We are celebrating 10 years of Sen5es supplying you with our amazing glass bottles, glass jars, closures, capsules and amazing customer service.
To celebrate we thought we would tell you all about how Sen5es started. And how it has changed over the last 10 years.
As you may or may not know Sen5es was started back in 2012 by our owner Stuart Overton. He was working as a chef at the time and decided he wanted to branch out. That was the beginning of what has happened over the last 10 years!
Recently I managed to get Stuart to stop packing boxes, answering emails/phone calls and loading lorries to give me a brief history of Sen5es. All to celebrate 10 years in business and remember how far we have come!
The History of Sen5es
The Beginning - 12th February 2012 - Stuart's Spare Room
When I opened Sen5es I was working very long hours as a chef and had not long bought my first house. The chef wage was not enough to live and pay the mortgage so initially I had lodgers, and worked lots of overtime.
I decided I would open a business and things could only become better. I thought of many ideas!
I tried teaching cooking classes and selling freshly pressed juice. I also realised I had a good price for my glass bottles. So I also opened a shop selling the empty bottles, alongside any advise I could offer.
Before long I was selling a reasonable amount of bottles and instead of getting new lodgers, when they moved out, I filled the space with bottles and decided to retire as a chef and open a glass packaging company.
Three things that helped me make my decision.
Glass has been useful and used since the beginning of time so it should be here for a long time.
Glass is a great choice for the environment so by selling glass I can be doing a good thing.
The people who I was able to work with were lovely. And I still get to work with them to this day!
The First Move - February 2013 - Self Storage Facility
My very first products were a range of the soft drinks bottles shortly followed by 500ml amber beer bottles.
I remember my very first sale. I hand delivered the bottles myself. It was for 40 of the 250ml Soft drinks bottles with black caps. I still sell these bottles today!
When my living room was overflowing I moved to a local self store unit. This worked very well as they were only half full and could give me a very good price. If I needed extra room they could give it to me very quickly.
The First Warehouse - November 2015 - Unit 3 Eccleston Trade Park
When I outgrew the self storage unit and needed my own space I moved to unit 3 on the same trade park I am on now.
It was an exciting move! My own warehouse. While working from here I purchased my own forklift truck and van. Which you can still see me using today.
During my time at Unit 3 I learned a lot. From managing space to managing people. With the new forklift truck I was able to stack stock higher and therefore fit more in the warehouse. We were getting busier as well so I was able to bring in additional staff to help with packaging and dispatch.
The Larger Warehouse - July 2019 - Sen5es HQ, Unit 9 Eccleston Trade Park
My last move to the unit I am in now was very exciting. As it is double the size of my last warehouse and had a much better floor plan. As the move was within the same trade park I was able to do this very easily.
Since I moved in to this unit I have been able to hold much higher levels of stock and cater to much larger orders.
My son was also born this year. He loves visiting the warehouse and helping wherever he can. He even has his own little high visibility jacket that he wears when he visits.
I now employ 3 members of staff part time. 10 years ago I could never have dreamt Sen5es would be where it is now.
Alongside a passion for helping our customers find the rights products. Making sure they get the best possible customer service available. And lots of hard work and a great team. I could not have done all this without the support from Sen5es fantastic suppliers and amazing customers.
So thank you all. For making Sen5es what it is today.
The Future of Sen5es
Things are going really well at Sen5es. We are going from strength to strength and are bringing in lots of new products for you.
It's always good to have some idea of what you would like to achieve in the future. But at the same time I believe you need to be flexible and work with what you have and are given.
In the future I want to keep offering Sen5es amazing customer service and range of products. I'd love to expand our range to include more spirit bottles and jars. We have a few plans for this in the future and have already brought in some new spirit bottles already.
I'd love to be able to keep higher stock levels of key products. Especially the ones that sometimes suffer from production delays. And I'd also love to be able to do more for the environment. Be that through charity work or using more sustainable packaging solutions.
A big dream of mine would be to eventually own my own warehouse space. Maybe one day.
No matter what happens in the future you can always be sure Sen5es core values will remain the same and that we will always put 110% in to every order.
Thank you so much for taking the time to read our brief history of Sen5es blog. And thank you all for continuing to make Sen5es what it is today.
We pride ourselves on only stocking the best quality products and offering only the best possible customer service. We believe these 2 things help us stand out from the crowd and will help us continue to grow and grow.
Thank you for being a part of our journey. We look forward to seeing what the next 10 years brings.
All the best
Stuart and the team at Sen5es.