PJ taste - now an Employee Owned Business.

Established as a partnership in 2006, PJ taste transitioned to an Employee Owned business in June 2023.

So what is an employee owned business and why have we chosen to develop under this structure?

According to the Employee Ownership Association:

Employee ownership can take one of three forms:

• Direct employee ownership – employees become registered individual shareholders of a majority of the shares in their company.

• Indirect employee ownership – shares are held collectively on behalf of employees, normally through an employee trust.

• Combined direct and indirect ownership – a combination of individual and collective share ownership.

At PJ taste we have chosen the Employee Trust model with the Trust holding 100% ownership of the business with the staff being the beneficiaries. The advantages for the team are that given continued profitability the Trust can pay tax free bonuses. There is also an opportunity to be much more directly engaged with the business to shape the future direction under the existing management team.

We hope and expect that over the coming years this structure will help the business go from strength to strength and assist with business succession when John and Peter become too long in the tooth!

In researching the background to this change we have had great support from Lisa Pogson at Sheffield’s Airmaster and from Colette Harvey at The Ownership Hub which is a partnership project between Co-operatives UK, the Employee Ownership Association and the South Yorkshire Mayoral Combined Authority. The Ownership Hub is a great place for business’s discover more about the advantages of Employee Ownership.