Paul Hill speak to Phil Atyeo, managing director of The Caterfood Buying Group
PH: What has been your most significant achievement over the past 12 months?
PA: This is hard to pick as we’ve had so much going on at Caterfood Buying Group (CFBG) in the past year. As we continue to grow, we have developed our central team in order to support the members where required and to further accelerate new and ongoing projects. Our Caterfood Collection products have also grown substantially, with ranges covering the day-to-day requirements of our customers, but also stepping into premium and innovative lines.
CFBG now also comprises eight strong and individual members, with the acquisition of Hull-based Turner Price in July 2024, which is a fantastic business with a phenomenal team and has been a great addition. It has also added the much-needed geographical reach of the north of England to our buying group.
What is your unique selling point?
That we’re different. At CFBG, we’re genuinely building a new way of doing business, and that’s with our suppliers and our members. We want the very best products for our customers and to create mutually beneficial working relationships with our suppliers. That includes working with smaller, more artisan suppliers that perhaps have never worked with a wholesaler or buying group before. Nevertheless, if they have a great product, we’ll provide them with the support to get their brand into the foodservice market.
We also encourage a truly collaborative ethos between our eight members: we are all here to help each other, to share resources, ideas and best practice, and to learn from each other.
How have you expanded and attracted new members over the past 12 months?
We have been doing a lot of work internally to make sure we have the best people, products and processes in place to support CFBG as we continue to grow. This means that when we do acquire more members, we will continue to be in great shape to support and onboard those businesses, growing the group as efficiently and collaboratively as possible.
With the growth of CFBG in the foodservice market and our increased brand presence, we have had multiple conversations with prospective new members and affiliate members, which is very exciting. In most cases, it is businesses reaching out to us because they are intrigued about CFBG and keen to be a part of its future.
What are your plans to help members over the next 12 months?
Our priority is always to make sure that our member businesses each have the right support, functionality and plans in place to support them in the current market, and to prepare for sustainable future growth for their business.
On top of that, our focus right now is on our own brand, Caterfood Collection, which is growing incredibly quickly and has some exceptional products within it. We have three tiers – Caterfood Basics, Select and Premium – and it’s all about developing fantastic products at great prices to give our members a compelling own-label proposition.
We have just launched our first Caterfood Premium product, which is a range of Ultra Crunch fries, available in four different sizes. We spent a lot of time comparing and taste-testing all of the top manufacturers in the industry to find a superior product that we wanted to put our name to. On top of having an excellent product, we know that we can offer these premium chips at a competitive price.
