Since the day it first opened its doors in 1988, Harvest Fine Foods has had a passion to deliver fantastic local produce, great. variety and real value, all ethically sourced.
Harvest prides itself in supporting local growers and businesses of all sizes.
The company operates 24 hours a day, seven days a week, delivering proven quality and service to over 1000 customers across Dorset, Hampshire, West Sussex, Wiltshire, and Surrey.
Sarah Hall-Attah, Head of Sales at Harvest Fine Foods, tells Wholesale Manager her goals for what she wants to achieve in the role and how the wholesale industry has changed in recent years.
Could you tell us a bit about yourself? Where have you worked before and in what roles?
My background, coming out of full-time education, I was chef trained. I went into industry, did various chef roles for about 10 years and then moved into contract catering management across London and the Southeast. After about 11 years in the industry, I moved into sales, worked for Best Foods, which were very quickly acquired by Unilever. I worked for Unilever for 16 years in various roles in sales account management in regional accounts and national accounts, becoming a trainer and progressing into management, managing the UK and Ireland Telebusiness Department. In addition I led a field team in the Southern Home Counties as a dual role before I was made redundant, which was a shame because I loved the Unilever business.
After that I moved south and wanted to try something different because I couldn’t find anything in foodservice at that time. So, I went into recruitment for three and a half years. It was quite different; I was selling people instead of selling mayonnaise!
Following that, I returned to sales leading a field sales team selling business consumables and PPE. I then returned to food and joined Harvest. I’ve been here for two and a half years.
What does your current role involve?
I have been Head of Sales for a year. I look after nine field sales account managers who look after foodservice accounts. In addition, I have one contract manager who predominantly manages our cost sector contracts. On top of that I have a fine food specialist and I have a Telesales department with about seven to 12 staff.
What are your goals for what you want to achieve in the role?
I like to see people succeed in their roles because at the end of the day, first and foremost, I’m a people leader and I enjoy leading and developing my teams and watching them grow and shine. I’m also a foodie at heart and love seeing our salespeople becoming more foodie. If we’re more foodie, we can be a bit stickier towards our customers. We are in quite a saturated market here on the south coast. So, for me it’s important to have great working relationship with local suppliers. I personally believe having good food credentials and knowledge will enable us to have that point of difference and being more solutions orientated with our customers drives repeat sales.
How is Harvest currently performing as a business?
With the cost-of-living crisis, it’s currently a tough foodservice climate. We are up quite considerably on last year and managing costs well.
Is Harvest part of a bigger buying group?
Previously we were part of Country Range Group. There was about 15 members within that buying group and last year, our previous owner sold the business to Caterfood buying group. We are one of six businesses within the Caterfood buying group, which is owned by Bidcorp, who also own Bidfood.
What benefits do you get from being part of Caterfood?
First and foremost, we trade completely independently so we have no direct affiliation to Bidfood. We are treated and trade independently which enables us to still carry on working with all our amazing local suppliers. We are fortunate to also to tap into some of that global buying power for the more established UK and Global Brands. Having a £2 billion business backing us is quite a good place to be in from a security viewpoint and the support we get from the wider parent company to helps us deliver some of our initiatives.
How is Harvest’s b2b e-commerce site performing?
We have various online ordering platforms in which customers can place an order. Customers can order online via log in to company website, and the way is through an app, a very simple, basic app where a customer can just go click, click, click down his list, place that order and it comes through as an electronic order. Almost every chef in a kitchen has a smartphone now. In previous businesses trying to do online ordering was hard because people were in the kitchen all the time, they didn’t have time to sit in front of a computer. Now with smartphones, everything is faster, instant and click and go. During Covid it was a godsend to have an online presence because it meant less people being around and it was a faster, slicker service. But as we’ve come through the other side, and we want to engage more with customers, we have a growing social media presence as we get increased grip of our customers to keep them engaged. The site and the app represent about 50% of our orders.
How many products does Harvest supply and what categories do those products cover?
We have about 4,000 products across various categories to include: fresh produce, freshly prepared vegetables prepared here on site that enables us to provide a premium service. Obviously, we pride ourselves on buying local and have many local growers and manufacturers. Our watercress is grown three miles down the road from us. We’ve got some very local farming businesses we work with. In addition to fresh, we’ve got frozen, dry goods, chilled, butchery, we also supply alcohol, non-food, and we do a little bit of catering equipment as well through a third party. So, it is a one stop shop.
Are there any new products in the range that you want to talk about?
We always have a focus on NPD, there’s always new lines, not necessarily linked to any one category. Every month we have a selection of new products across various categories. On our butchery, we have more Red Tractor credentials. We love new ranges. We launched a charcuterie range which was very popular, very successful. We went from 15 or 20 cheeses up to about 50 because of demand.
In terms of our fresh produce, because we have a key ingredient food specialist, we’re constantly looking at weird and wonderful products in the market that we can use to engage and delight some of our fresh ingredient type businesses. It can be anything, I look at the new product list all the time. One day it can be a new breaded coated fish that we’ve got in the freezer. Another day, it could be an unusual range of tomatoes, white asparagus or wild garlic. It’s dependent on seasonality and locality. In frozen and ambient we are quite trends orientated as well. We follow the marketing trends in global cuisines for the emerging year and one of the key things we do to get the team engaged with suppliers is to go to our suppliers and they showcase to us what those products and ingredients can do not only to a dish but also how to then sell them on to our customers. Our salespeople are account managers, they’re not specialists. With 4,000 products it’s very difficult to be a specialist.
How would you say the wholesale industry has changed in recent years?
It’s become very, very competitive. I think it’s changed in terms of loyalty. Previously we saw customers’ loyalty through consolidated supply and seeking a more consultative style from their suppliers. Since Covid everything has become more transactional. Customers have gone from two to three suppliers max to now eight plus. Arguably, suppliers are all wanting a bigger slice of a smaller pie in a challenging foodservice marketplace. We’re all fighting for that headroom, which is why it becomes more critical for us to have that point of difference and need to separate ourselves from the competition.
For more information, go to harvestfinefoods.co.uk or look up the company on Facebook, LinkedIn, X or Instagram.
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