Whilst last year will be remembered for many things, it was also the year we proudly celebrated our 35th anniversary here at Swift. So, as we close the book on 2020, we thought it was the perfect opportunity to look back at the past three and a half decades and see how we have adapted to the ‘new normal’ in which we’ve found ourselves over the past year.
How it started...
Back in 1985, Swift started off with 2 strong mums who moved into market research looking for more flexible work after having children.
Despite our small beginnings, an impressive first decade of development and growth (during which we moved premises three times), led to Swift Research becoming an incorporated business and moving into our now central HQ in Wetherby during the 1990s.
The new millennium brought many advancements in technology. Our consistent developments and online expertise provided the solid base needed for Swift to be able to create and grow our own unique panel of respondents, known as 'Swift Insight'. Our crowning glory of the "noughties" was undoubtedly the honour of having HRH Princess Anne visiting our premises in 2007 to officially open 'Innervisions', our viewing facility for observational research, allowing our range of research methodologies to expand even further.
A decade later, we updated our facility to keep up with the fast pace of the market research world. We added wet rooms with personal care booths and created a dedicated test kitchen. We also transformed our second building into a sensory suite with laundry lab, sensory booths, and utility booths. This allowed us to accommodate the new areas of research including personal care, fabric care, home care and air care.
How it's going...
After a robust 35 years of development (and hopefully with many more to come), Swift Research has become a business with many loyal, permanent staff plus many more loyal and dedicated casual staff and many life-long clients. We have dozens of exciting projects on the go at any one time and we have created the largest sensory facility in the north of England.
Last year was like no other, not only for us as a business, but for everyone.
Luckily, we have an excellent team who care about each other and what we do. This has allowed us to achieve so much, despite all that 2020 threw our way. Every single person helped to keep spirits high through not just the tough times, but also the ultra-busy months that we had post-lockdown 1.0!
After what will certainly go down as one of the most memorable years in our history, we are so grateful to all of our clients, participants and staff for being so understanding and believing in us to do the great job we knew we could do - last year and every year.
We are incredibly proud of how far Swift Research has come over the past 35 years.
However, we believe this is just the start of our next chapter. Our team are excited and inspired by the challenges of scent discoveries and, as we look to expand and develop our sensory facility further, we are excited to share our ongoing progress and what we have in store with you all over the next year and beyond.
So, keep an eye out on our social media platforms, while we share our 2021 journey - making sense of scents at Swift!
Click here to view our Making Sense brochure
