With over 30 years of heritage servicing the UK & Ireland’s innovative foodservice sector, the Country Range Group is made up of 12 independent wholesalers.
In addition to offering the leading brands from around the globe, the Group also provides over 800 products, all developed exclusively for professional caterers under the Country Range brand.
Covering grocery, chilled, frozen and non-food, Country Range is widely recognised by caterers as a trusted and reliable brand delivering consistent quality and value for money without compromising on taste and flavour.
Newly appointed Country Range Group Chief Executive Martin Ward tells Wholesale Manager how he has a target to reach £1billion in sales turnover.
Congratulations on being appointed Chief Executive of the Country Range Group. Can you briefly tell us where you have worked before, how long you have been at Country Range Group and what roles you have had there?
I’ve been in buying for over 25 years, starting my career in the manufacturing industry. I’ve been with the Country Range Group for over 20 years now after joining in 2002 as a Foodservice Buyer. In my first role I played a key part in the development of the Country Range brand, which now plays a vital part in the Group’s overall success. In 2015, I then became Trading Director where I successfully helped the Group to cement its place as the leading foodservice buying group in the UK & Ireland.
What will your new role involve?
In my new role as Chief Executive, I will be overseeing all aspects of the Group’s day-to-day operations, supported by a fantastic team that includes our Head of Trading Dean Pendlebury, Head of Marketing Emma Holden and our Commercial Controller Katrina Crabtree, as well as an enthusiastic and motivated board and members who creatively collaborate to ensure we remain the best at what we do.
What are your goals for what you want to achieve in the role?
Over the next few years, we aim to reach a target of £1billion in sales turnover. In order to reach this target, we have been planning for the future and we have conducted a full strategic review. Our mission is still “to ensure our members achieve a faster and more profitable growth by being a member of our group”. We highlighted four strategic areas that we need to focus on as a Group and individually; scale, sustainability, data and the development of the Country Range brand.
For scale, we remain focused on what our members purchase through our group. We have worked tirelessly to make sure that if something can be purchased through our group then it is. The team at the central office and our members are completely aligned on this.
We are also investing in the digital transformation of our businesses by further development of our CRG Insight data platform and our group PIM. The group PIM will ensure that all of the information we require to run our online platforms will be fed directly to our members’ websites.
The Country Range Brand is an important part of our business and we have recently commissioned in-depth customer research in order to ensure we have an Own Brand that is fit for all our different customer sectors, both now and in the future. The output of this strategic review of the brand will be seen in the marketplace in 2023.
The final key area that the group and our members are working together on, is delivering a sustainable future for our industry. We are working with ClimatePartner to audit our businesses across all areas and are setting ourselves some tough targets with regards to operations, people and products.
Tell us more about the Country Range Group. What does the group do?
Made up of 12 independent wholesalers – Birchall Foodservice, Blakemore Foodservice, Caterite Foodservice, Creed Foodservice, Dunns Food and Drinks, EFG Foodservice, Harvest Fine Foods, Henderson Foodservice, Savona Foodservice, Thomas Ridley Foodservice, Trevors Foodservice and Turner Price – the Country Range Group is the leading buying group in the UK & Ireland with over 30 years of experience servicing our innovative and ever-changing foodservice sector. As well offering the leading food and drink brands from around the world, the Group also provides over 700 products, all developed exclusively for professional caterers under the Country Range brand.
How is the Country Range own label brand performing?
It’s been a positive 2022 to date, even in challenging conditions, and there is no doubt that after the lockdown years, it is great to be back to some kind of normality. In terms of the Country Range brand, we expect sales to surpass £140 million this year. We’re always looking at ways to improve our offering and have recently launched our first range of Premium packaged products. With Christmas now on the horizon, we have also just added an incredible selection of products for the festive season including solutions for starters, snacks, mains and desserts.
The Country Range brand is the extremely proud lead sponsor of the Country Range Student Chef Challenge that is run in partnership with the Craft Guild of Chefs. The 2022/2023 Challenge is now open for entries and we’re encouraging teams of student chefs from across the UK and Ireland to take part.
How many products are in the range and what categories does it cover?
There are over 700 products in the Country Range catalogue covering grocery, chilled, frozen and non-frozen. Whether it’s basic ingredients, such as our flavoursome stocks, bouillons and sauces, or finished products like our handmade cakes and festive desserts, we really do have all areas covered to ensure we continue to evolve and meet our customers’ ever-changing requirements.
Are there any new products in the range you want to talk about?
In anticipation of the busy Christmas period, we have recently added to our selection with the launch of a festive foursome of frozen desserts including a Premium Frozen Chocolate Praline & Profiterole Dessert, a Premium Frozen Sherry Trifle Dessert, a Black Forest Trifle Cheesecake and a Pecan Pie Cheesecake which are perfect for caterers across the foodservice marketplace. Alongside this, we have also strengthened our catalogue of Christmas crackers with four new potato products perfect for caterers over the busy festive period – Roasted Potatoes with Duck Fat, Potato Dauphinoise, Roasted Potatoes and Seasoned Waffle Fries.
How has the wholesale industry changed in recent years?
One of the most exciting things for me about working in the wholesale industry personally is that it’s constantly evolving and no day is ever the same. However, there’s no shying away from the fact that the last few years post-Covid and years prior with issues arising from Brexit have had a negative impact on many foodservice businesses. The wholesale landscape is a different beast to what it was before but like with most thriving industries, you have to adapt to survive. With the foodservice sector only just getting over the effects of Covid, a recession looming and cost-of-living crisis biting consumers, I think there’s going to be many more challenges to come but I am confident we have all the tools, resources and people needed at the Group to respond proactively.
How digital is Country Range Group as a business, and do you offer any IT support for your members e.g. ordering apps, online support, delivery tracking?
Our CRG insight platform, which collects purchasing and sales data from all members on a weekly basis, allows the purchasing team at central office to identify opportunities to consolidate more products through the Group, monitor sales in key products areas and also allows us to be more responsive to our members and customer needs by understanding fully who buys our products. We are also sharing our data with our key branded partners who utilise the platform to drive mutual category growth that is based on fact as well as instinct.
Our investment into data and industry insight has also been of great use to our members over the last year, using our CRG insight platform to help them to track and benchmark their own performance in key areas as well as us sharing key industry insights and reports to help them to understand the wider environment in terms of key trends and changes in consumer buying behaviours when eating out-of-home.
As the marketplace evolves it is more important than ever that our wholesalers have access to correct and up-to-date product, allergen and nutritional information as well as photography including hero imagery, created specifically for use on e-commerce platforms. We are investing into our Group Product Information Management (PIM) system in order to ensure all of the information around the Country Range brand is enriched and can be fed directly into members websites.
As well as this, we’re also in the process of building two member wholesaler facing portals which will be live by the end of the year. One will be a trading specific portal which will help our trading departments across the Group have more effective access to a range of information that is essential to informing their purchase decisions and sharing best practice. The other will be a Marketing Hub so that our members’ marketing teams have easy, user-friendly access to all of the fantastic content we create and invest into centrally as a Group, such as our Country Range brand hero imagery, industry reports and insight, campaign assets and sector specific tools. Both of these new portals will help create a lot of efficiencies across the whole Group.
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