Sustainability driving double-digit growth for WCD Group

December 2019 – This year marks 15 years in business for the Gloucestershire-based WCD Group, the leading UK supplier of hydration solutions to businesses, large and small across the UK, and now homeowners. 2019 has delivered enviable growth in a competitive market through investment and finance from Barclays. Sustainability is at the heart of their expansion providing drinking water solutions that cut plastic pollution and waste and encourage refill and reuse.

Enjoying a long-standing relationship, Barclays has supported the WCD Group at every stage of expansion, including the expansion into new premises on the prestigious Gloucester Business Park, increasing staff, and investing in new e-commerce web technology and product lines. Privately owned and with a 2019 turnover circa ￡7m, the firm employs 58 staff at its HQ in Gloucestershire and in an extensive field-based engineering team in the UK & Ireland. 

Said Freddie Cairns Palmer, CEO at the WCD Group: “One important constant throughout our history has been Barclays as our financial partner and funding backbone. Today they continue to support us as we enter our next investment and growth phase, increasing our new product development brands and implementing an exciting launch into the domestic market with our KettleTap hot taps. This goes hand in hand with a recruitment drive to take on more resources in sales, operations, and field engineering, alongside our growing apprentice scheme.”

“We have developed our own exclusive range of instant boiling hot taps, the multi-function KettleTap range - boiling, cold, hot, ambient – replaces kettles delivering gains in energy efficiency and environmental sustainability.”

Simon Beard, relationship director at Barclays, said: “The WCD Group is a great example of a company being prepared to diversify into other areas as its business evolves, spotting threats and opportunities and adapting to meet or seize them. They have recently won a contract with a leading online retailer worth ￡1million+ to install and service a range of sustainable employee hydration solutions. By really understanding the business and issues they have faced, Barclays has been able to support WCD financially and professionally throughout its latest expansion phase. This is a business with a rich history but one that is also determined to have a bright future.” 

With organisations such as Refill.org and other anti-plastic bodies fast emerging in 2019, the WCD Group has seen a 12% annual growth, which is looking to improve further at the end of this current FY. There has been a swell in businesses and retailers investing in plumbed in refill stations for their customers and the public to refill reusable bottles with fresh water, reducing pollution waste and landfill.

Freddie added: “We refer to this as the Attenborough Affect; following Sir David’s Blue Planet plastic awareness. The crusade against single-use plastic pollution has resulted in a meteoric rise in the refill sector, and sees us working with Gloucester Rugby, Creed Foodservice, and high street brands such as Sainsbury’s, M&S and Greggs to name but a few!”

For homeowners the WCD Group has just launched a brand new, and unique for this market, interest-free credit facility where consumers can spread the cost between three and twelve months without any added cost, thereby making the ownership and buying decision so much more desirable.

Exciting times ahead indeed.