News and Trends

  3rd October 2023 Morrisons is beefing up its wholesaling operation as part of moves to bolster the group’s performance after a difficult period since the £7bn takeover by CD&R in 2021. According to The Times, the grocery retailer is building up its sales and marketing teams to support its wholesale ambitions. Earlier this year, Morrisons rebranded its food production division as the Myton Food Group in the hope of distinguishing it from the Morrisons brand. The retailer is said to be looking to yield more business from independent retailers, restaurants and catering firms. Morrisons is the second largest food producer in the UK and owns 19 food manufacturing facilities that supply its supermarkets and McColl’s convenience stores, as well as Amazon and other retail partners. The supermarket’s underperformance in the last couple of years has resulted in a drop in production volumes at its factories. However, sales have started to improve and Morrisons hopes to attract more cust...

The UK foodservice wholesaler has launched a new range of artisan sourdough breads under its La Boulangerie brand.  The company worked closely with specialist bakery Nicholas & Harris to create the range, which uses a sourdough starter culture that was created in 2012 and subsequently fed daily. The result is a range of subtle flavours and fermented characteristics that are required to produce high quality artisan breads. The breads are made using traditional methods, with the majority of each loaf being hand produced, including folding, moulding and bulking. No commercial yeast is used and the bread has a long fermentation, with the loaves rising naturally, giving the typical sour flavour and open-textured crumb.  Each loaf is bulked in a bespoke ‘Brakes’ room before being baked. Leading the range of products is a pre-sliced Sourdough half boule, which uses only three ingredients, flour, water and salt, and is hand-mixed to provide a unique, but commercially sustainable p...

Bestway’s swoop on Sainsbury’s has fuelled speculation of a reverse takeover – a further sign of the sector’s growing influence on grocery Until the pandemic struck, the wholesale sector was still feeling the fallout of the last great deal in 2018 when its biggest fish –  Booker  – was netted by  Tesco , the UK’s biggest retailer. Back then there was regular speculation that Tesco’s rival supermarkets would look to do similar deals by snapping up leading  wholesalers  or buying groups. Had anyone suggested that a big wholesaler could instigate a play for a big supermarket, the idea would have been dismissed out of hand. Not any more.  Bestway , now the UK’s third-biggest wholesaler, fuelled exactly that kind of speculation last month by acquiring a 4.4% stake in Sainsbury’s for around £270m. While industry experts believe a takeover is an unlikely prospect, the very fact that it is on manoeuvres shows something is afoot. Because while Bestway has yet to ful...

After a challenging few years, now is the time that wholesalers are making decisions about their future, so we caught up with the UK’s leading buying groups to see how they differ and what they have to offer When it comes to business, bigger is better, say the UK’s leading buying groups. “In a nutshell, buying group members benefit from economies of scale,” says Caterforce MD Gary Mullineux. “Cumulative buying power means independent regional wholesalers can compete with larger national wholesalers to deliver the best products and prices.” Unitas Wholesale MD John Kinney agrees: “The core function of all buying groups is to harness the scale and reach of their membership to negotiate preferential trading terms with suppliers while also providing suppliers with an effective and efficient route to market. With suppliers constantly looking for more efficiencies, often resulting in reducing the number of direct accounts, many independent wholesalers would not be able to acquire direct stoc...

 Namnews,  18th October 2022 Leading restaurant chains, including Burger King, KFC, Pizza Hut, Zizzi, and Wagamama are facing the prospect of “severe disruption” to food supplies in the run-up to the all-important Christmas trading as a result of industrial action. The GMB union announced today that it was launching a strike ballot amongst almost 600 staff working at Best Food Logistics, the foodservice distributor that was acquired by Tesco’s Booker unit in early 2020. The workers have rejected a 6% pay offer, which the union said would amount to a real terms pay cut this year and into next. A total of 93% of GMB members rejected the offer, with 85% indicating they wanted to be balloted formally for industrial action. The GMB stated that dates for the strike ballot will be announced in the coming days. Nadine Houghton, the union’s National Officer, commented: “These workers bust a gut to deliver fresh, just-in-time food to some of the biggest names in the business. “Bestfood’...

Namnews, 6th June 2022 JJ Foodservice has launched a new ‘Advance Order’ service for premium fresh products. The new marketplace-style concept allows customers to receive the freshest possible produce with shorter lead times. This is because the product only arrives with JJ once it has been ordered and paid for by the customer. The service, which was developed by JJ’s in-house IT team, also ensures the wholesaler does not need to utilise extra warehouse space to fulfil the order. The fruits and vegetables in the range include locally sourced strawberries, blueberries, bird’s eye chillies, exotic mushrooms, and heritage tomatoes. There is also a wide selection of fresh meat products, including diced lamb shoulder, diced braising beef, pre-cut whole fresh chickens and T-bone steaks. “It’s fantastic news and means we can offer new premium items, including individually portioned premium steaks and locally sourced fruits and vegetables, with no limit on how far we can expand,” said chief pr...

Namnews, 26th May 2022 Parfetts, the cash & carry wholesaler, has begun working with Just Eat in a move that will allow more of the former’s Go Local retail club members to offer grocery deliveries. Trade magazine The Grocer has revealed that the partnership launched this week, with around 50 stores already signed up and more on the way. Parfetts already has an agreement in place with Snappy Shopper. However, that platform does not provide delivery drivers, which prevents some retailers from tapping into the lucrative home delivery market. The wholesaler noted that it was working with Just Eat because its large network of drivers and global profile would help smaller retailers compete with the growing number of rapid delivery specialists such as Gopuff and Getir, which service orders from dark stores. NAM Implication: A no-brainer way into order fulfilment for Parfetts’ customers…

  Namnews,  13th May 2022 JJ Foodservice is encouraging consumers to buy in bulk to make savings as inflation and the cost of living continues to increase. The wholesaler traditionally supplies restaurants and takeaways but has a fast-growing grocery business delivering direct to homes, which started during the pandemic. “We sell many grocery essentials including fresh poultry, cheese, vegetable oil and flour in slightly bigger packs, but the savings are really worthwhile,” said Chief Product Officer, Sezer Ozkul. The  JJ Home range  includes more than 600 items that it claims are a lower cost than the equivalent product sold in a supermarket. The wholesaler suggests splitting some of its larger packs with friends or neighbours to save money. NAM Implications: Bulk buying Bulk selling Bulk delivery Bulk bargain

Namnews, 6th April 2022 Unitas Wholesale has announced the launch of its new Plan for Profit Impulse Category Guide, which highlights the key lines for independent retailers across confectionery, sweet snacking, crisps, and soft drinks. The guidance is updated annually to reflect changing customer behaviours and is developed alongside category experts and its network of wholesalers. The design of its latest impulse guide has been simplified, with icons to identify the best sellers within each sub-category and those that are new to the core range. VAT-free products are also clearly signposted, along with price marked packs to reflect the important role these products play in improving shopper confidence and driving value. The guide also contains regional products to help with store profiling across different parts of the UK. In addition to the core range listing, Unitas has included planograms and a greater focus on category insights within this year’s edition, enabling retailers to “ma...

Namnews, 5th April 2022 It has been confirmed that SPAR wholesaler A.F. Blakemore is a supply partner of rapid grocery delivery firm Gorillas. According to trade publication betterRetailing, staff at a Gorillas ‘dark site’ in London revealed its main supply of ambient goods was being provided by Blakemore Wholesale Distribution. One employee at the site is quoted as saying: “Our big suppliers are the national wholesalers where we get the majority of our ambient goods. Blakemore is the one we use the most.” A raft of new firms, including Getir, Gopuff, and Gorillas, are offering deliveries within minutes of ordering, prompting traditional supermarket groups to rethink their business models. They are also becoming competition to independent convenience stores due to the speed and ease of their service in local areas. Last month , Morrisons teamed with Gopuff to further expand its presence in the rapid grocery delivery market. Waitrose also recently began a trial of Deliveroo Hop, a dark ...

  Wholesalers have battled the challenges of Covid and Brexit with aplomb. But they now find themselves in the eye of another storm with rampant inflation… and patchy availability Let’s start with the positives: the doomsday scenario that the pandemic would kill off scores of wholesale businesses has not materialised. It is a testament to the resilience of the sector that despite a Federation of Wholesale Distributors survey in May 2020 finding over half of British  wholesalers  feared they would not last the year without significant government help, none of its members have since collapsed. That is particularly impressive considering much of the hard-won support funding from government to wholesalers in England is only just beginning to come through now. That is not to say everything in the wholesale garden is rosy – far from it. While those serving the convenience grocery sector have enjoyed strong sales in the past two years, as our Big 30 ranking shows, the sector mad...