HEADLINES THIS WEEK:

– SUPPLIERS SHOW FAITH IN FAIRWAY
– FROM ASDA TO BRAKES
– BCP SELECTED BY HEALTH FOOD WHOLESALER

SUPPLIERS SHOW FAITH IN FAIRWAY

More than £600,000 worth of orders were placed as part of celebrations to mark the 30th anniversary of Fairway Foodservice.

Lee Haynes (left), of Fairway member MJ Baker, and Bernard Broderick of cake supplier Broderick Brothers.

The Hipperholme (Halifax) group, which has annual turnover of £498 million, also held its biannual ‘Meet the Member‘ event – actually its second this year – which saw 30 new frozen lines listed and 29 ambient products join the own-label range.

The show was held at Aston Villa FC’s Villa Park ground and attracted executives from all 18 member wholesalers and 20 suppliers. The black tie dinner took place at Birmingham’s ThinkTank Museum.

The amalgam’s members concluded deals with suppliers from across the UK and Ireland, bringing the total amount spent with manufacturers – just at these shows – to more than £1.3 million.

At the commemorative dinner, the group’s chief executive Chris Binge commented: “It was fantastic to mark our anniversary. And for our members to complete £600,000 worth of orders shows how successful an event it was.

“We’re very proud of the success we’ve shared with members over the last 30 years, and the members’ event and dinner were a great way to celebrate that partnership. We’re already looking forward to our next ‘Meet the Member’ event in March 2015.”

The new own-label lines include a range of sliced meats, sandwich fillings, ethnic sauces and butter blocks. They bring the total number of in-house products to more than 560.

Tel: Fairway Foodservice (01422) 319100.

FROM ASDA TO BRAKES

Brakes Group has named Louise Hoste as category & pricing director.

Louise Hoste

She joins the delivered wholesaler from Asda Walmart, where she spent 20 years internationally in the food and non-food sectors, most recently as commercial director, general merchandise. Before moving to the retailer, Hoste was with Thorntons and Northern Foods.

Hoste takes over from Adam Martin, who now heads the company’s market intelligence division.

Ken McMeikan, Brakes Group CEO, said: “Our programme of investment is delivering major benefits to our customers and the business is showing strong growth. We have an enviable reputation for the range of food we sell and Louise will play a major role in ensuring that we continue to deliver the products our customers want and need to successfully grow their businesses.”

Tel: Brakes Group (01233) 206000.

BCP SELECTED BY HEALTH FOOD WHOLESALER

Natural and organic products wholesaler The Health Store has chosen BCP (Business Computer Projects) to supply its EPoS systems.

Founded as a co-operative in 1932, The Health Store supplies more than 900 independent health food stores in the UK, Ireland, Europe and the Far East with over 10,000 products from its 85,000 sq ft warehouse in Nottingham.

BCP’s Accord-Momentum suite of retail software offers ‘a proven, feature-rich solution which utilises the latest technologies, including a lean PoS system and a cloud-based architecture to deliver a flexible, resilient and cost-effective solution for all retail operations’.

Paul Rideout, THS sales & marketing director, said: “We believe the Accord-Momentum solution is an ideal fit for our retail customers. It offers all the functionality they require to grow sales and profitability and gain greater control of their business operations.”

Tel: BCP 0161-355 3000.