Welcome to our 33rd issue, bringing you news of the Company’s progress with information on new ingredients, product developments, staff news, and the 2019 Customer Survey.
Social Media
Our student intern, Megan, has done great work updating our Facebook page and creating some interesting posts—I hope that you noticed them and discovered more about Body & Face!
We’ve now appointed Megan, on a part-time basis, to work on our website to make it easier to navigate and more informative. Watch this space!
Here we go again!
We’ll be biting the accreditation / certification bullet again as we have been told that we may be eligible for funding towards a Gap Survey, Training and Certification sessions towards ISO 22716:2007 (Good Manufacturing Practice) certification. We already have some quotes so now just need to get going! Although we do operate to GMP guidelines, this will allow us more product opportunities and help to emphasise our quality standards. The application form is lengthy!
Cruelty Free Products
Aiming to maintain our accreditation, we have completed our annual round of surveys of our suppliers to ensure that no animal testing is undertaken on our ingredients. A reminder that our official testing cut-off date is 2003 but we have been cruelty free since 1994! Cruelty Free Europe has been launched in a new network of animal protection organisations to end animal testing in the EU. Cross-party MPS have tabled a letter to DEFRA urging that there is no risk of repeat chemical testing on animals in the UK as a result of Brexit. In China, there is now a Memorandum of Understanding with nine non-animal test methods being approved. Also a draft regulation of the NMPA opens up the possibility that imported non-special use cosmetics may be exempted from mandatory animal testing.
Palm Oil Derivatives
A query from one of our customers raised the issue of the sustainability of Palm Oil and its derivatives. It is noted that, in some cases, it is hard to find a suitable alternative. For the technically minded this includes materials such as Lauryl Betaine, Cetearyl Alcohol, Glycerol Monostearate, PEG 100-Glyceryl Stearate, Sodium Laureth Sulfate and Stearic Acid which can be used by Body & Face in its manufacturing. Noted that BASF and the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO) are working with the Indonesian Government in a project to support independent smallholders and a supply chain free of de-forestation.
Customer Survey 2019
Thank you to everyone who completed our 2019 Customer Survey. We had a 56% response rate giving helpful feedback from both our business customers and those who purchase our aromatherapy products. We hope that the first respondents enjoyed the small gift of products they received. A reminder that there was some variation in the questions asked of our business and aromatherapy customers with questions 5-8 requiring feedback from business customers on our manufacturing ‘scale-up’ services and question 2 from those purchasing from our range of aromatherapy base products. Satisfaction rates have slightly increased or are much the same as 2018 for those who responded. We do realise that we need to ’keep on our toes’! Reporting of the possibilities of new ingredients, for example.
From your responses:
Gratifying to read comments on our excellent standard of manufacturing and our reliability. We are keen to continue establishing good working relationships with all our customers and maintain a high standard of customer service. Also appreciated was the fact that we are based in Scotland / GB. We continue to maintain our IIP, ISO 9001:2015 accreditation.
It was noted that our products are ethical and cruelty free. Our next Cruelty Free International accreditation assessment is due in January 2020 and we will be conducting our Supplier Survey in July.
We are looking into the possibility of providing some products in smaller quantities (possibly trial sizes) as suggested and a reminder that we are also able to offer sample sachets of some of our aromatherapy range.
Our Carrot Moisturiser received several honourable mentions! Very pleasing!
From June 2019 we are undertaking a project to improve our business website and also to enhance our Facebook presence—watch this space —and our social media developments with more news of product and staff developments.
Unfortunately we are still experiencing some damage to consignments - problems are highlighted with our couriers and our Workshop Manager does regularly review the situation.
Staff News
Congratulations to Stacey, our Senior Process Assistant, who has passed all the exams in the second level of her Maths course at Dundee and Angus College. What to do next?
For the first two weeks of June we welcomed Megan, a student intern from Aberdeen University, who is working on a project to enhance our social media presence. Lots of ideas and contributions from the team hopefully making Facebook posts and content more informative and attractive! Just heard that she has graduated with First Class Honours in English and Philosophy—well done! See Page
Congratulations also to Debbie, our Office Manager, who married Euan on 26th May. We had a great evening too!
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