Unitas Wholesale is the largest network of independent cash & carry and delivered wholesalers in the UK. The group prides itself on being a true champion of independent businesses.
Supporting members with tools and solutions to help their businesses grow is at the heart of everything Unitas does.
John Kinney, MD at Unitas Wholesale, spoke to Wholesale Manager.
How many members do you have and what is their combined turnover?
We have 157 wholesale members, with a combined turnover of £8bn, giving us unparalleled scale. Our members are a mix of Retail, On Trade, Foodservice and Specialist Wholesalers. Our retail members support more than 4,400 stores across club and symbol.
What benefits do you offer members?
The basis for our existence is to provide the best supplier agreements for our members and a strong promotional proposition so our members can be competitive in the market.
We offer central terms for over 300 suppliers, which give our members preferential rates and access to a strong promotional program.
Retail customers benefit from our category advice service – Plan for Profit – which is based on honest, objective data and focuses on core range. Our app has had more than 10,000 downloads to date.
For foodservice, we are developing Channel guides that support our members with information on range, new products, trends and specific promotional activity for the channels they operate in such as Education, Leisure & Travel and Pubs & Restaurants.
All members have access to our digital business services, including our Digital Excellence Academy which offers members support on a range of topics from cyber security to how to create Tik Tok campaigns.
What makes your group unique?
We will use our position as the largest network of independent cash & carry and delivered wholesalers in the UK to become the voice of the industry, supporting our members and their customers to thrive in what is currently a challenging trading environment.
Our scale enables us to win preferential terms from suppliers, which gives independent businesses the ability to compete effectively.
Our members are independent and can make quick decisions, they can execute faster than some businesses in the same channels.
Do you have an own-brand range?
Own-brand sales are up by 29% year on year, and we see it as a key focus for development in 2023.
Our Lifestyle range contains 150 products and offers members up to 79% shared margin. Our LSV energy drinks range gives members a shared margin of up to 63% on price-marked lines.
Our foodservice own brand Caterers Kitchen contains over 300 skus and is a well know brand, offering value and quality products. The Caterers Kitchen brand has seen +50% growth in the last year.
What kind of promotional offers do you have?
Our priority is to help members remain competitive on price. To do this, we have revamped our national B2B promotional deals for retail, on trade and foodservice, focussing on deep price cuts while protecting shared margin.
Our promotions enable us to truly meet the prices consumers expect. Retailers feel the benefits of this every day. As Asif Sharif, owner of Day-Today in Glasgow, told us earlier in the year: “The promotions blow me away and enable me to compete on price, not just with other independent retailers but supermarkets. Our shoppers know they can trust our prices. We regularly get told we have better deals than the nearby supermarket.”
Do you run events for members?
Unitas hosts several events for members each year. We have our annual conference and ‘Meet the Member’ opportunities. We have two events in July, a combined one for on-trade and foodservice – our ‘Forest of Arden Golf Day’ on 5 July and a ‘Meet the Member’ event on 6-7 July.
What news do you have to share with us?
The scales of the Unitas group enables us to buy key commodities at competitive prices which benefits all members. We’ll be increasing our focus in this area this year.
We have also been working with third party service providers to get our members the very best deals in areas including energy, banking and telecoms, reducing their operational costs and making them more profitable.
We’d encourage members to log onto our hub to take advantage of the great deals we’ve negotiated on their behalf.
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