Parfetts is one of the largest independent retail wholesalers in the UK, with a turnover of over £570m a year, giving the company the buying power it needs to deliver exceptional value for its retailers and their customers. As an employee owned business Parfetts is committed to helping independent retailers grow and thrive.
The company has over 40 years experience providing a cash and carry depot network, online ordering, click and collect and delivered services.
Gurms Athwal, Trading Director, Parfetts, tells Wholesale Manager what his goals are and how the wholesale industry has changed in recent years.
Where have you worked before and in what roles?
I have been at Parfetts for just over three years. Previous to that I was with Hyperama and JK Foods for over 20 years. I was predominantly responsible for trading across the group, but I was also involved with operations, sales and marketing, and a lot of specific projects as well throughout my time there. Now I’m relishing the new chapter in my career.
What does your current role involve?
We’ve got a really good executive board and structure in place now. I am working with the executive board on strategies and the direction that we want to take the business. We make sure we’re tackling any challenges we come across while exploring other opportunities that arise. The main focus for me is the trading side of it, setting the trading strategy, empowering and supporting the good team that I have around me. I’m looking at helping them achieve their KPIs and also looking at their personal development as well, within the business. As a business, we do try to empower our teams across all departments as much as possible and help support them.
What are your goals for what you want to achieve in the role?
I am focused on supporting the board with their ambition to get to a £1 billion turnover, sustainably. But it’s also to take our employees, customers and suppliers on that journey with us. The board and I really want to make Parfetts a place where colleagues come to work and put away all the negatives, everything that’s happening around the world like the cost-of-living crisis and come to work with a smile on their face. It’s about having customer service, making sure we are the choice for retailers where they are wanting to come to shop with us, we are their choice wholesaler, being that fascia group that they want to join. With the suppliers, again, we want to be their wholesaler of choice that they want to work with collaboratively. And the other one for me is training and developing current and new employees that we take on board, helping them achieve their full potential. I also sit on the Unitas board which is a similar role, setting the direction, helping support the non-exec and exec team, help them to grow and develop the members and the team, set the strategies and make sure that they’re going in the right direction. And for myself, personally, just to continue to learn, challenge myself, progress and grow with Parfetts.
How is Parfetts performing as a business?
It has been quite a remarkable growth journey. Business has doubled in the last few years. Covid accelerated the business growth; since 2018, we’ve grown over 80% as a business. That trajectory was already in place before Covid and the pandemic accelerated it; as we came out of Covid we seemed to pick up sales year on year and we’re growing. We are on course to hit our £650m target for this financial year, which is end of June and that’s excluding our new Birmingham depot. We are confident it will only be a matter of time before we hit £700m turnover with room to grow even within our current estate. That is maximising the potential we’ve currently got and sweating our assets. Birmingham seems to go from strength to strength, there’s a lot of focus there. We are on target to achieve our sales budget on that over the next couple of years.
How would you describe Parfetts for anyone who hasn’t heard of the business?
We are an employee-owned business, with a fantastic culture, with a willingness to work with our customers and suppliers or stakeholders. We offer loads of different touchpoints within our business, that everyone can engage in. Our business is simple and likes to listen to internal and external voices and so takes action accordingly as well. I like to think that Parfetts as a business puts the customer first. It’s a business where suppliers know the value that Parfetts brings to the table and is easy to do business with. We are ambitious yet focused on growing our customer base through fascia in the current areas that we’re in but also in new areas. And we aim to be best in class at customer service, availability to our customers and having the best offering all round. As a business, Parfetts supports the independent retailer in any way possible. We help them grow their business and make more margin by joining our fascia symbol group which is, according to a lot of suppliers and external bodies, one of the most compliant fascias out there with fantastic standards. And there’s always room for improvement, which we take on board and look to achieve.
What is the symbol group’s fascia name?
The fascia has three tiers: we have Go Local Extra, which is the bigger convenience store, Go Local, which is a slightly smaller one and then The Local which is the off-licence equivalent. We used to always trade under the Go Local fascia, which is the main fascia, but we had retailers coming on board that didn’t necessarily have the overall convenience offering but were quite heavily dependent on alcohol sales. So, we created The Local which is predominantly for off-licence customers.
How many symbol group members does Parfetts have?
As a total business we have got over 10,000 customers coming into our business, but in terms of fascia, across the three tiers there are over 1,100 fascia customers. Plans are in place: the target for this calendar year is to get another 250 fascia customers on board across the different fascias, and then exceed that. We’re on target to do that with what’s in the pipeline and we want to continue to grow the symbol groups.
Is there a target to grow the membership?
The main overall target over the next couple of years is to get to about 2,000. That will be not just current but in new geographical areas where we deliver to them. The Birmingham depot, which will celebrate its first anniversary soon, is really helping recruit new customers and taking them on that journey. But it’s also word of mouth with those retailers that they are liking what they are seeing, the extra margin they’re making, the service that they’re getting. And they’re talking to other retailers so we’re getting contact from people up and down the country making inquiries about the fascia. We’ll continue to look at growing that whether logistically or from new depots. That’s the ambition on the fascia side.
What does your symbol group offer members?
They’ve got 17 bespoke promotions for them, whether they are Go Local or The Local the promotion is bespoke to them with enhanced margin and aggressive deals. We offer free deliveries and drop shipments are available. We’ve got over 40 RDAs in our sales team which includes store development, and also merchandisers so when we do a complete refit of the store, we have got a team that does that work with suppliers. We give a percentage rebate on spend, making sure they are compliant and rewarding them accordingly. They get free deliveries. We also have the fascia Go Local awards every year, which rewards the best retailers out there. There are different bespoke themed promotions that we run throughout the year as well. We also have supplier forums that they can attend. The Go Local Ball has evolved over the last few years. We have within the venue different boardrooms booked out for suppliers to come and present and hold panels with forums with those retailers. They have access to that; they get an insight into what’s happening in the market. We give them category advice, what new products are coming out. We also have a bit of fun at the same time, we do some tastings, look at new NPD and do some cocktail mixing with some of the suppliers. We’ll look to invest more and more into those fascias as we grow. There’s also the Plan for Profit category advice that we follow with Unitas, which gives advice and we offer credit to those fascia customers if everything stacks up. We use Plan for Profit but the Go Local fascia sits outside of that. From Landmark days through to Unitas, we have always been part of that buying group and we sit on the board as well.
How far is the geographical reach of Parfetts?
Our heartland is the North, anywhere from Newcastle, south of the Scottish border all the way down to the Midlands downwards. We cover a lot of Wales, so it’s predominantly the top half of the country, right down to below the Midlands. We have an ambition to grow towards different areas, whether that’s through logistics or new depots or acquisitions. I think we’re quite focused at the moment on growing our current estate which has potential, but we’re also making sure that we can grow that geographical area around Birmingham. We’re getting more and more deliveries and more enquiries, so we’re expanding down the M5 corridor. We cover the east of England through our Somercotes depot near Sheffield as well, and down towards Leicester.
Do you have an e-commerce site for your members?
Yes, the business is split around 60/40 – 60% of our customers are still cash & carry coming in and spending in the traditional way which over the years, especially during Covid, actually increased but deliveries are about 40% and growing. As a business, we’re quite keen to protect and grow and maintain that footfall into the traditional cash & carry but delivered seems to be quite a growing area. All our delivered customers are on the e-commerce platform so they all order online, whether it’s on tablets or laptops or but even more so now a lot of those are moving towards the app. So it’s all on the phone, clicking on the phone to place the order so they could be mobile, they could be anywhere, they have got multiple sites. They or their staff can just place orders online through the app which includes several features. We’ve got a whole complete digital IT team that support the app.
How many products does Parfetts supply and what categories do you cover?
Probably all categories. When I joined the business, I think we had around 12,000 SKUs. And over the last few years we’ve got it down to about 7,500 SKUs. That’s in some of the bigger depots, in the smaller depots slightly less. In terms of categories, it’s everything from cigarettes, tobacco to vapes to household, grocery, impulse, soft drinks, all licenced categories, non-food, chilled, frozen, so we stock everything that a convenience retailer would need. We’re looking at whether we delist further the slowest selling or non-selling lines. We’re working with the trading team to have a quarterly review, just to see what we potentially could take out without compromising on availability, range and service to the customers. It’s not doing anything for their business, not doing anything for us, it’s probably not doing anything for the suppliers and we’re working with suppliers to say, actually this is what we’re looking at doing, this is what we’re going to take out, how does that impact the categories? We’re always conscious there are a lot of new products coming out. So we have to make room for those but also give the space that’s required for some of the fast selling products. And own label for us is an area that’s looking to grow so even though we do take out, we tend to put back in again and look at new areas where we can improve sales for the retailers.
Are there any new products in the ranges you want to talk about?
Vapes are doing quite well although we’re probably expecting some legislation around that. But the category seems to have exploded over the last few years and is doing well. The impulse categories in particular have performed really well. We’ve always been strong on licenced and continue to grow sales in a very tough, challenging market and as a business, you always aim to be first to market with NPD, working with suppliers. We offer 360° activation to all our suppliers, whether it’s online, in-depot or takeovers. Own label is a big area for us at the moment, we’ve had some new launches just recently. We took a bit of time last year just to have a reset of where we were. We’ve got a really good plan for the next few years about what product ranges we’re looking to bring out and hopefully they’ll be really successful. The sweets launch we’ve just done recently, wines, which in January is doing fantastically well, bearing in mind the time of the year. It’s all down to the effort the team have put in but also the support and the love that we get from our core local customers for those brands or the own label brands. For me, it’s about keeping that NPD with the right products, the right categories launched in own label but also at the same time, it’s about getting distribution across that will Go Local fascia. But first and foremost, I think we are a branded cash & carry working with the suppliers, but that own label helps us support our fascia customers who need that own label requirement. And especially over the last year to two years it’s been supporting consumers through the cost-of-living crisis. So it’s making sure products have got the right proposition right across from the consumers to the margins for the retailers to the volume for the suppliers and ourselves.
How has the wholesale industry changed in recent years?
Massively. If you look at what the industry has been faced by, whether it’s been Covid, legislation, HFSS, there’s talk about DRS. The cost-of-living crisis, just as things seem to be getting back to normality, then wars and something else seems to have kicked off so I think it’s changed massively. I think one of the big ones was Sunday trading which kicked in a few years back and impacted independent retailers. There’s been more and more of a shift towards fascia, there’s a new generation of retailers coming in who want to trade smartly so they are joining fascia groups, more and more retailers want to focus on their stores, opting for delivery services. We have a lot of hybrid customers coming to the depots, it gives them a chance to engage with the other customers, with staff, coming to the canteens which we have in all the depots, to socialise. It seems to be evolving all the time and as a business and an industry it’s about looking at new ways of working and how you can work with data as well, and the expertise in or out of house. We are looking at ways of working and how we could be more efficient. A lot of other businesses seem to be run by finance people, they are data led. So how do we adapt to that, we’re working with the right information and helping improve our business, as well as supporting the retailers and the fascia group on that journey. I think if anything it has probably made the industry more resilient, we have to be more agile and I think it will be survival of the fittest and we have just got to keep on evolving or the danger is you are going to get left behind. To set up delivered now would be an absolute nightmare. Fortunately, we set it up a few year backs and then with the fascia, it is an area now that is in huge growth. There are not many wholesalers out there that still offer a free delivery service, which is supported by the fact that we are employee owned, we can put more back and give more back into independent retailers and fascia customers in particular and support them on that journey. Going forward, we have got to deal with AI, and hopefully embrace it as well. As a nation, as wholesalers and even as consumers, we seemed to have gone through a lot over the last few years in particular.
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