Growth replaces crisis talks at Pudsey manufacturer

Vickers Laboratories produces chemicals for various applications, and its biggest seller is vinyl pyrrolidone, which is used to make the latest generation of hydrogel contact lenses.

That side of the business shrank during lockdown as sales of contact lenses were curtailed when many shops were forced to close and customers stayed at home.

“We had a very, very busy first quarter of the year – we were running absolutely at full tilt and had invested in extra capacity,” managing director Steve Foster told The Yorkshire Post.

“Then, with the impact of the shops being shut, and people not wearing contact lenses as much, we saw a huge downturn. We had no business for two months.”

To help fill the void, the company adapted one of its production lines to manufacture World Health Organization-approved hand-sanitiser, which was distributed via healthcare wholesaler Algeos to customers including care homes, hospices, hotels, taxi companies and police control centres.

Now, production at the firm’s Pudsey plant is back up to as much as 80 per cent and Mr Foster expects it to increase further.

“The contact lens disruption apart, our imports and exports have barely been touched by the pandemic. We expected it to be choked off, but it wasn’t,” he said.

He added: “Because of the way we’ve grown over the years, we have so many different niches that haven’t all been affected and we’ve stayed financially quite robust.

“In fact, we’ve now got too much new stuff in the pipeline to cope with, which is so different from three months ago, when we were having crisis talks about the loss of revenue and potential redundancies.

“We’re now looking at some longer-term, but also some immediate, short-term business growth.”

Nevertheless, the company, which will mark its 50th anniversary next year, will not be increasing its 40-strong headcount until there is a clearer economic outlook.

“We’ve had a bit of natural attrition in the last few months, so we’re quite lean at the moment,” said Mr Foster.

“But we’re reluctant to take anybody on at the moment, because we don’t really know what the future looks like.

“I’d expect more uncertainty, a lack of clarity in what the Government is saying and demanding, and too much interpretation left to the businesses and the public.

But he added: “I can’t see any government wanting to go for another full lockdown – we’re in debt enough as it is, without adding even further to it.”

In the meantime, he admitted that a second coronavirus wave, although highly undesirable, would at least be good for sales of hand-sanitiser, but cautioned that a return to split shifts and unusual work hours may not go down well with many.

“Back in March, weekends didn’t exist; there were no pubs, no social life, so people were happy to work weekends. People were visibly dying and the NHS was on its knees,” he said.

“This time around, none of those things exist. There is a social life outside work and there are pubs open at weekends. There are people dying, but not in the same numbers, and we’re not seeing the NHS as yet under strain. So it’s a different sell to people, because we’re talking about changing people’s terms and conditions of employment.

“When the virus hit back in March, everybody went ‘fair enough, we’re all in this’, but there isn’t that strong vibe this time.”