Present
The present chairman of the business, Peter Wilkin, is the great-grandson of the founder. Through a Trust, employees own a significant proportion of the business.
The company farms 1,000 acres (400 ha) in and around Tiptree and grows much of its own fruit, including strawberries, plums, cherries, raspberries, mulberries, quinces, medlars and the unique Little Scarlet, a small fruiting variety of strawberry with a unique and intense flavour. The latter is notoriously difficult to cultivate and is grown only by Wilkin. Turnover exceeded £24 million in 2008, and the business employs over 220 full-time staff with many more during the fruitpicking season.
Wilkin & Sons Limited also operates four tea rooms in Essex, a specialist bakery and patisserie producer (Tiptree Patisserie) and sells fresh fruit grown on the Tiptree estate. The Tiptree Visitor Centre features a tearoom, shop, and museum about the company's history, jam-making, and village life. The visitor centre and museum are located in the grounds of the jam factory.
Read more about this topic: Wilkin & Sons
Famous quotes containing the word present:
“One of the things that is most striking about the young generation is that they never talk about their own futures, there are no futures for this generation, not any of them and so naturally they never think of them. It is very striking, they do not live in the present they just live, as well as they can, and they do not plan. It is extraordinary that whole populations have no projects for a future, none at all.”
—Gertrude Stein (1874–1946)
“... the loss of belief in future states is politically, though certainly not spiritually, the most significant distinction between our present period and the centuries before. And this loss is definite. For no matter how religious our world may turn again, or how much authentic faith still exists in it, or how deeply our moral values may be rooted in our religious systems, the fear of hell is no longer among the motives which would prevent or stimulate the actions of a majority.”
—Hannah Arendt (1906–1975)
“One touch of nature makes the whole world kin,
That all, with one consent, praise new-born gauds.
And give to dust that is a little gilt
More laud than gilt o’er dusted;
The present eye praises the present object.”
—William Shakespeare (1564–1616)