Last week (Friday 21 October), Doncaster based engineering business Haith was presented with its second Queen’s Award for Enterprise trophy by His Majesty’s Lord-Lieutenant of South Yorkshire, Dame Hilary Chapman. Haith are proud to have been recognised in the 2022’s innovation category for developing its Rota-Tip Top-Eject. This energy-efficient, highly reliable and feature-rich box tipping machine is used to unload delicate fresh produce in food factories worldwide.
The process to receive this award is highly competitive therefore the Haith team is immensely proud to have won this award for the second time in its 56 year history. The recognition of the award is great news for the team at Haith, it is a reward for everyone’s hard work and shows the continued commitment that we have in providing the best solutions to all our customers. Haith is always looking to find innovative ways of doing things and providing solutions that are efficient, well made, competitively priced and backed up by the best customer service we can offer.
Duane Hill, Haith’s Managing Director’s full speech as delivered at the presentation:
“I would like to extend a warm welcome to His Majesty’s Lord-Lieutenant of South Yorkshire, Dame Hilary Chapman. I would also like to welcome Phil Barraclough, Lieutenancy Officer for South Yorkshire and Dan Fell, CEO of Doncaster Chamber.
We are immensely proud to be receiving this award, our second Queen’s Award for Enterprise in the Innovation category, the most prestigious award a UK business can receive and an award that wouldn’t have been possible without our dedicated team. This prestigious award is true testament to the innovative approach we take to solving problems for our customers in the vegetable handling sector. Since launching the Rota-tip in the year 2000 we have added three variations to the range including today’s award winning TE (Top eject). We have Rota-tips working across the globe with 176 machines sold to date. The benefits of the Rota-tip are unrivalled in the marketplace and customers are continually impressed by the all-electric energy efficient design, gentle product handling and robust build that leads to many years of faultless service.
I would like to sincerely thank everyone involved but give special thanks to our customers, who set us the challenge of designing a way to empty vegetable boxes in a safer and more efficient way, David Haith, who led the design of the original concept and Nigel Haith, who made the patent application and entered the Rota-tip to be considered for a Queen’s Award for Enterprise.
The Rota-Tip is a fantastic example of the Haith innovative approach. We have achieved this award by building upon the firm engineering foundations that the late Geoff Haith started back in 1947 and by expanding and investing in the Haith business.
We will continue to invest our people, our manufacturing facilities and in research and development. We are today a UK market leader in our sector, and it is our ambition to be a global dominant market leader in vegetable handling equipment and systems.
We are acutely aware that we have won this award in the last year that it will be known as the Queen’s Award for Enterprise, we offer our condolences with sympathy to the Royal Family as we remember and reflect on the Queen’s remarkable life as the reigning monarch for 70 years.
We are honoured to formally receive this award from you today on behalf of His Majesty the King.”
This was then followed by handing over to Dame Hillary for the rest of the ceremony.
Since introducing the Up-Eject system, Haith has sold over 180 machines to most of the UK’s leading food suppliers and exported them to Europe, Japan, Israel, Canada and the United States. In the UK, Duane Hill estimates that 95% of the potato suppliers to UK’s supermarkets use a Rota-Tip, meaning Haith’s award-winning machine will have handled most potatoes sold in Britain.
To find out more about Haith and its range of vegetable handling equipment, please visit our Machinery Section, email sales@haith.co.uk or call +44 (0) 1302 831 911.
