Waterside Food Services, an independent, family-run foodservice wholesaler in the Midlands, is proud to announce the successful relocation of its entire operations to a 32,000 square-foot depot at Unit 4, Premier Park, Lichfield Road, Branston.
This strategic move brings all previously separate facilities into one modern site, enhancing efficiency and capacity to better serve customers across foodservice sectors including hospitality, education, care homes, sports venues, and more.
Since its founding in 2015, Waterside has grown from a single-van operation into a thriving wholesaler with a diversified product range spanning frozen, chilled, ambient, beverage, disposables, equipment and cleaning categories, supported by a fleet of multi-temperature vehicles.
Chris Morgan, Managing Director, Waterside Food Services, tells Wholesale Manager why the company is relocating and about some of the biggest challenges he has faced as a wholesaler.
Can you tell us a little about yourself, where you have previously worked?
I have always worked in the delivered wholesale food industry. I started in the industry at 16, as a YTS in a frozen warehouse before then moving to roles that have included delivery driving, office work, on-the-road sales, to purchasing. The first part of my career, I spent many years at a small, family-run, frozen food wholesaler. I then spent a couple of years with a larger foodservice wholesaler, and then spent a few years with a fruit and vegetable wholesaler.
What made you want to get into wholesaling?
Growing up, both of my parents worked in food wholesale, so from an early age I was surrounded by the industry and often helped out where I could. That exposure gave me a real understanding of the hard work involved, but also the relationships and sense of community that wholesaling brings. It felt like a natural career path for me, and I’ve always enjoyed the fast pace and variety that comes with supplying such a wide range of customers.
What are some of the biggest challenges you have faced as a wholesaler?
Like many in the industry, some of the biggest challenges have been managing rising costs, supply chain disruption, and ongoing changes in customer demand. In recent years particularly, volatility in pricing, availability of products, and staffing pressures have required us to be agile and proactive. Ensuring continuity of supply while maintaining service levels has been challenging, but it has also pushed us to strengthen supplier relationships and improve internal processes.
How is the company performing?
In my opinion the company is performing really well, with us seeing year-to-year growth of our customer base, sales, and product range. Over the past two years, our range and demand for new products has grown to a point that resulted in us relocating to our new site that is double the size of what we previously operated.
Why is Waterside Food Services relocating at this time?
We have moved depot simply because we had run out of space. We had 3 depots spread across Rugeley, Staffordshire, each of them added when we ran out of space and it had become disjointed across the workforce. When we found the new Branston site we knew it was perfect as it more than doubled our warehouse space, and also doubled our office space, so that our whole workforce is under one roof.
Tell us about some of the features of the new depot.
Our new depot has more than doubled our storage space and our office space. The new location is also much better for both deliveries into us and our vans delivering, as we are now located just off the A38 making everything much smoother.
Do you have any plans to expand the number of depots in your estate?
At present, there are no plans to expand the number of depots. Our focus is on maximising efficiency and service levels from our current site.
What foodservice sectors do your customers operate in?
Our customers are pretty vast as we pride ourselves on being able to supply all sectors of the hospitality industry. We supply sectors such as theme parks, football clubs, schools, care homes, hotels, restaurants, garden centres, gastro pubs and cafes.
Are you a member of a buying group? What benefits do you get from being a member?
We are a member of The Wholesale Group, and as an independent wholesaler this is very beneficial for us. The Wholesale Group gives us insight into the wholesale industry across the nation – whether it’s issues in specific areas that may be heading to our area, trends that are starting to appear, or issues that are beginning to arise in the supply chain. A major benefit of being a member of The Wholesale Group is that we are able to deal with the large manufacturers which normally would not deal with small independents.
How far is the geographical reach of your business?
At present, our reach is around a 60-mile radius of our site in Branston, Staffordshire; however, if the need arises to increase that boundary to improve our service, we will do this as long as it doesn’t have a detrimental effect on our existing customers.
Do you have an e-commerce site for your customers? How digital is your business?
We have both a website and an app. Our website has an ordering platform, along with details on product range, industry news, recipes, and more; whereas our app is purely an ordering platform.
Over 2 years ago in an effort to reduce our paper usage, all our delivery drivers switched to mobile manifests. This allows them to gain signatures and POD images of orders which are then linked to customer accounts. Along with this, at the beginning of 2026 we teamed up with OpenInfo to integrate an AI system into our ordering platform. This integration gives our customers the opportunity to order through emails and a voicemail system when the telesales office is closed. We will be introducing Whatsapp ordering later in the year through OpenInfo also.
How many products does your business supply and what categories do you cover?
We currently have over 4000+ product lines across 8 different categories. Our categories are: Frozen, chilled, fresh, grocery, beverages, disposables, cleaning, kitchen equipment, and tableware.
Are there any new products in the ranges you want to talk about?
There aren’t really any specific ranges I want to talk about, but we always try to look for innovative products that would benefit our customers and help to set us apart from competitors. We are actively increasing our high-end bespoke range, such as plating décor and personalised products.
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