Angela Morris is best known as the founder and CEO of the award-winning eco packaging company Woolcool, but the University of Staffordshire alumna ran her own packaging design business for more than 30 years before launching Woolcool in her early 50s.
Woolcool has won a host of accolades over the years, including two Queen’s Awards, in Innovation 2018 - followed by a visit to the factory from the then Prince Charles in 2019 - and Sustainable Development in 2022, when Angela was also listed in the inaugural ‘Family Business Top 100’, run by Family Business United (FBU) which recognises the exceptional contribution of individuals and their work within a family business. This was followed by a Lifetime Achievement Award in 2023 by the same organisation.
Angela’s father, grandmother and great-grandmother all ran family businesses in the Staffordshire retail and wholesale food sectors.
She was born in Newcastle-under-Lyme and attended the Orme Girls School where she says she was always interested in three-dimensional design and the way things were constructed.
Angela began her University of Staffordshire studies in 1975 with an Art and Design Multi-disciplinary BA Honours Degree. She later studied for a Masters in Design Management and has lectured both undergraduate and Masters design students.
After completing her undergraduate studies, she started working life as a packaging designer for a local company, soon becoming freelance, opening her own studio and employing a small design team.
Her 45 years in packaging have seen her work with different industry sectors from major UK retailers such as BHS, to global confectionery companies Nestlé and Cadbury’s, to water filtration systems for Fairey Industrial Ceramics and automotive components for Rolls Royce.
Woolcool was born out of the UK Foot and Mouth epidemic in 2001. The National Trust created an initiative to encourage farmers to diversify after the devastation of the epidemic. Angela worked on a project to enable NT farmers to sell fresh food products from the farm by mail order and deliver direct to consumers at home. The products needed to be kept chilled during delivery. Angela had the innovative idea of using pure sheep’s wool for sustainable insulated packaging. Wool is a superior insulator and is 100% biodegradable, compostable and renewable, fitting well with the National Trust’s ethos.
The Woolcool brand was created in 2008 with leading organic food clients including Abel and Cole, Riverford and Daylesford Organic.
Today, Woolcool is a pioneering, second generation, female-led, family business that harnesses the properties of natural materials to create environmentally responsible insulated packaging products with the potential to reduce plastic waste, thereby helping to address global climate challenges. Two of Angela’s four daughters, Josie Morris and Jessica Morris, Managing Director and Finance Director respectively, manage the Woolcool business day to day and its plans and objectives for the future.
As customers continue to move steadily away from environmentally unacceptable plastic packaging such as polystyrene, Woolcool has used more than 40 million kilos of pure wool since it was founded, saving tonnes of non-compostable plastic from going to landfill.
Designed and manufactured in the UK, Woolcool has grown to become the insulated packaging of choice for many leading UK and European food and global pharmaceutical companies in the rapidly expanding world of online ordering and cold chain delivery. Woolcool reduces food waste and enables the safe delivery of temperature sensitive vaccines and medicines, which in turn, can help save lives globally.
Woolcool proudly became the first insulated packaging company in its field to achieve B Corp accreditation, using business as a force for good and recognising its responsibility to both people and the planet. The company openly supports Terra Carta, The Better Business Act and B Corp initiatives.
Woolcool is incredibly innovative and dovetails beautifully with the University’s sustainability goals. Woolcool is genuinely having a significant impact in terms of the green agenda by reducing plastic waste and encouraging the wider use of natural materials, such as wool.
In 2013 Angela launched and was the first to Chair the IOM3 Natural Materials Association and continues to be involved.
In January 2024 Angela was admitted into the ancient Guild of Woolmen and received the honour of becoming a Freeman of the City of London.
The award of Honorary Doctor acknowledges how, as a university of Staffordshire alumna, Angela has been a valued and respected part of the business eco-system here in Staffordshire for more than 40 years – giving her time to lecture, tutor and supervise postgraduate students, giving talks on Design Management, Innovation and Green Entrepreneurship and guest lecturing at several universities across the UK.
The Award of Honorary Doctor of the University honoris causa (Hon DUniv) is bestowed upon Angela in recognition of her being an inspirational role model as a woman in business, an entrepreneur and wealth creator who has nurtured a family business with an inclusive ethos.