More than 800 retailers and suppliers recently attended the Bestway Retail Showcase in Coventry with the wholesaler bringing together its partners from its Costcutter, best-one, Bargain Booze and Extra Local symbol estate.
Managing director of Bestway Wholesale, Dawood Pervez said: “This year’s Showcase has exceeded our expectations. To have our retailers engaged alongside our supplier partners and industry colleagues, was hugely extremely valuable for all parties. It’s often hard for independent retailers to find time to discover the latest trends and insights to support their business but the Showcase enables them to do this and make the time really count.”
Read more: EXCLUSIVE: Pervez addresses Bestway foodservice strategy and geographical expansion
Speaking to Better Wholesaling before the event, Pervez exclusively revealed that Bestway Wholesale’s catering division will now be focused on fast food outlets, contracted work, as well on-trade pub and bar supply, admitting the company has been doing a lot of introspection relating to its foodservice offering and the new strategy is now “very targeted, very focused, very sequential, and very process-driven.”
He said there is still a big opportunity in foodservice considering the £170m business and framework already in place: “ Over the past decade, we went for catering with the ‘Big Bestway Hammer’ and bashed lots of range in, which didn’t always work and instead created a lot of complexity, which meant a lot of products didn’t sell particularly well, we didn’t always sell it the right way, and we didn’t necessarily have the right ways to sell it.”
