Flourishing Welsh food firm creates 70 new jobs

A Welsh food distribution company has created over 70 new jobs and won over £1 million in contracts as a major expansion gathers pace.

Harlech Foodservice, which has bases in Criccieth, Chester, Carmarthen, Merthyr Tydfil and Telford, has gained 943 new independent customers and won 243 new contract customers across Wales and the border counties of England since April.

They range from individual shops and businesses to major local authority deals such as a contract to supply drinks and snacks to Shire Services, the catering and cleaning arm of Shropshire Council, while their move into South and West Wales has also borne fruit.

Harlech supply schools across Rhondda Cynon Taf and since that success have won contracts worth nearly £500,000 from their new depots in Carmarthen and Merthyr Tydfil.

Football clubs

They have signed up Football League clubs Tranmere Rovers and Bristol Rovers, Everybody Health and Leisure Centres who run 17 centres for Cheshire East Council, and Hickory’s Smokehouses who have 25 restaurants as far afield as Leeds, Lincoln and Gloucester.

In Shropshire opening a hub at Telford was key to the deal with Shire who don’t just supply schools, colleges and care homes throughout Shropshire but also across Worcestershire, Herefordshire, Cheshire and even North Wales.

The raft of new contracts have come after Harlech launched a £6 million expansion strategy and the company’s well ahead of schedule in meeting its target of creating 150 jobs over the next five years.

Sales increase

The plan was spurred by the company’s growth over the past three years which has seen sales increase from £32 million to a record turnover of around £50 million, with profit at an all-time high of more than £2 million.

Harlech Sales Director, Mark Lawton, said: “These new contracts enable us to demonstrate the range of products we can supply and the excellent service we provide across a huge area of the country.

“We now have a real presence throughout Wales and across the border into the North West from our base in Chester and into the Midlands from Telford and I know that opening these new bases has been key in signing these new deals.

“Shire provide meals for about 100 schools in Shropshire alone and the opening of the Telford depot in June was important in winning that contract.

“Cutting food miles and employing local people at local bases is a key factor in gaining contracts in the public sector and so is providing a flexible and efficient service and that’s something we pride ourselves on.

“We are flexible so we can provide our national account customers like local authorities with the best price along with consistency and quality of service while also working with them on social and community benefit and environmental factors.

“On the independent side we know what they want and we’ve been supplying them for over 50 years – we are a family-owned business ourselves. We’ve got their back so we lock their prices in and we don’t sneak them up.”

New depot

Earlier this year Harlech opened the new depot in Carmarthen and took over rivals Celtic Foodservice in Pembroke Dock in Pembrokeshire.

Managing Director David Cattrall said: “We have actively gone about disrupting the way foodservice companies have traditionally operated.

“We have rejected the common practice of having inflated prices and increasing ‘negotiated’ prices without notice.

“Instead we successfully launched our Trust Our Prices strategy last year with transparent and competitive pricing, backed up by excellent customer service.

“It means our customers can order up to 10pm for next day deliveries six days a week.

“The acquisition of Celtic Foodservices is another new and important milestone our drive to provide a first class service to new and existing customers in every single corner of Wales.”

The business was launched in 1972 by Shropshire couple Colin and Gill Foskett who took over a failing frozen food company and transformed it into a successful business.

The founders’ three children, Jonathan, Andrew and Laura, took over from their parents and still sit on the board and the third generation of the family are now making their way in the firm.

For more on Harlech Foodservice click here.