The Wholesale Group brings together extensive head office expertise, award-winning own-brand products, tailored marketing solutions and competitive promotional activity from top brands.
Jess Douglas, joint MD, The Wholesale Group spoke to Wholesale Manager.
How many members do you have and what is their combined turnover?
The Wholesale Group was formed on 1 January 2025, bringing together two groups with more than 90 years of wholesale experience. We currently have 257 wholesale members and a combined turnover of £4.51 billion, accounting for 13.7% of the UK wholesale market. Since inception, we have welcomed 15 new members who have chosen us having been previous members of other buying groups.
What benefits do you offer members?
We are a buying group that deals with every product category and our strength is in our diversity. Many buying groups are specialist in what they do, such as foodservice or retail but we support family wholesale, whether that be retail, foodservice, specialist or export. We are a group that is strong in every area, with wholesale members of every type, and every member receives the best possible support.
Every member gets a share of the profits and the more turnover members put through the group and the more members engage with our head office marketing campaigns, the higher proportion of profit you receive at the end of the year. We have grown profit share every year since 2020 and are committed to keep helping our member-led boards.
What makes your group unique?
We are the home of independent wholesale and we are passionate about supporting independent family businesses, many of which have been in operation for multiple generations. We too are a family business, and we recognise what drives these businesses forward, with our shared vision and values at the heart of what we do.
We are led by technology – demonstrated brilliantly by our Accelerate platform. This provides extraordinary value for our members and suppliers utilising EDI and AI to ensure our network remains as efficient and cost effective as possible, and providing access to all our products, prices, specifications and promotions, saving members and supplier partners significant time and resource.
We are also focused on providing central functionality that will help member businesses and economise the supply chain. Our mission remains that every product should remain accessible to every member at any time.
Do you have an own brand range?
To satisfy demand for high quality, professional products created specifically for the needs of chefs, caterers and industry kitchens, The Wholesale Group has created CHEF Assured.
The brand new CHEF Assured range provides a core range of high-quality foodservice products for every day use, supported by two sub-brands: CHEF Prestige, a range of premium ingredients delivering exceptional taste and specification, and CHEF Hygiene, providing cleaning, hygiene and janitorial solutions.
The range, which comprises more than 500 products, includes bestselling products from both Confex and Fairway Foodservice’s award-winning own brand ranges, CORE and Fairway Assured, rebranded. The range has been developed utilising our members’ extensive industry knowledge and expertise to provide one trusted brand that provides three professional solutions for all kitchens.
What kind of promotional offers do you have?
We currently provide terms, pricing and promotions for more than 400 suppliers, all available to every member business. This offer spans every retail and foodservice category with more than 100,000 live products and 2,000 live promotions running 365 days of the year.
Do you run events for members?
We provide our members and supplier partners with a series of events where they can plan for the months and years ahead. We have held three events so far in 2025, including our first trade show in March which saw more than 100 supplier brands represented and 600 people in attendance.
We will be holding our foodservice fair in September and our annual conference in October, which this year takes place in Tenerife. All our events are free to members and we encourage every wholesaler to attend. These events provide an invaluable opportunity for one-to-one meetings between our members and suppliers, as well as the opportunity to share group-wide plans and develop business.
What news do you have to share with us?
CHEF Assured launches in May and will be rolling out throughout Q2 & Q3. We will be adding new products to the range following feedback and demand from our retail and foodservice committees.
We see the group hitting £5 billion turnover in the next two years, with our aim for own brand to have an annual turnover of £50 million. In a consolidating market it is essential that we continue to use our buying power to leverage the best value for our members while offering the most efficient route to market for suppliers. This will always be our objective, which has seen our community of wholesalers grow for more than 50 years.
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