That means looking beyond the county’s obvious strengths, such as aerospace and nuclear, to look at other clusters and industries that are developing and growing.
Khalid is taking an active part in a manufacturing steering committee set up by the LEP and led by Dave Jones, of Burnley-based Veka.
He says: “It is about really understanding the new reality because everything has changed now. We want to be focused on that, we want to get into the detail and start making some impact.
“It is a very private sector way of doing things and things are now moving as I would expect them to in my own business. It is absolutely not a talking shop.
“People realise that we can’t sit back, we need to lead from the front, really get engaged with businesses and make whatever difference we can, to save as many businesses as we can and to help them grow after that recovery.”
It was just one piece of social media. A Tweet from Australia showing shelves emptied of toilet tissue was enough to spark panic buying in the UK, swamping Khalid’s business.
He says: “We came in on the morning and the phones went ballistic as a result of this Tweet being shared. People were going crazy for toilet rolls in Australia.
“We are not in the retail business, we are a professional hygiene business, but we manufacture toilet rolls for hotels and corporate facilities.
“Our existing customers wanted to stock up pretty quickly. Other people saw opportunities and were ringing up to see what they could get. We couldn’t get orders onto the system fast enough.
“We were operating to capacity, we had to stop taking new orders and focus on existing customers.”
Star Tissue is recognised as one of the UK’s most dynamic and fast-growing companies and continues to invest in new production technology and systems.
The £30m annual turnover business employs 135 people. The company was established in 2003 in Khalid’s hometown and has grown year-on-year to become one of the leading independent manufacturers of hygiene paper products.
It makes private label products for major suppliers and distributors in the personal hygiene, catering and medical markets across the UK and in Ireland.
The father-of-three has had a varied business career, which he believes stands him in good stead. With his best friend he founded the successful Asian Image newspaper in the late 90s, later selling it to the Newsquest media group.
He also held a senior role in Business Link in the North West and was chief executive of the Asian Business Federation.
He has been awarded the Queens Award for Enterprise Promotion and featured in an annual poll of the 50 ‘most influential people in the North of England’.
Today as well as his work in the family business and with the LEP, he is a proud Deputy Lieutenant of Lancashire, another high-profile role.
Khalid at Buckingham Palace receiving his MBE from Prince Charles
The coronavirus crisis has had an impact on the business through the closure of the hotels and restaurants, exhibitions and stadiums that use its products.
However, Khalid says it has been using the downtime to focus on its expansion work and training. It has invested £5m this year alone – creating two new warehouses and a completely new production line.
And, coming out of the pandemic, Khalid believes there will be opportunities for Star Tissue, which he runs with his brothers Abid and Sajid. It was founded by their late father Allah Ditta and brothers.
He says: “There’s going to be a greater usage in cleaning products and high paper products. People are going to be cleaning a lot more and there will be demand for wipe-down products.
The market is always changing.
If you don’t innovate someone else will and will leave you behind
“We are working on new product development. Innovation is important, we are looking at new markets and new ways of doing things. That should be part of every business.
“The market is always changing. If you don’t innovate someone else will and will leave you behind. You have to understand the market you are serving. Our market is going to be very different going forward.
“People’s habits are going to change. I don’t think the world after this pandemic is going to be the same.
“It is going to create a lot more opportunities for new types of business coming forward. The question is where do we fit in? Do we still offer the same products we did previously or focus our products on serving our clients better?
“Innovation across the board is going to be needed for those companies that want to stay in their game.”
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LANCASHIREBUSINESSVIEW.CO.UK
25
THE BIG INTERVIEW
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