John Elliott MBE DL Executive Chairman of Ebac
John Elliott MBE DL is leading Britain back into manufacturing.
For over 40 years John Elliott has championed the cause of British manufacturing. Ebac was founded in 1972 and started manufacturing dehumidifiers. Over the next 44 years, based steadfastly in Country Durham, Ebac has grown and now manufacture Dehumidifiers, Watercoolers and Washing Machines.
Through the British manufacturing decline of the 70’s, 80’s and 90’s Ebac worked hard to improve its design, technology, efficiency and manufacturing practices to complete with the best in the world.
Ebac dehumidifiers are the market leading brand of dehumidifiers in the UK. Over 1.25 million homes have bought a Ebac dehumidifier – that’s over 5% of all households.
The introduction of Watercoolers augmented the product lineup and Ebac was booming.
Watercoolers were widely used in the USA but there were no manufacturers in Europe. We spotted the opportunity to use similar technology and experience that we had from dehumidifiers and it’s been a phenomenal success. We now ship our watercoolers all over the world – we’re a net exporter. We sell more watercoolers overseas than we do in the UK. ”
Always keen to ‘walk the talk’ John started to investigate ways in which to preserve Ebac’s great legacy of British manufacturing. In years to come, John wanted to protect Ebac from being sold and manufacturing jobs being moved overseas. In 2012 John gifted the entity of Ebac to a foundation. The Ebac Foundation will ensure that the company cannot be sold or moved overseas and has no corporate or financial shareholders to report to. All of Ebac’s profits are now reinvested into the foundation.
The story moves on to the 2010’s and the introduction of another new Ebac product – the Ebac washing machine. Not put off by the intense competition from global players, Ebac has designed, developed and manufactured the first domestically manufactured Washing Machine for over 40 years.
Washing machines represents yet another ground breaking initiative by John and Ebac. Yet more British manufacturing, more British Jobs and hopefully another great success story.
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