Learn more about our people and how we protect them, our community and charitable support, our dedication to responsible retailing, and our sustainability efforts.
We want to continue making a positive difference, and we believe it is vital to our long-term success.
Our reputation and success rests on the shoulders of our employees. While as a family-owned company it is important for us to espouse family values, we do not feel these are incompatible with a performance culture - which is vital for safeguarding Timothy Taylor's future. This is recognised in our company vision and values, which states that "Timothy Taylor's seeks to offer a safe and enjoyable working environment that evokes loyalty and a shared purpose. We aim to promote a culture that encourages efficiency, productivity and a collaborative approach whilst embracing change and recognising talent."
In order to attract high-quality employees, we offer strong basic salaries enhanced by generous provisions in terms of a barrelage bonus, pension scheme, and private health care. From the point of recruitment, particularly for our brewery team, we involve an outside occupational health firm to assess baseline health measures and then track them over the period of employment with Timothy Taylor's.
Timothy Taylor's is committed to investing in its people through appropriate training. This is particularly important for us because, as a medium-sized business, promotion is not always a possibility, but we can work hard to offer in-role development for our team. This ranges from 'train the trainer courses' (particularly key for our brewing team) to role-specific training (for example, our sales team have all been on Cask Marque cellar-training courses, to better advise their customers).
We are also sponsoring two members of staff at the Woolly Sheep Inn, for apprenticeships in Level 3 Chef de Partie and Level 3 Hospitality Supervision, while plans are in place to sponsor our Head Chef, for a part time degree in environmental health, a 6-year course.
We run an active Health & Safety committee which meets frequently and is attended by the Chief Executive and key representatives from across the business. In this way, we can not only review any incidents through our 'live accident log' and act on them, but, more importantly, pro-actively highlight and discuss issues or areas for improvement.
More recently we have placed focus on employee mental wellbeing, with two of our brewers attending a Mental Health First Aider course to provide augmented support to our team in the ever-changing environment in which we operate. Our Human Resources partner, Thrive Law, have a specific focus on mental health from which we and our employees benefit.
The company was quick to respond to the COVID-19 pandemic by immediately introducing safeguards across the business well before a lockdown was announced (for example, sales members were asked to work from home and to phone accounts instead of visiting them; the brewery team had enhanced hygiene and work measures put in place to minimise the chance of the virus spreading; and we had already taken the decision to close the Woolly Sheep Inn, on safety grounds before the government made this a formal requirement).
As one of the largest employers in Keighley, Timothy Taylor’s recognises it plays a vital role in both the community and with local charities.
We engage with the community in a variety of ways, whether it is a member of Timothy Taylor's sitting on Keighley BID, an organisation looking to help local businesses, or by being part of Dementia Friendly Keighley (because as a large employer in the town it is important we adapt to the ever-changing needs of our customers and staff). Our Chief Executive also recently presented to the Keighley Historic Society on the history of Timothy Taylor’s in the town while we are pleased to sponsor Dean, our tenant at the Boltmakers Arms, in his role of coach at Keighley Cougars.
Our charitable focus centres around Manorlands, a Sue Ryder hospice located just outside Keighley in Oxenhope. For over 15 years the Managing Director/CEO of Timothy Taylor’s has played an active role on a fundraising group, ‘The Challenge Committee’, that oversees two main events each year (The Coniston Challenge, June; The Beef & Beer Dinner, November) which have raised over £1m for the hospice since 2004. As an example of our commitment, at the Beef & Beer Dinner we support the event by supplying (free of charge) the bar, staff, beer, raffle prize and auction items, as well as by paying for two tables for guests.
This is complemented by a variety of ad-hoc activities which have included, over the years, support of ABF The Soldiers' Charity and Royal British Legion through a cash donation for each pint of Havercake ale sold; and participation in the Brewgooder project, which supported delivery of clean water in Malawi.
In addition, we frequently offer a personal tour by our CEO and lunch at one of our pubs as an auction prize for a variety of charitable organisations. This achieves, on average, about £750 at auction. Recent beneficiaries include: The York Minster Fund; Kirkby Malham Sparkle Ball; Marie Curie Auction; Sir Robert Ogden Macmillan Spring Ball; and Opera North. We also support a plethora of other events with raffle prizes in the form of beer, t-shirts, and other items.
Meanwhile, the Woolly Sheep Inn, our managed pub in Skipton raised £4,500 for the charity Bliss (in aid of premature babies) through a charity dinner which they are looking to repeat each year.
At Timothy Taylor's we state our philosophy very clearly: "We recognise that by working with stakeholders that share our passion for quality and our commitment to the values of honesty, integrity, respectfulness and fairness we are most likely to succeed as a sustainable, family-owned and profitable business over the long term."
We also recognise that a major benefit to the area is not just the direct employment we provide but the support we can give to local businesses. For that reason, we try to 'buy local' wherever possible. This can range from support services such as office cleaning and tyre purchase to major capital expenditure (for example, our new boiler was built by Byworth Boilers of Keighley and local builders RN Wooler were principle contractors for our recent £1.7m brewery extension).
Much is made in the press about slow payments and the impact this can have on suppliers, particularly small businesses. We pride ourselves on offering fair terms to our supply base and ensuring that we hold to that; on average our payment terms are about 30 days.
In addition, 17 of our 19 pubs are run by tenants, or business partners, and we take pride in treating them as part of the family. For example, during the COVID-19 pandemic, even before pubs were forced to close, we offered four weeks of free rent and extended this after official closure as well as suspending their debt repayments.
In our managed pubs, Taylor's on the Green and the Woolly Sheep Inn, we work hard to ensure the business is run responsibly and for the benefit of the community. This means ensuring we only serve legal drinking age consumers who are in a state to enjoy alcohol responsibly and not to excess and ensuring age restrictions are adhered to in terms of access to the limited number of gaming machines in outlet.
In our 17 tenanted pubs, while our partners, the tenants, operate independently trading businesses, we support them as part of our ownership responsibilities in ensuring that their premises are fully compliant with all necessary safety laws and regulations (e.g. fire risk assessments, electrical certification, etc.) as well as sharing industry best practice with them through meetings with our area manager.
As in our brewery activities, our pubs look to use local suppliers wherever possible, such as R&J Yorkshire's Finest Farmers & Butchers. R&J have been supplying some of the choicest fresh meats and poultry from their farm in Yorkshire for more than 30 years. All of their animals graze in open pastures; an approach which is not only kinder to the animals but which also produces the highest quality meats. All of our fruit and vegetables are also sourced locally.
Timothy Taylor’s continually examines all opportunities to reduce our carbon footprint and take measures to reduce our impact on the world’s resources. Brewing is historically a green process - over 90% of our ingredients come from the UK and cask ale represents over 80% of our production. Cask is not only a natural product (water, barley, yeast, hops) but is distributed in casks that are returned to the brewery, cleaned, and reused, with a lifetime of many, many years.
While up to now we have taken a number of ad-hoc steps to improve our environmental impact (see below) we recognise that we now need to take a more strategic response. As a result, Timothy Taylor’s has retained a consultancy, Carbon Architecture, to baseline our CO2 production and develop a 'Net Zero Roadmap' for the brewery. As part of this project we aim to produce a full and transparent Sustainability Report that we will share publicly once ready.
Some of the steps we have already taken include:
The brewery also has a strong upcycling/recycling programme. Some examples of this include:
In terms of green energy, we installed solar panels in 2015 which generate almost 100,000Kwh of electricity for brewery use each year. In addition, we have installed five Electric Vehicle (EV) bays to support our team and visitors, with plug-in hybrid company cars purchased.
