An Elephant shed in the Elephant grass…

At Shufflebottom we just love a story about coincidence – especially when we’re at the heart of it. We thought you might like to hear a tale of synchronicity between us and one of our clients.

Since our inception as a company, our elephant logo has represented our core values of determination, reliability, wisdom, loyalty, intelligence, strength – the list of attributes of the ‘gentle giant’ continues to inspire us and guide our ethos in the services we supply our clients, and our customer relationships.

How satisfying it was therefore to supply a customer who has elephant at the heart of its business too, albeit in a different manifestation.

 KM Wilkinson & Sons recently selected Shufflebottom for the supply and erection of an 80ft long x 90ft wide steel-framed building, manufactured to Agricultural Specification (B.S. 5502-22:2003 + A1:2013) to be sited on the large farm on Peterborough, Cambridgeshire.

 Nothing strange about this, you might say. Every day we serve our agricultural clients across the UK. But this was different. The purpose of this new building was to provide substantial storage space for Miscanthus (commonly known as Elephant Grass) and surrounding the site were large fields where acres of this beautiful Elephant Grass swayed in the breeze under big Cambridgeshire skies.

 It is a great feeling to connect like this: KM Wilkinson & Sons is making a considerable investment not only in financial terms in Shufflebottom, but the business is also making a sustainable investment in the future of Green Energy and the reduction of CO2 emissions in the local community.

The Elephant Grass that is grown, and will be stored in our building at KM Wilkinson & Sons, is a valuable new crop with major benefits to many sectors. It is a high-yielding energy crop, resembling bamboo, that crops every year without the need for re-planting. The crop will feed Ely Power Station in Cambridgeshire – the UK’s first straw-fuelled power station, which in itself is fuelling not only energy, but the Cambridgeshire economy by providing an invaluable stimulus to local wheat and grass growers such as KM Wilkinson & Sons.

We liked this little story. Not a highly dramatic story of colliding planets but of synchronicity and reciprocity and a real life example that illustrates the elephant as Nature’s great masterpiece! We are proud to have supported this business in its investment in a cleaner, greener future.