Waterside Food Services is an independent family run business focused strongly on customer service.
Based in the Midlands, the firm operates out of a modern multi temperature warehouse with a fleet of Multi Temperature Vehicles.
Waterside has a longstanding customer base which it has built up by working as a key partner, emphasising quality, reliability, trust and value.
Chris Morgan, Managing Director at Waterside Foods, tells Wholesale Manager what he wants to achieve in the role and how he feels about winning CORE Member of the Year at the Confex Awards.
Where have you worked before and in what roles?
I have always worked in the delivered wholesale food industry. I started in the industry at 16, as a YTS in a frozen warehouse before then moving to roles that have included delivery driving, office work, on-the-road sales, to purchasing. The first part of my career, I spent many years at a small, family-run, frozen food wholesaler. I then spent a couple of years with a larger foodservice wholesaler, and then spent a few years with a fruit and vegetable wholesaler.
What does your current role involve?
As managing director, my role covers all aspects of the day-to-day running of the business in various degrees. I am still heavily involved in the buying and logistics side of the business but more office based nowadays; however, if the need arises for me to jump in a van to deliver to customers to keep up our service levels, or jump on the forklifts to help unload stock in the warehouse, I will.
What are your goals for what you want to achieve in the role?
Just to keep growing the business to a size we are happy with, while not forgetting the core values that the business has been built on – service, quality, and competitiveness.
How is your company performing?
In my opinion the company is performing really well, with us seeing year-to-year growth of our customer base, sales, and product range. Over the past two years, our range and demand for new products has grown to a point that we have had to take on two additional depots to hold the stock. The next step is to consolidate our 3 sites into 1 big multi-temp site, allowing a much more seamless operation from beginning to end. The efficiency of this move will help us to reduce our carbon footprint and becoming more sustainable as a business.
What benefits do you get from being a member of Confex?
Being a member of Confex has many benefits for us as an independent wholesaler. Confex gives us great insight into the wholesale industry across the nation – whether it’s issues in specific areas that may be heading to our area, trends that are starting to appear, or issues that are beginning to arise in the supply chain.
Confex hosts 3 major manufacturer/ supplier events over the year, and they are always well organised and allow us to see areas that other wholesalers are seeing a rise in that we might be missing. Along with the exhibitions, as a group we also have monthly specific meetings with other likeminded wholesalers in the group to discuss new lines, issues, and other ways as a group we can work close together.
A major benefit of being a member of the Confex buying group is that we are able to deal with the large manufacturers which normally would not deal with small independents.
How do you feel about winning at the Confex Awards?
Winning our awards over the past couple of years at Confex Awards ceremony has been a fantastic achievement and makes me extremely proud of the hard work the Waterside team do to help us gain these achievements.
How far is the geographical reach of your business?
At present, our reach is around a 60-mile radius of our depots, however if the need arises to increase that boundary to improve our service, we will do this as long as it doesn’t have a detrimental effect on our existing customers or increase our carbon footprint majorly.
Do you have an e-commerce site for your customers?
We launched our website to our customer base just before the coronavirus pandemic. Due to the pandemic, we then tweaked the website to allow the general public to place orders and get deliveries of small denominations of our usual range. Since then, our website has evolved due to customer requests and supplier collaborations. We are always taking onboard feedback on ways that the website can improve to become even more user friendly.
At the beginning of this year, we also launched our mobile ordering app to run alongside our website. The new app gives customers the ability to barcode scan the products in their stores to add them to their basket, and creating shopping lists organised by their different menus; we have found this to be a great success and a lot easier for our customers.
How digital is your business, and do you offer any IT support for your members e.g. ordering apps, online support, delivery tracking?
We offer an online ordering website and a mobile ordering app, along with online support via our emails and telephone.
Roughly 12 months ago in an effort to reduce our paper usage, all our delivery drivers switched to mobile manifests. This allows them to gain signatures and POD images of orders which are then linked to customer accounts. We are also in the process of installing a full barcode scanning system in our warehouses, for all incoming and outgoing goods. Again, we are also in the process of changing our printed business cards to a scannable QR code alternative.
All of our vehicles are tracked, allowing us to give updates on deliveries to customers.
How many products does your business supply and what categories do you cover?
Our range now spans over 4000 lines across our frozen, chilled, fresh produce, ambient, disposable, and cleaning categories. Our range is constantly growing and as we have taken on additional depots over the past two years, the number of products we stock has catapulted.
Are there any new products in the ranges you want to talk about?
There aren’t really any specific ranges I want to talk about, but we always try to look for innovate products that would benefit our customers and help to set us apart from competitors. We are actively increasing our high-end bespoke range, such as plating décor and personalised products.
How has the wholesale industry changed in recent years?
The industry has changed drastically over the last few years. Years ago, there were dedicated frozen food wholesalers, and dedicated ambient wholesalers, and fruit and veg merchants. Now most wholesalers are multi-temp, covering all ranges due to customer demand.
Since COVID, we have also found that a lot of larger companies have changed the way they look at the industry, in forgetting service and quality, and instead focusing on margin. This has created a greater demand for traditional family-run wholesalers who put service and quality at the forefront – giving the customers what they want, when they need it.
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