the company now being based on a premise on Sheffield Parkway Business Park, the brand has grown further and these days shops across the UK stock Henderson’s.
