CHAMPAGNE corks will pop next week to mark the 20th birthday of an Oxford company which helps people with learning difficulties.

Oxford Wholefoods, a not-for-profit venture employing 40 disabled people and eight supervisors, began life at the Slade Hospital in Headington, after senior occupational therapist Arthur Harrison visited an Oxford health food shop.

He saw someone shovelling lentils into a bag and realised it was an occupation that could help people with learning difficulties enter the world of work.

The project started in the hospital kitchen, with just three trainees. It moved to the Osney Mead industrial estate in West Oxford in 1995 and now has an annual turnover of £491,000.

Managing director Gay Goodall said: “Our enterprise is unusual as it’s privately operated and not run by a charity or social services. We could make more money if we had automation and fewer workers but that’s not what we’re about. And we must be doing something right to still be here 20 years on.”

The company specialises in packing and distributing staple foods including beans, pulses, dried fruit, nuts, rice and breakfast cereals.

It supplies more than 100 shops belonging to its major customer, Oxford-based Midcounties Co-operative, the UK’s second largest Co-op, with which it has worked from the start.

Co-op officials will join past and present staff for a celebration on Tuesday.

Patrice Garrigues, Midcounties Co-op’s ethical trading manager, said: “Working with like-minded suppliers is an important part of co-operative trading and Oxford Wholefoods’ ethics strongly reflect our own.”

He added: “We’re delighted for all those involved in reaching this anniversary milestone and we wish the company well in the future.”

Since its foundation Oxford Wholefoods has helped more than 80 people with work-based training, providing a focus and routine which helps their personal development and confidence.

Staff are paid “therapeutic earnings” – hardly more than than expenses, according to Ms Goodall – which are low enough to have no effect on the state benefits that many of them receive.

So is the firm profiting from cheap labour?

“Not at all,” said Ms Goodall. “Our competitors use packing machines instead of staff, thereby operating more economically.”

She became involved with the company in 1992 after a spell as a sales representative for a food wholesaler.

She said: “The project was laden with debt but I persuaded my husband to guarantee the debt and then took over.”