As recipients of the Excellence in Food Technology award at the 2025 Food Industry Awards, Reuben Digital have distinguished themselves through a combination of technical precision, sustainable innovation, and client-first values. At the heart of this agile digital consultancy is Ray Stephens, Founder and Managing Director, whose vision has guided the company from a small Wiltshire base to cross-continental operations making their mark in sectors like food testing and analysis.

Ray’s deep-rooted belief in the transformative power of ethical technology and the importance of responsible innovation underpins Reuben Digital’s mission. It’s this approach that has turned complex challenges into scalable, sustainable digital solutions.

Getting to Know Reuben Digital

With a team of 13 specialists spread across the UK and Indonesia, Reuben Digital operates at the cutting edge of the Microsoft .NET technology stack. Their services span digital consultancy, bespoke platform development, and ecommerce solutions—all tailored with an ethical, people-focused lens.

Their award-winning project for PiQ Laboratories in South Wales exemplifies this ethos. Tasked with replacing an outdated Microsoft Access-based Laboratory Information Management System (LIMS), Reuben Digital engineered a secure, scalable, and cloud-based solution in under nine months. By streamlining critical lab workflows, integrating customer and accounting portals, and significantly improving data accuracy and processing speed, the project has led to a 5% reduction in cost of sale and a 35% increase in client acquisition for PiQ.

This isn’t just technological transformation; it’s meaningful, measurable business impact. Reuben Digital continues to enhance the platform in 2025, maintaining a collaborative partnership built on trust, innovation, and clarity.

In Conversation with Ray Stephens

We spoke to Ray to talk about the journey behind Reuben Digital’s success and what lies ahead for the forward-thinking agency.

Please provide a brief overview of your business or what do you do within the company.

Reuben Digital is an agile team of 13 specialists based in the UK and Indonesia, offering advanced development skills in the Microsoft .NET technology stack. Using sustainable technology to transform business, we offer digital consultancy, bespoke digital solutions, website development including ecommerce and online gifting across all sectors.

I am the founder and Managing Director of Reuben Digital, having owned my own tech businesses for over 25 years in Highworth, Wiltshire. I’d describe myself as a digital strategist, although as a small business owner, I do juggle multiple roles, driving new opportunities and building deep relationships with my clients to the extent that I become a trusted partner and an integral part of our clients’ fabric. I manage marketing and new business development, HR, and of course finance! I lead a dedicated team with a passion for using cutting-edge technology to craft impactful digital solutions. I set the vision and the tone of the business, and I have crafted a culture that demonstrates that you can have a businesses that is ethical and responsible , and puts people and our planet first.

What would you attribute as the main reason for your success?

My team and the people that I choose to have around me. They enable me to be me, and to follow my heart and support my ideas and passions.

I also passionately believe that no one wants to be sold to; instead, everyone is looking for help with a challenge or roadblock. Building meaningful client relationships is about focusing on solving not selling, and this has been baked into the business culture at Reuben. In my experience, conversations flow more naturally, trust is built faster, and projects move forward with more clarity and momentum.

I also think that what sets me apart is my intuitive ability with technology. I have had this since I was first introduced to computers at school back in the 1980’s, and I can instinctively identify where technology can unlock opportunities and give businesses a competitive edge. My passion lies not only in leveraging tech to drive business success but also in using it to make a positive impact on the environment and society, and this is a subject people are becoming increasingly curious about, enabling me to have more conversations as a change maker.

As a dedicated vegan and advocate for animal welfare, conservation and sustainability, I’m deeply committed to exploring how technology can address the challenges our planet faces. Whether it’s minimising environmental footprints or building ethical, future-proof solutions, my goal is to merge innovation with responsibility.

I’m motivated by the positive difference technology can bring to people, business, and the planet. My ethical and forward-thinking approach has helped me build a respected track record of delivering impactful results.

What has been the biggest challenge you have overcome?

Finding the right people to join the Reuben team has always a challenge for a small business like mine. Talented developers for a Microsoft .NET tech stack are few and far between in the UK, and it is a very competitive job market in our location, with organisations like National Trust and Nationwide all using the same tech stack as us. Obviously, as a small business, I can’t match their employee packages.

As a consequence I have looked at a different way of building a team, first by building a great work place, making sure that everyone is empowered to make their role work for them and the business, that there is diversity in work, and that there are always opportunities to learn new things. I’ve then looked to attract people that are looking for a lifestyle change, no long commutes, a step out of “corporate culture”, be close to the countryside, and may be settle down with a family. This has enabled me to build a core team that has been stable and that has key members still with the business after 20 years!

In addition, we have also run an apprenticeship scheme since 2015, so that we can train young people up as developers with the skills we need, embedding the “Reuben” way of doing things and the Reuben culture, and this has also in turn made the younger team members more loyal and committed to the business.

During lockdown, our business experienced significant growth, and we needed to find resources to support this. As we came out of the pandemic, good skills were even harder to find, so I decided to take a more lateral approach. I registered our business and opened a regional office in Jakarta, Indonesia so that we could attract more experienced developers to the team. We now have three colleagues based out there, who are very skilled, have a fantastic work ethic, and produce exemplary code to a very high standard. Our Indonesian team mates have become very well respected within the company, they even tolerate our terrible jokes and attempts at speaking their language!

What do you think made you stand out as a winner in the awards? Tell us about the specific project or facet of your business you believe earned you this award win.

Our entry for the “Excellence in Food Technology” award focuses on our partnership with a food testing laboratory. Based in South Wales, they provide a comprehensive range of services in allergen and speciation testing, including testing for food authenticity, allergens, nutritional content, gluten, or other specific parameters specified by their clients.

They came to us needing a bespoke cloud-based Laboratory Information Management System (LIMS) platform to replace their existing Microsoft Access LIMS to support this complex business/laboratory process. We proposed a comprehensive solution to address the client’s challenges and future-proof their operations and remarkably, from the first meeting to live deployment, the entire transformation was accomplished within just nine months.

We were able to listen to their problems, gain a deep understanding of their work flows and innovate their management systems so that we removed the duplicate and triplicate data entry, and revolutionised the user interface for technicians recording critical data which rapidly improved efficiency and accuracy, obviously both qualities being incredibly important in the food testing world.

We also created a customer portal so that their clients could log new jobs and download food certification documents, as well as seamlessly link the new LIMS to their existing accounting software.

The new LIMS is fully secure, and has a full audit trail built in to aid food standards compliance. The benefits of us building a bespoke system over our client buying an off-the-peg solution is clear to see. New innovative development on their LIMS platform continues to this day – they ask us if it’s possible and we deliver to budget! So our long term collaboration with the client continues to be very rewarding.

What is the next big step for you?

Reuben Digital is a forward-thinking digital agency committed to integrating sustainability into every facet of our operations. Since 2022, we have embarked on a journey to become a carbon net-zero business and we produce a carbon report every year. As of 2025, we are now working with FuturePlus, to guide our ESG goals across Climate, D&I, Economic, Social, and Environmental areas—offering a practical, more goal-orientated alternative to B Corp status. We have invested significant resource and budget to reduce our CO2 emissions, including relocating to a more energy-efficient office in 2023 and transitioning to a cloud-first IT system, slashing energy use. But we realise that being a digital business means our responsibility to tackling climate action extends much deeper than just reducing our own carbon footprint.

This year therefore, we’ve decided to be a lot more vocal about, and start sharing our knowledge on, the damaging effects of IT on the planet and to advocate for the responsible use of technology and best practice in creating low-carbon digital solutions . The realisation that Reuben Digital is part of the digital sector that emits almost double (and rapidly increasing) the carbon emissions of the worldwide aviation industry was shocking to the whole team. Digital may feel intangible, especially when we use terms like ‘cloud’ or virtual’, but it is grounded in very real, energy-hungry infrastructure — from data centres to devices. The sector’s energy demand is forecast to increase sixfold in the next decade. And as internet usage surges, web page sizes and digital traffic are ballooning — resulting in an explosion of emissions that can no longer be ignored. In response, I’ve led the company to embed sustainability into every layer of our operations and rethink our technology stack to ensure it’s more efficient and less carbon intensive. From using accessible fonts and agile content to designing lightweight websites that perform better and emit less, we are building solutions that don’t cost the earth. These choices not only reduce emissions — they improve user experience, accessibility, and SEO.

We see every client relationship as an opportunity to raise awareness on technology and climate change. Whether it’s websites, mailshots, cloud-based platforms or social media — we help our clients understand and reduce the environmental impact of their digital presence. It raises an uncomfortable truth about our insatiable desire to use the latest tech, including AI, without knowing the environmental cost of doing so, but we feel it’s very important to change people’s perceptions on this important subject. So helping old and new clients to make informed and sustainable choices for their digital marketing strategies is one of the biggest drivers for us in 2025. We would very much welcome the opportunity to work with green start-ups, ecommerce and other businesses on their own carbon net zero journeys and to collaborate using our Reuben green technology!

Would you recommend Business Awards UK to other businesses? If so, why?

Yes, we have enjoyed the experience of being a Business Awards UK winner. We have been able to show our skills and talents to their greatest effect, and it feels good for the team to be recognised for the innovative work that we produce. Opening the package containing the trophy was a buzz! Entering awards can be off putting – the forms can be very convoluted – and the expense of the entry fee or attending an awards ceremony can be unrealistic for a small business. In contrast, Business Awards UK run awards differently and we didn’t have to wait long before we heard we were shortlisted and then a winner! It’s been a real boost for the team and I’m delighted to have been asked to do this interview as well.

Looking Forward

Ray Stephens and Reuben Digital are at the intersection of technology, ethics, and sustainability – an increasingly vital space in the digital sector. Their award-winning work in food technology proves that tailored digital innovation can drive lasting change and measurable results.

As they continue to advocate for a greener tech future and expand their sustainability-first services, Reuben Digital shows that digital success and environmental responsibility not only go hand in hand but are vital for long-term impact.