Hillbrush, the UK’s largest manufacturer of brushes and specialist hygienic cleaning tools, is proud to be represented on the board of the of Directors of the American Brush Manufacturers Association. Charlie Coward, Hillbrush’s MD was the first European to be voted onto the ABMA’s Board last year when he was voted to Chair the ABMA’s Safety and Standards Committee.

Hillbrush was established by brothers Fred and Bill Coward in 1922 in the small rural town of Mere, in South West Wiltshire, UK. They were later joined by their respective sons David and Richard along with Bill's son-in-law, Brian Thomas. David's son Martin was appointed as the Finance Director in 1997 and his second son Philip, was Managing Director of Hillbrush in the UK until 2018, when his son Charles and Martin's son Andy (4th generation) became Co-Managing Directors of Hillbrush. Philip is also President of Hillbrush in the US, with Richard's son Peter as Vice President. Hillbrush Inc. is based in Baltimore, MD.

Hillbrush was originally recognised for the manufacturing of traditional wooden brushware and continues to be one of the largest manufacturers of wooden brushes in the world. Producing a wide range of brooms and brushes, the Hillbrush Traditional range covers a multitude of uses from patio sweeping to heavy duty rubble clearing using fibre sourced from 15 countries worldwide. The Hillbrush brand is synonymous with quality and in 1981, Hillbrush was granted a Royal Warrant as a mark of acknowledgement for supplying its products of high order to Royal Households. As one of 850 Royal Warrant holders, Hillbrush is entitled to use the title and Royal Arms. The Royal Warrant status products have been specially selected for their durability and effectiveness and are also available for purchase by its non-Royal customers.

Over the last 30 years, Hillbrush has developed an extensive range of products suitable for various industries, innovating into new and expanding markets, particularly in the food industry. The company now produces a range of over 1,000 plastic hygiene and food preparation products, predominantly manufactured in-house on state-of-the-art injection moulding and brush making equipment. Hillbrush Hygiene offers unique and pioneering filament technology that ensures the highest standard of filament retention and other specialist cleaning equipment such as anti-microbial tools and metal detectable plastic cleaning equipment. From brushes and squeegees to scoops, scrapers and shovels, Hillbrush Hygiene offers one of the most extensive ranges of hygienic cleaning equipment in the UK.

Hillbrush Commercial completes the Hillbrush portfolio with a selection of products suitable for the janitorial, HORECA (hotels, restaurants and catering) and household markets. Altogether, Hillbrush offer an extensive range of brushware and ancillary cleaning equipment products from a single British manufacturer.

Being involved at the highest level with the ABMA enables Hillbrush to share the high-quality health and safety standards and understanding of the challenges faced in cleaning high risk areas such as food. In order to bring its food manufacturing customers valuable insights into industry best practice and trends, Hillbrush has recently appointed Julia Pegler as Technical Hygiene Advisor to help us further penetrate the food industry and raise awareness of the Hillbrush brand among potential end user customers.

Julia started her career as a Hygiene Technologist for Marks and Spencer, then started her own specialist technical management consultancy working with manufacturers, retailers and caterers. She has been owner and Director of Food Integrity Consulting for 16 years – working with some prestigious companies.

Julia will be working with Hillbrush on some exciting initiatives such as:

Charlie Coward, MD of Hillbrush said: