Beyond Surveillance: Unveiling British Sugar’s CCTV Transformation

British Sugar is the sole processor of the UK’s beet sugar crop, they work in partnership with around 2,300 growers and their customers to deliver a world-class product that is made to the highest standards.  

Operating across four advanced manufacturing plants, British Sugar have become the leading producer of sugar for the British and Irish food and beverage markets. The existing CCTV systems the business had in place were disparate and outdated, prompting the need for a comprehensive upgrade. TouchStar, a trusted partner for over two decades, proved instrumental in designing a state-of-the-art IP CCTV system to meet British Sugar's evolving requirements.

The Need for Advanced CCTV

The requirement for CCTV was to fulfil multiple objectives. Managed centrally, British Sugar were looking for a state-of-the-art system to support the site wide monitoring of people, vehicle movements and assets. Furthermore, it was needed to provide advanced analytical capabilities to support existing production and process improvements.  

Steve Pritchard Senior IT Business Partner at British Sugar comments, “We were operating from several systems, some of which were nearing 30 years old. As a group, we knew our CCTV was not fit for purpose and that the latest technology would offer us so much more by way of safeguarding our people, premises, and assets. Furthermore, the latest systems also provided us with the opportunity to streamline our production processes meaning we would see much more benefits to the business operations by way of process and production efficiency improvements.”  

British Sugar made the decision to upgrade, planning for an initial installation to one of their key operational sites which would serve as a blueprint for a group wide rollout.  

The Solution

The decision to upgrade with TouchStar was based on the existing relationship which had seen them supporting their Access Control security system for over twenty years. As a long-term incumbent supplier to British Sugar, TouchStar had working experience of each site, enabling them to effectively audit, plan and design a system around British Sugar’s specific needs.

TouchStar's meticulous planning and an in-depth audit of site requirements led to the selection of the Newark site for the initial upgrade. The chosen Avigilon system, known for quality cameras and next-gen video analytics, became the backbone of the solution.

TouchStar’s Project Management and Engineering team worked closely with representatives from both British Sugar and Avigilon to complete two additional technical site surveys, this provided a confirmed scope of requirements to include cameras, network infrastructure and storage.  

Once the solution had been signed off, a mixture of high-resolution camera’s was specified. The cameras supported both day and nighttime operation across all lighting conditions and ranged from latest state of the art dome, pendant and bullet cameras.

Implementation

Despite the challenges of a 365-day manufacturing operation, the collaboration between TouchStar and British Sugar resulted in a smooth rollout.  

Steve continues, “Considering site restrictions and peak periods, TouchStar worked efficiently from site survey, to quote and then order. We were very impressed with how they managed this project from start to finish, overcoming unseen hurdles such as inclement weather and having to unexpectedly upgrade the perimeter cameras to provide the network connectivity required. We would recommend TouchStar to anybody looking for a robust and reliable CCTV system”.  

Lynden Jones, Managing Director of TouchStar continues, “We were delighted to have had the opportunity to work alongside British Sugar on the CCTV upgrade project. We worked closely with both Steve and the British Sugar Team, specifying the system requirements, confirming the site layout, so we could plan for a staged upgrade with minimal disruption”.  

Results and Benefits  

The system was successfully deployed by TouchStar approved installers. As an NSI Gold system provider and installer, British Sugar were reassured that they had invested in a quality solution and are now looking to use the Newark site installation as a global standard to rollout out to the remaining three sites.  

British Sugar are also considering extending the solution requirements, working with TouchStar to include full support and regular preventive maintenance to enable a futureproof, scalable, and robust CCTV system.