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About Us
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A little bit of background about who we are.
Who Is Ozzymandias?
Ozymandias (only one 'z') is the Greek translation of the name of Pharaoh Rameses II, also known as 'The King of Kings'. He was immortalised (well he was a pharaoh after all) in a poem by Percy Shelley in January 1818.
So Why Is Your Company Name Spelt Differently?
The company is not named after the Pharaoh, but after our Chairman – Ozzy the cat!
Ozzy is the Chair-man of the company, as he is usually found in the office chair after hours.
He is also fond of a cocktail or two. Here he is enjoying one after a hard day managing the business...
And don't worry, it's not gin he’s having, it’s just chilled water !!
About Our MD, Gareth
Gareth was educated at Bedford Modern School, and went to Leicester University back in the 80s to study to be a genetic engineer!
In the second year break he was working as a cleaner at the Uni to get some cash to buy the essentials (we all know post Covid-19 lockdown that essentials can be just about anything) when his mum saw an advert for a lab technician at a Bag in Box Plant in Luton (Canvermore Division of CCSB). He got the job for the summer and that started him on his long career in Soft Drinks.
He was offered a permanent job as the lab manager for when he graduated, but the plant was scheduled to be closed and the equipment moved to Milton Keynes. He wasn’t successful in getting a job there so he ended up working as a lab technician analysing fruit concentrate at the newly opened Technical Centre in Sidcup.
From there he moved up to Wakefield to work in the flagship Coca-Cola & Schweppes Wakefield plant, where he still lives, experiencing many different varied roles in manufacturing. He was internally poached from Wakefield to work for ‘Central’, initially managing the glass suppliers who were mostly Yorkshire-based, then he branched out into PET, closures, can, ends, etc.
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After 13 years working for CCSB, he moved over to The Coca-Cola Company GB&I, initially managing suppliers still, but then picked up his dream role being one of the QA Managers responsible for NPD launches across large parts of Europe. In that role he worked with most of the Coke bottling plants and many of the independent bottling companies, specialising in the higher quality risk areas like aseptic, waters and energy drinks.
When Coke bought a controlling interest in Innocent (the fruit juice and smoothie people) Gareth was chosen to be one of the few technical people to interact with Innocent in the ‘Connected not Integrated model’ of how the two companies interacted. Lovely bunch of people in innocent by the way.
So after a couple of years as the GB&I QA Manager, still with Coke, Gareth formed Ozzymandias Beverage Consulting Ltd on October 4th 2019 and started his first contract in November 2019, building a plant Coke & BRC START compliant quality system from scratch in just three months, with the factory successfully meeting the Coke and Monster Quality Standards on their first runs!
The plant, by the way, was the very Milton Keynes factory that the Bag in Box equipment moved to back in 1990 – so he finally got a job there after 29 years of waiting!