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Landscape20 from British Sugar TOPSOIL wins ‘External Product of the Year’

Sat 20 August 2016

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British Sugar TOPSOIL, the UK’s largest supplier of topsoil to the construction, landscaping and amenity sectors, has won ‘External Product of the Year’ at the Housebuilder Product Awards 2015 with its general purpose topsoil ‘Landscape20’. It will now go forward as a finalist for ‘Product of the Year’ at the Housebuilder Awards, to be held in London in November. This latest success tops an unprecedented year for sales of TOPSOIL products and a 98% ‘excellent’ or ‘very good’ rating by respondents to the company’s annual customer satisfaction survey.

The judging panel of the Housebuilder Product Awards 2015, which are run by Housebuilder magazine, included Peter L Caplehorn, Deputy Chief Executive and Policy Director - Construction Products Association; Dave Mitchell, Technical Director – HBF; Neil Smith, Head of Research and Innovation – NHBC; and Claire Curtis-Thomas, Chief Executive – BBA. Among the numerous criteria to be met and evidenced for the Best External Product category were that the product should offer a solution to challenges, regulations and standards facing housebuilders; save cost and time for housebuilders, and meet sustainability and zero carbon challenges facing the housebuilding industry.

British Sugar TOPSOIL has been marketing manufactured topsoil since 1996 as a co-product of its parent company’s sugar production process. Every year, sugar beet growers in the UK deliver 7.5 million tonnes of sugar beet to British Sugar’s factories; stuck to the beet is some 300,000 tonnes of rich arable soil. This is washed off the beet and then, instead of becoming a waste product, it is separated, dried, screened to 20mm and blended to produce Landscape20 – the ultimate sustainable, balanced, premium quality sandy loam, ideal for shrub planting, seeding and turf laying, restoration and civil engineering projects, and sports ground construction.

For housebuilders, Landscape20 helps them meet the exacting criteria of the NHBC Standards; British Sugar TOPSOIL is permitted to use the following NHBC-approved statement: “British Sugar TOPSOIL can help builders meet the requirements of NHBC Standards Chapter 9.2, ‘Drives, paths and landscaping’, for topsoil.”  Landscape20 is also the only multi-purpose topsoil on the NBS National BIM Library.

British Sugar TOPSOIL’s award was collected by the company’s TOPSOIL Sales Manager, Natalie Gudgin, and Sales and Marketing Coordinator, Sally Walton. Speaking immediately after the lunchtime award ceremony at the Edgbaston Stadium, Birmingham, on Thursday 25th June, Natalie said:

“This really is incredible and I would like to thank the Housebuilder Product Awards judging panel for fully appreciating the complexity of what, on the face of it, is a very simple and basic product. I very much hope that the award will help to remind the construction industry of the potential consequences of using topsoil from sources that are neither certified nor sustainable, and the operational, financial, regulatory and environmental benefits they can expect from using Landscape20 topsoil.”

Landscape20 will compete for ‘Product of the Year’ against a range of construction products at the Housebuilder Awards 2015, to be held at the Tower Hotel, London, on Thursday, 5th November.

British Sugar TOPSOIL’s Sally Walton (left) and Natalie Gudgin receive the ‘External Product of the Year’ award from Ben Roskrow, Publishing Director of Housebuilder Media (left) and Awards host and legendary cricket commentator Henry Blofeld OBE.

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