International food giant Princes is making preparations for a second wave of Covid-19 after the lockdown presented the "biggest challenge" both the company and industry has ever faced.
The Liverpool-based company, where revenues this year topped £1.5bn, said it had been an "extraordinary" time for food and drink manufacturing, but that its teams had pulled together "magnificently".
Products made by the firm, one of the city's biggest companies and headquartered at the iconic Royal Liver Building, include tinned meat, fruit, pies, chopped tomatoes and dried pasta.
And with many of those in such high demand particularly at the start of the pandemic, Princes is keeping a firm eye on what happens if the Government announces a second nationwide lockdown.
Speaking exclusively to BusinessLive, David McDiarmid, corporate relations director, said: "We're certainly watching [the situation] very closely.
"In terms of preparations, we're making sure that we put our arms around and ring fence our key raw material supply chains as much as we possibly can.
"In the event that this happens again, we're obviously not only looking at it from a national point of view, but also from a regional point of view.
"I'm very much aware that we're seeing individual towns and cities in England and Scotland have already gone into lockdown and potentially Liverpool could be one of the future. We are preparing and aware that this could come again.
"We have to be mindful that in some of our some of our areas with regards to the raw materials, many of these raw materials come in from overseas, so there is a reliance on the suppliers or the supply chains overseas and what the conditions are in those countries.
'A global issue'
"It's a global issue - it's not just looking at a UK point of view, we would have to look at everything. For example, with dried pasta, it comes in from Italy, so we're looking very closely in terms of what happens in Italy. We're looking at Brazil in terms of corned beef, and the various countries that tuna comes from, and working with suppliers as best we can to try and make sure that we have access to additional volumes should we need them."
Princes employs 470 people in Liverpool, over 2,000 across the UK, and around 7,000 globally.
There are more than 350 food products available under the Princes brand, including fruit juices, meat pastes and tinned pies.
It was founded in Liverpool in 1880 as Simpson & Roberts. In 1989 it was taken over by Japanese giant Mitubishi, since then it has bought brands from Napolina to Aqua Pura.
Speaking about the pandemic, Mr Diarmid said: "Covid has seen a bit of an unparalleled call on the industry to step up and meet the demand that we've seen from consumers.
"During the early stages of the pandemic, we were seeing unprecedented levels of demand for our products.
"Many people might think, 'well, that's terrific', and in many ways that's good - but of course in supplying any food drink to anybody, top and only priority for us was the duty of care to colleagues working in our manufacturing sites, whether that's canned food or whether it's soft drinks or oils."
Biggest challenge
Mr McDiarmid, who has been with the firm since 2007 and in his role as corporate relations director since 2012, said the coronavirus pandemic has been the biggest challenge the company has ever faced.
"Not just for us, but the whole food industry, because there's so many so many issues going on - most importantly, keeping people safe.
"There's been major changes to our manufacturing sites in terms of social distancing as a starting point. So that could be something relatively routine, like in canteens and changing rooms, or how many people that can go into meetings, or how close people can stand next to each other on production lines,
"As a food manufacturing business, it was also about making sure that we could future proof our stock and make sure we had sufficient levels, because we were clearly going through it at a much, much faster rate.
"The other challenge was moving our head office operations from an office to remote working in an extremely short time window.
"It's the 21st century, [so] we have a large number of colleagues that work off laptops, whether they're in the office or not.
"But clearly a large number of colleagues are not used to remote working, and we had a large number of functions that have never worked outside of the office.
"So the key one for us as a business was making sure that once we'd gone remote, orders were still processed, invoices and wages still paid and all the slightly mundane business, operational functional things, that have never been done remote working, happened.
"It's been been quite a challenge to keep business going as usual in terms of meetings or whatever it might be, and loads of positives have come through.
"I think we've come out of it pretty well on the basis that we're keeping colleagues safe, we're still putting out stock to customers and the business is still functioning well.
"It's worked really well, I would say, in very difficult circumstances, thanks to the colleagues, whether office based or site-based, that have made that happen."
Paying particular tribute to the firm's "heroes" working in manufacturing sites throughout, he said: "They kept the nation fed and of course, without a fit and a healthy workforce, we wouldn't have been in a position to supply anything to anybody."
Brexit
In terms of Brexit, Mr Diarmid said the various extensions announced since the original departure date in 2018 has enabled the firm to prepare for all outcomes.
He said: "We've conducted a lot of forward planning for all potential eventualities to ensure that we're as well placed as we possibly can be to deal with whatever [happens].
"We don't really know what the future is post-Brexit but we're very much an optimistic business. There will be challenges but whatever opportunities come our way, we will be able to capitalise on those as well.
"There is one area that we're watching extremely closely, which is with regards to a no deal, and the tariffs that would come in as a result of WTO [World Trade Organisation] trading terms. That will have an impact on some of the raw materials, not just for us, but our competitors as well.
"So that's an area where we're hopeful the Government will come to a sensible and logical deal with the EU in the very near future."
Mr McDiarmid was asked whether a no deal or hard Brexit would affect the firm's commitment to the UK, and Liverpool in particular.
He said: "We foresee no change whatsoever. No deal or a deal is not going to make any change to Princes' offices being in Liverpool and Liverpool being our home.
"As a business we've been here since 1880. So there's no conversation that I'm aware of, or any foreseeing of the likelihood of Prince's not being here."
He said he was "very optimistic" about the future of the business.
"We're a very forward-looking business and we've got significant plans. In terms of innovation, we're diversifying into into other areas, some of them at relatively early stages."
The Covid lockdown has not stopped the firm from innovating, and recent product releases include the Napolina canned quinoa, the 'Mackerel Sizzle' products, and a range of Napolina frozen pasta and sauces.
That's as well as investing millions of pounds into new product development - launching a partnership with specialist innovation agency Cubo.
The initiative includes a new 'innovation kitchen' at the Royal Liver Building, and hiring a team of six to lead the 'Innov8 By Princes' approach.
The partnership with Cubo, announced last month, is hoped to create "fast-paced innovation projects focused on brand creation, product design and development, packaging, commercialisation and channel strategy”.
