AESSEAL charity giving tops £800,000

The Rotherham seal maker awarded £85,179 in grants to 27 community groups and charities across South Yorkshire.

In the last nine years it has donated more than £800,000.

The firm funnels the money through South Yorkshire Community Foundation.

The organisations which have benefited include sports coaching courses for young people with disabilities, upgrades to community centres, a free café for refugees, one-to-one therapy sessions for young people struggling with mental health.

The Ummeed Group in Rotherham received £3,525 which secured a project teaching English language and reading skills to women.

Abundance Sheffield received a grant of £2,852 for training for harvesting techniques, as well as workshops on cooking, preserving and juicing fruit and vegetables, using produce rescued from waste.

In the last year, the company has also responded to urgent community needs and donated £20,000 to support charities and organisations helping young people with their mental health.

AESSEAL has also continued its support for the #iwill Fund by committing to another year of match funding the programme. #iwill helps young people to become leaders and give back to their communities.

The programme aims to encourage them to take part in youth social action.

In May, boss Chris Rea said the uncertainty surrounding Brexit was having ‘no effect whatsoever’ on his business after two record months of sales.

“It would be good for business in general if we have some certainty but it’s not impacting us,” he said.

“Our primary markets are not Europe. America, the Middle East, the Far East are potentially bigger markets for us in the future,” he added.

The business, which designs and makes mechanical seals and support systems for a wide range of global industries including oil and gas, food, water, mining and pharmaceuticals, has just posted two record months of sales. In March, it reached sales of £16.4m and in April the figure was slightly higher at £16.45m, due to a ‘big increase in demand’. The previous record of £16.29m was in May 2018.

Its 2018 annual accounts show a 6.3 per cent increase in sales to £181.3m and 15.9 per cent rise in pre-tax profit to £27.7m.