Case Study: Andrew Ingredients
From Growth to Leadership – Building a Values-Led Culture for the Future
About Andrew Ingredients
Andrew Ingredients is a third-generation family business with an 80-year legacy of excellence in bakery ingredient supply. Based in Lisburn, Northern Ireland, the company has earned a trusted reputation across the sector, supplying artisan bakers and large-scale manufacturers alike. Known for its customer focus and people-first ethos, Andrew Ingredients has experienced significant growth in recent years.
With expansion came an important inflection point: how to scale leadership capability and support a growing management team, while safeguarding the distinctive culture that had shaped the company’s success.
Their values, Easy to deal with, 100% customer focused, Open and honest, Innovation and collaboration at the heart of everything we do, and We go the extra mile, were well known. The next step was to ensure these values were consistently lived and led throughout the business.
The Challenge
As the business continued to grow, Managing Director John Graham and Chairman Tim Andrew recognised the need to invest in leadership and culture to sustain momentum and maintain the company’s strong sense of purpose and identity. Their goals were to:
Develop a strong, confident senior management team
Gain deeper insight into employee experience and workplace culture
Enhance communication and personal development opportunities across the organisation
With this in mind, the leadership team sought external support to better understand their current cultural strengths and identify areas for improvement, particularly as new roles and responsibilities emerged across the growing business.
Our Response
We began by designing and delivering a company-wide engagement survey which provided a vital starting point for the journey ahead. The results reflected a healthy, positive culture with high levels of pride, trust and connection, but also highlighted several key opportunities for improvement, particularly in the areas of resilience, collaboration, communication, leadership visibility, and career development.
In response, a bespoke Leadership and Management Development Programme was co-designed with the senior management team. It integrated The Five Behaviours® and Everything DiSC® platforms, providing a strong foundation for developing confident, self-aware leaders, strengthening team cohesion, and clarifying leadership roles and responsibilities.
The programme also featured tailored modules covering a range of leadership topics, including:
Coaching Skills
Influencing Performance
Communication & Crucial conversations
Leading Through Change
Talent Management
Strategic Planning
To enhance the learning journey, the programme also included executive coaching, giving individual leaders the space to reflect more deeply, explore personal leadership challenges, and embed new behaviours with greater confidence and clarity.
The business was also keen to engage employees throughout the journey, ensuring that culture wasn’t just shaped at the top but co-owned across the organisation. To support this, masterclass sessions were delivered to the entire workforce, initially focused on bringing the company’s refreshed vision, mission, and values to life in a meaningful, accessible way.
The sessions proved popular, creating space for open dialogue and reflection. As a result, they became a regular feature in the company’s calendar, now delivered twice a year. Each masterclass explores key cultural themes such as resilience, wellbeing, giving and receiving feedback, and dignity at work, reinforcing shared language, strengthening connection, and building confidence across all teams.
To sustain momentum and embed the culture more deeply, a Culture Champions Network was formed with representatives from warehousing, accounts, customer service, and sales. These champions played a central role in bringing the values to life at every level. They attended two full-day development workshops to explore the values in detail, grow their confidence in talking about culture at work, and identify best practices already happening across the business. They also generated new ideas for corporate social responsibility (CSR), helping to strengthen community engagement and build shared purpose.
The leadership team was also tasked with creating a clear and practical Engagement Action Plan, which resulted in developing and maintaining two-way communication and follow-through on feedback. This included:
Company-wide town halls to share updates, invite feedback, and reinforce strategic direction
Internal communication screens to keep teams informed and connected in real time
Updated HR policies and contracts, ensuring consistency and clarity across the organisation
Employee forums to actively involve staff in shaping next steps and co-designing improvement actions
As the business continued to grow, new opportunities naturally emerged, particularly at the supervisory level. A group of aspiring leaders began to step forward, eager to take on more responsibility and hungry for development. In response, the business made another significant investment in its people by launching an Aspiring Leaders Leadership and Management Development Programme.
Aspiring leaders
The programme was thoughtfully designed to mirror key elements of the senior leadership team’s development journey, ensuring consistency, shared language, and a common understanding of leadership expectations across all levels. It equipped emerging leaders with the skills, confidence, and mindset needed to lead effectively, laying a strong foundation for the next generation of leadership at Andrew Ingredients.
People-Centred Culture
Andrew Ingredients has a strong, people-centred culture and is deeply committed to enabling talent across the business. The leadership team continues to engage periodically in facilitated development sessions and group coaching with a view to sharpening the saw and ensuring that personal growth stays aligned with the company’s ambitious business plans.
"The Aspiring Leaders Programme was a real turning point for me. I started out uncertain about my leadership style but finished with greater confidence and a clearer sense of who I am as a leader. The sessions were practical, thought-provoking, and genuinely enjoyable. I learned how to approach challenges differently, communicate more effectively, and lead in a way that feels true to who I am. It also helped me realise that leadership isn’t about being the loudest voice in the room, it’s about the value you bring through your approach, your mindset, and how you support others.
Leah Gregg, Marketing Manager
The Impact
By 2024, the follow-up engagement survey showed significant gains across all key indicators:
Understanding of company goals: from 87% to 100%
Resilience: from 67% to 76%
Shared responsibility: from 71% to 82%
Enablement: reached 83%
Psychological safety (acknowledging and learning from mistakes): from 72% to 82%
Satisfaction with management and teams: reached 86%, with marked improvements in feeling heard and supported by line managers
There was also a noticeable cultural shift, employees became more willing to raise ideas, speak up, and contribute to improvement initiatives. The Culture Champions Network and Aspiring Leaders Programme further strengthened the internal leadership pipeline and embedded a sense of shared ownership across the business.
Andrew Ingredients is not just growing, it’s growing stronger from the inside out.
"Barbara Campbell Training & Consultancy has been instrumental in strengthening our business. They worked with us to shape and protect a culture that has enabled us to navigate significant challenges with confidence. Through continuous development, they have equipped our leadership team with the foundations to drive commercial growth while supporting the personal growth of our people. As a result, our business is stronger and more resilient today and we look forward to continuing to work with BCTC as a trusted partner"
John Graham, Managing Director
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