Latest news with #DavidArcher
The Herald Scotland
09-05-2025
- Business
- The Herald Scotland
Brexit has been huge challenge: Scottish chocolate fountain firm boss
David Archer Job title Managing director/owner What is your business called? Sephra is our main parent business, which operates in both the UK and the United States, and we also operate a sub-business under this umbrella called CFW. Additionally, we have a popcorn business called Sephra Popcorn. Where is it based? Our UK business is based in Kirkcaldy in Fife, with our office in the States based at Throop in Pennsylvania. What does it produce/do? We manufacture and distribute dessert-making, patisserie and bakery equipment, ingredients and confectionery for the food service and retail industry. To whom does it sell? Mostly to food service operators and distributors here and in the States, but also to major retailers (Asda and Morrisons stock Sephra Popcorn, and it is also found in cinema and theatre cafés and shops). We also sell equipment and products direct to consumers keen on baking and creating desserts and chocolates. What is its turnover? We estimate turnover in 2025 of £14m in the UK and $4m in the US. How many employees? 33 between the UK and US locations. What attracted you to your current role? I started the business so it was more of an entrepreneurial journey. To give you a bit of background, in 2003 Sephra, a US-based company, introduced groundbreaking innovations in chocolate fountains. Here in Europe, I started renting them out, modifying and improving the product as I went along as I recognised it had huge potential. In 2008, I took the step of forging a partnership with Sephra in the US, becoming a distributor and heralding the birth of Sephra Europe. We evolved from merely distributing the chocolate fountains to offering a huge range of delectable dessert products and in 2019 I acquired the brand from the original Sephra, allowing for Sephra Europe to solidify its status as a trailblazer in the marketplace. What were you doing before? I started off working in a musical instrument retailer then moved into field sales within the IT industry, as well as being a semi-pro musician. What do you least enjoy? Currently, the volatile cocoa market. Firstly, regarding the cocoa market, prices have more than quadrupled since 2022, due to a mix of extreme heat, crop disease and drought in the cocoa-producing West African countries of Ghana and Cote D'Ivoire, which account for 60 per cent of the world's cocoa crops. Levels are currently at their lowest for 46 years. Extreme weather may cause more problems this year, and it is estimated prices will remain elevated in the short term but then ease by around 13 per cent later this year and by 2 per cent next year. What do you consider to be the main successes of the business? Our continuous innovation, together with the diversification of our product range and sales channels. I am extremely proud this company I started pretty much in my garden shed, tinkering about with chocolate fountains, is now in collaboration and partnership with some of the biggest food names in the business, such as Nutella, Callebaut, Nestle and Dawn Foods, whose products can be found on our websites. Last year we announced an exciting landmark partnership with Ferrero which saw us exclusively bring innovative heated Nutella dispensers to the UK and Irish marketplace – to our customers running bakeries, hotels, coffee shops, and dessert parlours. This product has set us up perfectly to support these operators, with the machines, and the cartridges, available through our website with next day delivery to mainland UK. Read more What are your ambitions for the firm? To continue to grow the company both in Scotland and the US. We want to be the number one name in our sector. We've just had our key trade show season, which gives us a fantastic platform to directly get in front of our potential customers – we have attended shows such as The Artisan Ice Cream Show and ScotHot. We've been able to demonstrate signature products such as the heated Nutella dispenser. What are the challenges facing the sector and market, and what could be done to overcome or address these? Being in the food sector, Brexit has been a huge challenge for us, and setting up a European subsidiary may be the solution to regain the business we have lost from our European customers. The volatile cocoa market has caused significant increases in the cost of chocolate. And more latterly the tariff agenda by Donald Trump is causing us pain in our US business. What single thing would most help? A crystal ball! Seriously, though, a stabilisation of cocoa prices would be a great start. What is the most valuable lesson you have learned? The only constant is change. Spreading risk and making sure you don't have all your eggs in one basket. What was your best moment? Landing our first popcorn deal with Asda was a very high moment, which has proven to be a launchpad for our now well-established popcorn tub retail business. I think my other best moments have been making great recruitment choices by seeing the potential in people. What has been your most challenging moment in life or business? I think continuing to run the business through a period of ill health was the most challenging from a personal point of view. Luckily having a great team around me and supportive family made this possible. How do you relax? I still love to perform in my band and find this the best form of escapism. I also enjoy playing golf and football and watching Raith Rovers, although that is seldom relaxing. What phrase or quotation has inspired you the most? One swallow doesn't make a summer. What is the best book (fiction or non-fiction) you have ever read? Why is it the best? I don't read enough but the last book I read was The Saboteur of Auschwitz. I found it very inspirational and emotional as it was almost a true depiction of my grandfather's experience of being a prisoner of war in Auschwitz in the Second World War. Where do you find yourself most at ease? Entertaining with friends and family in my own home. If you weren't in your current role, what job would you most fancy? Being a professional musician or sportsman. What countries have you most enjoyed travelling to, for business or leisure, and why? Luckily, I have travelled extensively with the business and for pleasure, but I think my favourite really is the north west coast of Scotland as it reminds me of family holidays as a child and I find the beauty breathtaking. Although a Caribbean cruise does come a close second!
Arab News
06-04-2025
- Science
- Arab News
What We Are Reading Today: ‘The Long Thaw'
Author: DAVID ARCHER In 'The Long Thaw,' David Archer, one of the world's leading climatologists, reveals the hard truth that these changes in climate will be 'locked in,' essentially forever. If you think that global warming means slightly hotter weather and a modest rise in sea levels that will persist only so long as fossil fuels hold out (or until we decide to stop burning them), think again. Archer predicts that if we continue to emit carbon dioxide we may eventually cancel the next ice age and raise the oceans by 50 meters. A human-driven, planet-wide thaw has already begun, and will continue to impact Earth's climate and sea level for hundreds of thousands of years.
The Guardian
02-03-2025
- General
- The Guardian
David Archer, let it go. Beavers are nature's answer to our broken rivers
The first time I laid eyes on a beaver was a couple of years ago on the Devon farm of Derek Gow, the farmer turned rewilder, who brought the furry rodents back to the UK 30 years ago. It was magical. Sitting in the June dusk, the pink-and-purple sky was reflected in the still ponds of the beaver habitat. Suddenly, ripples emerged from the lodge and the head of a kit – a baby beaver – popped up from underwater. Watching this fascinating, and very cute, creature collect willow branches in its mouth was a heart-stopping moment; it felt like peeking into a secret world. This scene will, I hope, now become common across England, after the government announced on Friday that beavers can be legally released into the wild for the first time. The rodents were a common feature of our rivers until about 400 years ago, when they were hunted to extinction for their pelts and an oil they secrete. So this is a return of a creature that belongs here, and that we cruelly extinguished from our landscape. But it's a much more important moment than that. We have royally screwed up our rivers over the centuries, straightening them, divorcing them from flood plains and destroying the surrounding habitats. This causes increased flooding and makes it more difficult for nature to thrive. Beavers can heal this; they are known as 'keystone species', which means their presence creates habitats for myriad other creatures, including fish, amphibians and insects. The habitats I've visited have been thronging with life, with clouds of dragonflies in the air and tiny froglets hopping around my feet. Why? Because beavers dig ponds and create complex wetland habitats around rivers. Studies have found that fish in beaver habitats are larger and more numerous and that the presence of beavers rapidly increases biodiversity. The UK is one of the most nature depleted places in the world and beavers can help fix this – for free. There has been a fierce debate about the reintroduction of beavers in England; it has even become a story line on The Archers. While some Ambridge residents have been lobbying for the return of the rodents, David Archer fears they will bring harm to his farm. It is true that there are those that don't want them back in the landscape. Fair enough in some cases, as the rodents can fell trees. You can spot the telltale signs that you're entering the world of the beaver by the nibbled boughs and discarded, half-munched willow branches. But farmers I have spoken to have managed to avert this with a cheap and easy solution of wrapping chicken wire around tree trunks at beaver height. The creatures don't like getting the metal caught between their teeth. Others fear the rodents will cause their land to flood, which is also a legitimate concern. In other European countries where they roam free, governments provide services where troublesome beavers are removed and placed somewhere more appropriate. This is likely to be the case here, too. So concerns about beavers in our nature-denuded landscape are understandable. We have wiped out so many of our native species that most of us have not encountered a wild mammal larger than a squirrel. But I believe the worries are largely unfounded, particularly if beaver releases are monitored and managed properly. Sign up to Observed Analysis and opinion on the week's news and culture brought to you by the best Observer writers after newsletter promotion Beavers alleviate flooding. Their dams are leaky, which means rivers flow much more steadily, and rainwater isn't dumped all at once into towns and villages. It moves at a much slower pace through a beaver system than an artificially straightened river. The beavers on the River Otter in Devon – one of our free-living populations – have managed to stop the village downstream from flooding. As changes in climate brings heavier rainfall, their flood reduction services will prove invaluable. In the Czech Republic, the government planned a flood prevention scheme involving a dam. But the beavers got there first, building their dam in the exact location planned by officials, and thus saving taxpayers £1m. Beavers also help reduce the impact of drought. In the dry summer of 2022, when farmers were struggling to grow grass for livestock and plant crops, a lucky few in Devon and Cornwall, where there are beavers, did not face the same problems. Drone footage shows parched, beaver-less land next to lush, green, beaver habitats. How? Because the ponds they dig hold water in the landscape, water that can then be used when rain is scarce. We are likely to have more frequent droughts due to climate breakdown, so beavers will be able to help prevent the worst effects of these. Currently, England's beavers are mostly in enclosures, where they have been released by conservationists who have been observing the impact they have in a few constrained acres. Some, which have either escaped from these enclosures or been released by guerrilla rewilders, are living wild on rivers mostly in the south. This moment has been decades in the making. Ever since Gow and his fellow rewilders concocted their plan in the 90s, the momentum has built. Successive environment departments have tried to legalise the release of beavers, but have been blocked because of fears it will upset farmers and certain wealthy landowners. Almost every year, conservationists have been told it is almost time to tear down the fences of enclosures and set beavers loose to fix our rivers, only to be informed the scheme has once again been delayed. Some frustrated conservationists have taken the law into their own hands, driving around the country with beavers in the back of a van, conducting 'beaver bombings', where, unauthorised, they release a pair at a river and drive off again. It is faintly absurd that normally law-abiding nature lovers have felt forced to conduct clandestine beaver operations. But this won't be necessary any longer. These industrious rodents will, in the coming weeks, be living free all over the country, with the first expected to be released by the National Trust at Purbeck Heaths in Dorset. I urge you to go and visit, so you too can experience the magic of watching wild beavers. Helena Horton is an environment reporter for the Guardian
