Paphitis sends Twitter crazy for stillages firm

AN independent supplier of stillages based in the Peak District has won the Small Business Sunday competition held on Twitter.

The award to JS Burgess Engineering is given directly by Theo Paphitis, one of the original Dragons from the hit BBC show Dragon’s Den.

Competition entrants tweet Paphitis, who has more than 450,000 followers, their business and why they deserve to be recognised for the award. The Dragon then selects six entries to re-tweet to all his followers.

JS Burgess (@JSBStillages) tweeted Paphitis for the first time on May 17 and were selected as winners a day later. Its tweet focused on the husband and wife nature of the business, which has existed for more than 25 years, and also included a picture of their newly designed website.

Thea Patoff, who owns the company with husband Jonny, said of the success: “To be recognised by someone as successful in the business world as Theo is such a fantastic achievement for us, particularly as it’s the first time we entered the award.

“The amount of feedback on our Twitter account from all the other #SBS winners has been phenomenal, and we’ve seen a sudden rise in our number of followers – it’s certainly something I’d recommend to other businesses!”

Based on Bingswood industrial estate in Whaley Bridge, JS Burgess Engineering supply stillages to companies from across the UK and Europe, and specialise in large production runs; they are one of the country’s leading suppliers, and the largest independent stillage supplier in the UK.