Flame Heating Group has been praised for its innovation by the national chairman of the Federation of Small Businesses during a visit to the North East firm.
Mike Cherry met with three of the directors during a tour of the independent firm’s head office in Boldon, South Tyneside, where he learned more about its plans to further grow its branch network.
“Part of my role as chairman is to meet our members face-to-face to help inform and shape future FSB policy,” he said. “It’s been instructive to hear directly about how Flame is constantly innovating and diversifying to grow the business.”
He also chose to visit Flame, which was founded by John Savage in 2011, after the company picked up the FSB’s UK Scale Up Business of the Year in May as part of the Celebrating Small Business Awards 2019.
“It’s an exciting time for Flame Heating Group, which was a very worthy winner of the award. Having visited the company and met several of its staff, I’m confident it will continue to build upon its considerable achievements.”
Flame is one of the North East’s fastest-growing heating and plumbing merchants and has enjoyed another successful year.
It is set to build upon last year’s record revenues of £16.6m and profits of £2.87m with continued growth, buoyed by investments in its infrastructure, branch network and the launch of new trade counters and bathroom showrooms.
Sean Langston, Trading Director at Flame Heating Group, said: “It was great to meet Mike and to hear how the FSB is representing and promoting the interests of member businesses such as Flame.
“He was very interested to learn more about how we have expanded – our business model, how we are developing our staff, Flame’s support for the apprentice programme and its recently-launched Azure bathroom range.”
Earlier this year Flame expanded its network into a new geographical area, with the launch of its 12th trade counter in the North West. This followed the successful launch of three trade counters in Scotland in 2018.
Nominations are currently invited for the free to enter FSB 2020 awards which are open to all small businesses in the UK.
