Chaplaincy to British Sugar in Cantley

Peter Glanville is chaplain to British Sugar in what he calls “a sweetener for a modern industry”. He writes:

 

The British Sugar Factory at Cantley was the first of its kind in the country to produce sugar from beet. From the early 1900s it has transformed the muddy root crop, “Norfolk gold”, into pure white sugar which is used domestically, and now exported throughout the globe.

It’s a simple but intensive process, involving heavy agriculture in producing, lifting and transporting the raw sugar beet, and then a highly mechanised and intensive process to turn it into the finished products.

 

In earlier times the process was “manpower intensive” with hundreds of workers drafted in to work day and night on the sugar beet campaign. But now things are different. The industry is updated and modern – manpower reduced – technology in the forefront, and all the success stories of modern and cost effective production can be seen in this, the most “Norfolk” of industries.

 

It’s a non-stop industry, certainly too fast for an Industrial Chaplain to hover around the factory floor or avoid the forty four tonners as they pound onto the weighbridges with their freshly dug cargo. Fewer workers maybe - but not necessarily less need. It’s a question of “being there” when all the modern chaplaincy skills of support, counselling and just simple, non judgemental help can make the difference between problems borne, or problems solved. Not accessed through a complex request procedure, but readily and confidentially available.

 

Like many other industries, much of the Food industry, has outsourced its human resources and occupational health departments to specialist contract companies. Cost effective and doubtlessly efficient, but can they really usurp the role of the “Chaplain on the doorstep”? 

 

 

Good Work

Trinity United Reformed Church

1b Unthank Road

Norwich

NR2 2PA