18 | Aycliffe Today Business
Bringing Aycliffe Business Park Together | 19
ABOVE:
An artist’s impression of the proposed new
Crafter’s Companion retail area.
The former Holiways site has been empty since
the car dealership went into administration nearly
four years ago.
BELOW:
Customers will be able to relax in the firm’s new
coffee shop.
...continued from page 17
...of dedicated demonstration areas. It
will also incorporate a ‘Retail Centre for
Excellence’, aimed at supporting retailers
from across the UK with training and
consumer insight.
Crafter’s Companion – founded by Sara
Davies while she was still at university – is
tapping into a gold mine of an industry.
According to the Craft & Hobby Association
(CHA), the craft sector in the UK alone is
worth £3 billion (and a huge $30 billion in
the US) and Crafter’s Companion’s clever
use of TV shopping channels has turned
the business into a world-renowned brand
within it.
Sara invites me to the current head
office at Coundon for a chat ahead of a
move to Aycliffe in April, with the new retail
development set to open for business in
May.
I get a warm welcome and immediately
Sara insists on giving me a whirlwind tour
of the company’s “rabbit warren” premises,
which sits above and behind a wallpapering
and paint shop within a two-storey structure
on Coundon’s Collingwood Street.
I sense its move to Aycliffe, while exciting,
will be quite tough for sentimental reasons,
and sitting down to a cup of coffee, Sara
begins to explain why.
“My Dad bought this building with his
savings when I was a baby,” she says,
looking fondly around her office.
“We lived in part of it until he built a
bungalow out the back when I was about
four-years-old, then he gradually renovated
the building into flats once he’d saved up
enough money.”
Now I know where Sara gets her
instinctive entrepreneurial spirit from.
Parents Sue and Frank Johnson ran the Wear
Valley Decorating Centre for many years,
before passing it on to Sara’s sister Helen, as
well as a transport company and they have
always encouraged their two daughters to
reach for the stars.
“Growing up with my parents running
a decorating shop and my dad being quite
entrepreneurial I always knew that I wanted
to run my own business,” she said.
“I was in the last year of a management
degree at York University and I’d just spent a
placement year with a paper craft company,
which really opened my eyes to an industry I
had no idea existed. I had bags of ideas and
when I told my Dad about my plans he said
‘just go and do it, kid’.
“I launched Crafter’s Companion in
October 2005 and ran it from my student
room with my best friend’s Mam working
a couple of hours a day. By the time I
graduated the following summer the
business was turning over more than
£500,000.
“For the first two-to-three years it was just
me, my family and friends working together
to make the company a success.”
Before long, the business was flourishing
and turning over a few million each year,
which was when Sara’s husband and her
childhood sweetheart Simon gave up his
career to take up a full-time role at Crafter’s
Companion as managing director.
“We had about 10 staff at the time,” Sara
recalls. “I’d run at a hundred miles-an-hour,
leave a massive trail of destruction behind
me and Simon would pick up the pieces.”
Sara continued to add more staff to the
team and as they grew, her Dad would knock
through another wall, and then another, to
accommodate the latest expansion, until this
make-shift office block became full at the
seams.
“About three years ago and we started to
talk about where we wanted the business to
go,” explains Sara. “I was pregnant and that
gave us a nine-month lead-in to introduce
a management team to help us run the
company.
“We introduced a layer of senior
management to help us to make plans that
would drive the business forward and it was
one of the best things we’ve ever done. Now
they’re like galloping horses. I hold the reins
and make sure they’re all going in the right
direction, and Simon still follows behind us to
pick up the pieces still.”
Now Sara, 31 and Simon, 35 – who
married in 2008 and are proud parents
to two-year-old Oliver – are every bit as
ambitious as they were a decade ago.
“We’re excited about Aycliffe. We’ve grown
a lot in the last couple of years, a lot faster
than we ever expected and we’ve started to
look at the bigger picture. We put a board in
place, with a non-exec chairman, and have
been thinking a lot about strategic planning
and careful growth management, which is
how the idea of relocating came up.
“Of course, my parents are devastated that
we’re leaving Coundon, my Mum still brings
lunch up for us, it’s a proper family business,
but they’re so excited about the development
and where the business is going.
“In truth, we probably should probably
have made the decision a few years ago.
At the time, we were managing roughly a
£4m business with only 10 pallet spaces.
Logistically, it would have made sense to
move it everything into a bigger facility, but
I was so opposed to moving the HQ of the
business from somewhere which felt so
much like home. So instead we opted to just
move our warehousing to the old Rothmans
estate in Spennymoor.
“We’ve been managing between the two
sites for the past few years but following the
decision to open a store too, we had to find
a site which could accommodate both the
head office and the retail centre, that ideally
wasn’t too far from our warehouse.
“It was difficult to find a building which
met all of our needs, but then we saw the
Horndale site and it was just perfect.”
The new HQ will house 35-40 staff, and
with a further 15 based at the warehouse and
another 25 in the US, the new employees
will boost the company’s total numbers to
more than 80.
Sara adds: “We’re not a corporate
organisation, but sometimes we have to
operate like a bigger business, people do
now see us as a career opportunity and our
applicants are prepared to relocate from all
over the country to work for us. The new
Aycliffe HQ alone can accommodate up to
65 staff, so this is very much a long-term
commitment to Newton Aycliffe.
“Our US expansion will also support the
area because our global operation’s product
development, marketing and sourcing is all
supported by our UK team, which will be
based in the new building.
“The relocation is really all about
centralising the company’s UK operations,
and providing even more for our customers.
The new HQ will help us to continue to
expand in an industry that has huge potential
and the new store will give our customers
and the crafting community somewhere that
they can really get to know our brand and our
products.
“We want the store to become a hub for
the crafting public and we think that’s what
The idea behind the centre is to create a destination
store that will give visitors the chance to experience the
Crafter’s Companion brand and socialise with the crafting
community.
will make it unique and different.
“We want to engage with the community
and invite clubs and crafting groups along for
weekly classes, so we’ll have lots of experts
on hand to give advice and demonstrations.
“The store will also include a big demo
area so that we can hold workshops and
classes for things like, an introduction to
cardmaking and sew-and-natter groups.”
“We’re hoping people will travel and spend
a lot of time with us. The coffee shop is there
for customers to relax and socialise with
likeminded people in between workshops or
after they’ve been shopping, so our visitors
really can make a day of it.”
With all of her plans for the company,
it’s easy to see why Sara has excelled as
a businesswoman and she’s showing no
signs of slowing down, but despite all of her
success she is still incredibly grounded and
it’s clear that Sara’s family values are still at
the heart of the business.
The interview is quickly over and our 60
minutes has flown by. But listening to the
articulate and hugely-driven Sara Davies
was a pleasure, and I look forward to seeing
Crafter’s Companion’s continued success
story develop right here in Newton Aycliffe.