Cashless society: is it on the cards?

Stuart Neal, head of UK payment acceptance at Barclaycard

The life expectancy of cash has been a highly debated topic. For a long time retailers have been denying that a cashless society is drawing closer. However, the Payments Council recently predicted that cash payments would account for fewer than half of all transactions within just five years, with the amount that consumers spend on cards increasing fourfold in the last decade.1 Indeed, for retailers and consumers alike, cash is increasingly becoming more of a burden than a straightforward form of payment. The cost to retailers of processing it is huge, queues become uncontrollable as customers fumble for change in shops, and having to remember to get cash out from an ATM just becomes another thing to think about in consumers’ busy lives.

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Keeping Ahead of the Mix!

Supplying mixing machinery to a wide variety of industries has been the backbone of the business for A E Mixers for the last 42 years.

The company was originally launched as Associated Engineering in 1968 but for the last 25 years in particular the emphasis has been on mixing technology. Andrew Hudson, the present managing director, took over the company four years ago and has continued to steadily build the business.

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A Tapestry of Many Cultures and Cuisines

Asian cuisine is world-renowned for its complex combinations of flavours and aromas, with its curries, breads and sauces melding together in unique ways, making a meal a truly immersive experience for food-lovers.

The blending together of the various spices and flavours can be complicated though, and that is why since 1973 Bombay Halwa has done it for you, leaving no need for guesswork or intricate recipe scaling. The result is a range of products as diverse and colourful as the continent itself!

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Carefully Made Butter in Caerphilly

Castle Dairies is based in Caerphilly South Wales. Situated in the base of a green valley and surrounded by hills, the dairy produces award winning organic and conventional butters for the UK wholesale and retail markets.

The company is proud to be Welsh and is owned and run by the Lloyd family. Since it was established in 1968 the company has progressively grown and invested in new technology and skills and is now the only dairy in Wales that has the capability of both churning and packing butter. During 2007 the company completed a £300k investment to provide its customers with state of the art processing facilities.

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Passionate, Dynamic and Results Oriented

C&R Drinks was established in 2004, and in just six short years the company has become one of Ireland’s major importers and distributors of leading brands of beers, ciders, and alcopops, sourcing product from 12 different countries throughout the world.

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The ‘New’ Eclipse

It’s one thing being able to offer a wide range of extremely valuable services and being great at delivering those services.

But in order to offer your customers a real solution, you need to understand the context in which those services might be used.

Eclipse Scientific has earned an enviable reputation among food and drink manufacturers for having accomplished technicians with excellent customer service skills. But, like any other business working in this sector, Eclipse has had to adapt to the ever-greater demands being placed on it by its customers. Those increased expectations don’t just spontaneously arise out of nowhere – they, too, are being driven by market forces beyond their control to seek more from the relationship they have with their testing company. Without a doubt, the biggest issues facing food and drink industry manufacturers these days are the stringent demands placed on quality control by consumers, customers and legislation . While this ultimately leads to a better product for the consumer, this creates ever increasing demands and challenges for food testing laboratories .

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