The business is dedicated to vegetarian, organic, sustainable and ethical trading and has an annual turnover of around £12m. With 85 employees, a wholesale business and two shops it is one of the largest and most successful worker co-operatives in the UK.
Essential provides a trade cash-and-carry service, delivering across Britain with its own fleet of vehicles. It supplies only the independent health food trade, and not supermarkets, in the belief that this will help retailers retain many unique lines that they know customers cannot find elsewhere.
Steve Penny, who looks after financial aspects of the cooperative, said: “We had been considering solar energy for some time. We approached seven different local suppliers and Backwell-based Solarsense came up with the best specification for our £100,000 budget – a 44.64 kWp system comprising 186 solar photovoltaic panels mounted on the roof of our warehouse.”
Penny added: “We have borrowed the money from ethical bank Triodos and, thanks to the Government’s Feed in Tariff, the cash generated from the system will mean it pays for itself during the 10-year loan payback period and will thereafter be a source of income.”
Earlier this year Solarsense won the Renewable Energy Association’s Company of the Year Award. Established in 1994, the company has installed over 5,500 solar energy systems in the South West, and it has recently been estimated that Solarsense systems save its customers well over 10,000 tonnes of CO2 each year.
Solarsense installations included a 200kWp solar photovoltaic array at Worthy Farm, home of the Glastonbury Festival, creating the largest privately-owned solar PV system in the UK at the time of installation.
Source: Essential Trading
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