Kent Frozen Foods (kff) is one of the country’s leading regional wholesalers, offering a wide range of around 4,000 products.
Its sister company Medina Foodservice operates across the Isle of Wight and south coast.
Both kff and Medina Foodservice are part of Sysco, the global leader in selling, marketing and distributing food and non-food products to restaurants, healthcare and educational facilities, lodging establishments and other customers around the world.
Phillip White, Managing Director at Kent Frozen Foods Ltd and Medina Foodservice, tells Wholesale Manager how he wants to make kff the most trusted, go to regional supplier in the country and to do that in an ethical and sustainable way.
Where have you worked before and in what roles?
My previous roles, where I’ve worked for companies including Whitbread, Bacardi and Brakes, have always been in customer-facing commercial roles, which gave me a deep understanding of how to put the customer at the heart of what we do and a passion for ensuring we keep them there.
The move into a more general management role came around three years ago when Sysco offered me the opportunity to run kff and I’m loving the breadth of the challenge.
What does your current role involve?
kff is one of the country’s leading regional wholesalers and I’m responsible for helping manage a fantastic team of colleagues. I get involved in everything from operations to health and safety, to customer sales and satisfaction. I’ve also recently taken responsibility for another of Sysco’s regional businesses, Medina Foodservice, operating across the Isle of Wight and south coast in a similar role.
What are your goals for what you want to achieve in the role?
I want to build on the success that we’ve had over the past three years. We really do have the best of both worlds, a very smart regional wholesaler that retains the ‘family’ feel that we’ve always had, with the investment, expertise and support of the world’s biggest wholesaler, Sysco. I want to make kff the most trusted, go to regional supplier in the country and I want us to do that in an ethical and sustainable way.
How is kff performing as a business?
Very well. We spent the downtime during the pandemic looking at the systems and infrastructure with our Sysco colleagues, so that we could exit COVID in a really strong position. That investment of time and resource has really paid dividends and we’re around twice the size of our pre-pandemic operation.
What benefits does kff get from being part of Sysco?
The benefits of being part of Sysco are huge. The wealth of experience that’s in the business is extraordinary, both in the UK and across the world, and that’s all just a phone call away. We’re utilising some of those skills across operations, sales and in our customer facing roles.
We’re also fortunate that Sysco is a company that’s happy to invest for the future and we’re already seeing some of the benefits of that investment with around £3m spent on the site recently, delivering an improved customer and colleague experience.
Does the company have a B2B eCommerce site? How is that performing?
Yes, we’ve invested heavily in our digital capability as more customers turn to online ordering and expect their digital journey to be smooth and efficient. As well as the website, which has just been updated, we also have an app that allows customers to order what they want, when they want and using the method that most suits them.
How many products does kff supply and what categories do they cover?
We have a wide range of around 4,000 products, covering everything a chef could want. We also have a particular focus on good quality regional sourcing providing the best of Kent and the South East.
Are there any new products in the ranges you want to talk about?
Over the past couple of years, we have extended the range of products significantly bringing in a fantastic fresh range from our sister company, Fresh Direct. In addition, our in-house sandwich fillings businesses, Purple Pineapple, is enjoying its best-ever sales.
How has the wholesale industry changed in recent years?
The wholesale world has become much more focused on technology. You could argue that it was a little late to the party, but now it’s here, driven by the pandemic and changing customer demand, the acceleration has been huge. We are fortunate that, being part of Sysco, we have access to a lot of this technology at an early stage, which helps keep us ahead of the competition.
Sustainability is also much higher up the agenda than before. Our conversations with both customers and suppliers are much more frequent and much deeper than we’ve had before.
The industry is also becoming more attractive as a result of our increased focus on being more inclusive. We all know that there is a long way to go, but there is definitely progress and, certainly within Sysco, the will to speed this up.
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