20 years of life at our Packaging Centre with Phil Borkin 

Joining Robinsons in 2005, Phil had always had a career in food manufacturing and wanted to venture into brewing. From working through the night and looking after his son through the day, to being part of the transition from fifth generation Robinsons directors, to the sixth generation, Robinsons has been a significant part of Phil’s working life.  

We met Phil to have a brew and find out a bit more about his time here… 

“20 years later, here I am”. 

Not too long after I joined, we were starting a night shift, which I was part of. It was three days a week, so that part was great. But I’d spend a lot of time tired. I had a two-year-old son back then, so it was difficult. I wanted to spend time with him during my days, and I was fortunate to be able to do that. I could take him to school every day, and that was a great thing about that. But it was tough juggling both. But then, night shifts never took off, so that wasn’t a long-term problem to me. 

After that, I moved to the evening shift, and with that set up, you got a nice long weekend. But with my lad growing up, days felt best suited for me. It took a while to make that change, but it all worked out ok. And here we are today, on a mixed shift pattern of morning and afternoons.  

I’ve also worked in cask and keg too, on the clamp trucks. I’ve worked on different things over the years. You just help when you can, I didn’t mind doing that at all, I don’t think anyone does.  

“Enjoyment is a different day, a different challenge, a different job”. 

You really don’t know what’s going to happen when you come in here. Is the line going to be running? Is it not? Are we going to get everything out? We’ve had a few challenges recently, but overcoming those is great. But, you know, we all work for a reason. I mean, I love the job, but really we work because we want to enjoy life outside of work too. If I could I be living somewhere warm, relaxing every day, of course I’d do that. 

“The job in basic terms?” 

Well, we operate machinery that either labels, fills or packages bottles to go to our warehouse, which then goes to supermarkets for the consumer.  

Over the years, I’ve worked all areas and run all the machinery, but I do shy away from the labeller. I did my time on that machine a long time ago to cover for people. But it’s not for me. It’s good having variety and mixing it up. For example, in the forklift truck, you might do the unloading and of all the materials and then loading them into the machine.  

At the start of our shift, we get ourselves ready with our protective clothing and then get set up. You hope when you get in, the shift before has set up nicely for you. Really, we’re a pretty good team. We get on – there are ups and downs of course, but we’ve all got the same mission to get things working efficiently to get the job done.  

That’s what you want, things to go smoothly.  

“We don’t want problems”. 

That’s when the engineers get called. We’ll try and fix the machines as much as we can, but at a certain point, after twenty minutes or so, we’ll know it’s not fixable, so our engineers get called. If you come in and there’s no noise, you think, ‘oh what’s happened now?’. But if that’s the case… 

Read about Trevor Clare, our Engineer here

“It’s all hands on deck”. 

If there’s an issue at the bottle filler, on the line, or with the labels, we’re all there troubleshooting. We want that product out, the customer happy and not to be running behind.  

We’ll log issues on the system, and if there’s over a certain amount of breakdown time, we’ll then sit and look what the problems are and what’s occurring with the breakdowns. Our team is involved to an extent, but it’s often the engineers that’ll fix things. But it’s not always user error, it’s often the materials too, things like the labels. There’s that many different types of labels, you do just get problems all the time. 

You can read more about the labelling process with Gemma here

“The biggest change is the brewery”. 

We’ve had two brewhouse changes in my time. About 15 years ago, we had the full new brewhouse at Unicorn Brewery, and that saw the opening of the Visitors Centre too. I recently found an old Unicorn magazine as well, from when the Visitors Centre had just opened. It was in my locker, not sure why I kept it all this time. 

But the newest brewhouse is here now, and that’s a bit of a crazy thing. No one expected it to come over here… especially after the last one just 10 years ago. We expected it was there for a long time. 

“Oliver’s a City fan, so that’s good”. 

Another change was when Oliver took over from his dad, Mr David. He was a nice chap and we worked well over the years. But Oliver came, and you know, he’s a [Manchester] City fan, so that’s good. I’ve been given the opportunity to go to watch the match in the Chairman’s lounge with Robinsons table three times, and as a City fan myself, that’s something really special.  

“Times gone fast”. 

The people, the place, the pension – they’re all good here. I did say, years ago, I’m proud to work for Robinsons. Some people can be bitter about their place of work, but I don’t have that. I actually thought I’d been here longer than 20 years. It’s a good place to work. And I’d say that to other people that don’t work here as well. I’d recommend it.  

I enjoy training people too, I’ve done a lot of that over the years. And I’m 60 now! I started here when I was 40! So, it’ll be time for looking into the future soon, but… I enjoy work, and so if I still can, I’ll probably be still here at 67! Although, I’d like a holiday home in Thailand or somewhere? I’d go over there at the drop of a hat!  

“I’ve just been really happy in my role”. 

I’ve not wanted to progress into higher stress managerial roles. I’ve just enjoyed the life that my role offers me, and I don’t need the workplace to give me additional challenges in life. I’ve done other roles in different places before, but here, I’m happy to roll with it.  

“So, when I’m not in work…” 

I really enjoy both art and graphic design, I’ve got A-levels in both of them, believe it or not. But I don’t do it as much as I should. Course, I’m an avid City fan and a season ticket holder, so I enjoy going to the stadium. I used to be big with sports myself, but after two knee operations, those days are few and far between. And my son is 22 now and I love spending time with him. He’s a great lad, seeing him grow up and do loads of things, I love that.