__________________________________________________________________________________ Caterfood
Buying Group
“ We work extremely hard to accomplish our collaborative vision, which is to unite our communities through exceptional food. We want all our members to understand that what they do is more important than just delivering boxes.”- Phil Atyeo
reinforces the collaborative culture that Phil champions whilst strengthening bonds across all seven businesses.
Knowledge sharing
Returning to CFBG’ s vision, Phil clarifies the group’ s concept is proud to reject standardization.“ We do want national coverage, but we don’ t want to conduct national business,” he explains.“ Customers want to trade with independent wholesalers. For example, if a customer requires a delivery in a purple van on a Tuesday at a specific time – that request can be agreed locally. That’ s the DNA of what we’ re all about; striving for the national coverage and offering of small, independent businesses.”
Cross-pollination between businesses drives evolution, with each member providing‘ pockets of knowledge,’ as Phil describes:“ We learn just as much from Nicol Hughes, our smallest wholesaler located in Chester, as we do from a larger business such as Turner Price. Nicol Hughes is effective in offering seven-day deliveries; Harvest is fantastic at selling fruit and vegetables; if you want insider knowledge about running a pub, go to Caterfood – and Ridley’ s is a high-flyer in the education sector. The secret is to keep seven different business plans going – making sure there’ s a bespoke plan for each business, enabling every business to evolve into the best it can be.”
CFBG proves that national coverage doesn’ t necessitate standardization. From its creative quarterly magazine and popular Meet the Buyer events prioritizing inventive products to deliberately maintaining multiple business plans, the company demonstrates exactly what happens when you solve the buying group problem while retaining independence and entrepreneurial culture. ■
www. caterfoodbg. co. uk
foodchainmagazine. com 157