A Cornish gin producer and a TV company making eye-catching wildlife documentaries have been named among Britain’s fastest growing businesses.
Tarquin’s Cornish Gin and Plimsoll Productions feature in the 23annual Sunday Times Virgin Atlantic Fast Track 100 league table.
The table ranks Britain’s private companies with the fastest-growing sales and the two firm are also joined by another pair from Bristol in the list: Real Wrap Co and Plantforce.
Their sales have grown by an average of 67% a year over three years to a total of £86.8million, and together they employ 524 people.
The region’s top-ranked company is gin distillery Tarquin's Cornish Gin, a new entrant to the league table this year, at number 29.
Founded in 2012 by Tarquin Leadbetter, it claims to have been the first gin distillery established in the South West in over a century and grew sales by 85% on average over three years to £5.1million in 2019.
Mr Leadbetter, who started making gin in his home aged just 23, now exports to more than 17 countries and in 2017 scooped the coveted World’s Best Gin title at the San Francisco World Spirits Competition.
The business now employs 27 people at its St Ervan base.
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Also making its debut is plant hire firm Plantforce. Founder Claire Trott began working in a car-hire business after she left school, but decided that renting diggers presented a more profitable opportunity, and set up this Bristol firm in 1999.
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It now works out of five depots across the South West and the Midlands, and received a £4.7million investment from BGF last year. This September, sales climbed to £35.3million. It has 131 staff.
Plimsoll Productions has enjoyed sales growth of 55% to £37.3million and has 195 employees. It makes shows including the Emmy-nominated Hostile Planet with Bear Grylls and a second series of National Geographic’s Yellowstone Live aired in June 2019 after the first hauled in 13million viewers.
In August 2019 Plimsoll Poductions signed an agreement with private equity firm LDC that values the company at around £80million.
It is also responsible for Rescue Dog to Super Dog (Channel 4), Britain’s Parking Hell (Channel 5), Life at the Extreme (ITV), and Sit Baby Sit (Channel 4).
Rea Wrap Co produces more than 13million sandwiches and meals each year. The food-to-go manufacturer saw sales growth of 77% brought in £9.1million in turnover. It has 171 workers.
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The companies in the South West appear with businesses from around Britain, including fitness clothing retailer Gymshark, beauty products retailer Revolution Beauty, and brewer BrewDog. Past stars include chip designer ARM, which featured in 1997 with sales of £17million, floated and was acquired by Japan’s SoftBank in 2016 for £24billion; and mixer drinks maker Fever-Tree, which floated in 2014 at £154million and is now worth £2.6billion.
The Fast Track 100 is sponsored by Virgin Atlantic, Barclays, BDO, BGF and N+1 Singer, and is compiled by Fast Track, the Oxford-based research and networking events firm.
Sir Richard Branson, founder of Virgin Atlantic and Virgin Group, which has supported Fast Track 100 for all 23 years, said: “While these are uncertain times, there is one thing I am certain of: entrepreneurs are the ones driving innovation, chasing improvements and challenging the norm. There are so many inspiring examples of this on the Fast Track 100 league table and it’s heartening to see the power of entrepreneurship to create jobs and positive change across Britain.”