Welcome to the March issue of Wholesale Manager. Circularity Scotland has announced £22 million of cashflow support measures to help Scotland’s brewers, distillers, importers and drinks manufacturers prepare for the introduction of Scotland’s deposit return scheme. The support package is particularly designed to help SMEs, who have voiced concerns about the impact of the scheme on their business’ cashflow. See Wholesale Manager’s Special Report on DRS for industry-wide comment.
Booker, the UK’s leading food & drink wholesaler, has redistributed enough food to provide the equivalent of five million meals thanks to a partnership with FareShare and OLIO. To help tackle the UK’s escalating food waste problem and the current cost of living crisis, food sharing app OLIO and charity FareShare are working together on the 200 Million Meals initiative with the aim of getting food businesses to redistribute good to eat surplus food instead of letting it go to waste. Booker currently redistributes food via its branches across the UK directly to FareShare’s network of charities and OLIO’s Food Waste Heroes. Convenience retailer, One Stop, is celebrating the opening of its 1000th store by giving away free loaves of bread for customers. In addition, to mark the day, One Stop – a subsidiary of Tesco – is giving away £10,000 to up to ten local community groups in the Wolverhampton area. As a community retailer, One Stop have always strived to give back to those who have supported their journey.
Despite supply chain issues, staff availability and high inflation, Bestway has remained 100% committed to its strategic plans of offering improved service and convenience to customers. Bestway Wholesale completed the integration of the Bestway Retail and Costcutter Supermarkets Group into the business and delivered another year of strong growth. In a Who’s Who in Wholesaling interview, newly appointed Bestway Trading Director Andrew Kenny tells Wholesale Manager what he wants to achieve in the role.
Back in October 2019, Nike shocked independents (and Sports Direct) by announcing it would radically reduce supply via its wholesale channel and focus on a direct to consumer (D2C) model, supplemented by a small number of large retail partners – predicting that “undifferentiated mediocre retail won’t survive”. As other brands followed suit and focused on D2C growth, tempted by ownership of the customer relationship, control over the end-toend brand experience and the increased margins it offered, it seemed that the era of wholesale as an engine for growth was over. But fast forward to the present and it appears the reports of wholesale’s ”death” may have been vastly over-exaggerated, writes Steve Borges, Co-founder at Biglight, in a special report.
Enjoy reading the issue.
George Simpson
Group Editor
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