Vanessa celebrates 35 years at Invicta

This month our Sales Office Manager, Vanessa Boyes, is celebrating a very special milestone – 35 years of working at Invicta!

The likelihood is that when you call the office, Vanessa will pick up the phone, as she is one of a small team offering friendly customer advice and processing orders.

When Vanessa first joined the company in 1989, Invicta was a much smaller operation and based at Stanfield Hall Farm under the ownership of the Jones family. She shares some of her memories of that time and how things have changed at Invicta:

“I remember fondly going over to the farmhouse once a week to sit at the large dining room table and count out the cash wages, enveloping the money for each staff member. This was one of my favourite parts of the job, as Mrs Jones would prepare a tray of coffee and biscuits to enjoy whilst we were there!

“The main production line in the factory at that time was cake and bread tins and one of my main duties was a daily call to all of our retail customers for their monthly orders, which were then written into a general order book for the factory.

“In 1991, we moved to our current premises on a small industrial estate in Pickering, North Yorkshire, which had a new purpose-built shop floor, new machinery and plenty of space and organisational work cells for all production staff – and best of all an up-to-date phone system!

“Over the years, the factory has been extended and continually improved with an influx of state-of-the-art machinery. It now produces a vast range of bakeware items, including baking trays and racks together with many bespoke and special fabrications. Tins are still made at the factory but now constitute a small part of our sales.

“I really enjoy my work at Invicta and many of my colleagues have been with the company for the same amount of time or longer in some cases! Invicta is now employee-owned which means we all feel really invested in the business.

“My office colleagues are also great friends, we all support each other in our roles and recently myself, Jennie and Lucy have joined a line dancing class together!

“Invicta has supported me whilst I raised my young family by allowing me to drop my working days whilst the children were little and then returning full time and being promoted to Sales Office Manager in 2011. The company feels like my family now!”

Vanessa (left) is pictured here with Office Administrator, Lucy Scholefield, with a cake baked by Lucy to mark Vanessa’s 35 years of service.