From storeman to chairman: Owner of 80-year-old Northern Ireland bakery reflects on honouring his father's legacy while 'creating a business that feels like a family'

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Love Your Local: Tim Andrew, chair of Andrew Ingredients in Lisburn reveals more about honouring his father's legacy, building a baking empire and keeping a sense of community in every batch

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00:00I'm Tim Andrew, Chairman of Andrew Ingredients. We've been in business since 1945. The business

00:13was started by my dad. I joined in the summer of 1967. I was given a job for three weeks to

00:23do the work of our storeman who was taking two weeks holidays. So I did my three weeks and didn't leave.

00:35We were based in Corporation Street in Belfast. We moved out to Hillsborough village in 1975.

00:44And we were right in the centre of the village, which was a nice spot and with much more space.

00:49We stayed there for the next 10 plus years until we outgrew that as well. In 1986, we moved two miles

00:59outside Hillsborough to a really big, a proper warehouse and proper office building and lots

01:06of parking. Not that too many people had cars back then. When we moved to Hillsborough, we became

01:12Andrew of Hillsborough. Then in 2000, we changed our name to Andrew Ingredients. We found this building

01:21and moved in in May 2011. We converted this room and that room, which was unused at the time,

01:32into a bakery, which we've called Bill's Bakery after my dad. He'd been very proud to have his own

01:40bakery. Customers come here to develop new products. Potential customers come here to decide they might

01:48want to go into baking. Bill's Bakery is a fabulous facility. When I started back in 1967, I think there

01:58were eight of us in the business. We have grown in every sense in the suppliers we work with and

02:06represent with the number of customers. The number of staff has grown to approaching 50. We've grown

02:14from just supplying Northern Ireland to all of Ireland, then into Scotland and now England and Wales.

02:22And we've gone from strength to strength. When my dad started in business, his aim was to bring

02:30a new level of service to his customers with the experience of technical help where needed. We now

02:38have our own resident baker to do the same thing. It's the whole thing of working with customers,

02:46working with suppliers and working with our own people to give exceptional customer service

02:53customers and help feed the people with exceptional bakery products.

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